Crooked House - Christie Agatha (книги бесплатно без регистрации полные txt) 📗

"Well?"

"Don't you see? It couldn't have been the letters someone was looking for in Josephine's room. It must have been something else."

"And that something -"

"Was the little black book she writes down her 'detection5 in. That's what someone was looking for! I think, too, that whoever it was didn't find it. I think Josephine has it. But if so -"

I half rose.

"If so," said my father, "she still isn't safe. Is that what you were going to say?"

"Yes. She won't be out of danger until she's actually started for Switzerland.

They're planning to send her there, you know."

"Does she want to go?"

I considered.

"I don't think she does."

"Then she probably hasn't gone," said my father drily. "But I think you're right about the danger. You'd better go down there."

"Eustace?" I cried desperately. "Clemency?" 

My father said gently:

"To my mind the facts point clearly in one direction… I wonder you don't see it yourself. I…"

Glover opened the door.

"Beg pardon, Mr. Charles, the telephone.

Miss Leonides speaking from Swinly. It's urgent."

It seemed like a horrible repetition. Had Josephine again fallen a victim. And had the murderer this time made no mistake? …

I hurried to the telephone.

"Sophia? It's Charles here."

Sophia's voice came with a kind of hard desperation in it.

"Charles, it isn't all over. The murderer is still here."

"What on earth do you mean? What's wrong? Is it - Josephine?"

"It's not Josephine. It's Nannie."

"Nannie?"

"Yes, there was some cocoa - Josephine's cocoa, she didn't drink it. She left it on the table. Nannie thought it was a pity to waste it. So she drank it."

"Poor Nannie. Is she very bad?"

Sophia's voice broke.

"Oh, Charles, she's dead."