Crooked House Read Free

pipe from the bathroom window.”
    The Old Man's lips twitched for a moment into a smile.
    “She seems,” he said, “to be a young lady of some resource.”
    “But your police force is fully efficient,” I said. “A nice Army type tracked her to Mario's. I shall figure in the reports you get. Five foot eleven, brown hair, brown eyes, dark blue pin-stripe suit etc.”
    The Old Man looked at me hard.
    “Is this - serious?” he asked.
    “Yes,” I said. “It's serious, dad.”
    There was a moment's silence.
    “Do you mind?” I asked.
    “I shouldn't have minded - a week ago. They're a well established family - the girl will have money - and I know you. You don't lose your head easily. As it is -”
    “Yes, dad?”
    “It may be all right, if -”
    “If what?”
    “If the right person did it.”
    It was the second time that night I had heard that phrase. I began to be interested.
    “Just who is the right person?”
    He threw a sharp glance at me.
    “How much do you know about it all?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Nothing?” He looked surprised. “Didn't the girl tell you?”
    “No... She said she'd rather I saw it all - from an outside point of view.”
    “Now I wonder why that was?”
    “Isn't it rather obvious?”
    “No, Charles. I don't think it is.”
    He walked up and down frowning. He had lit a cigar and the cigar had gone out. That showed me just how disturbed the old boy was.
    “How much do you know about the family?” he shot at me.
    “Damn all! I know there was the old man and a lot of sons and grandchildren and in-laws. I haven't got the ramifications clear.”
    I paused and then said, “You'd better put me in the picture, dad.”
    “Yes.” He sat down. “Very well then - I'll begin at the beginning - with Aristide Leonides. He arrived in England when he was twenty-four.”
    “A Greek from Smyrna.”
    “You do know that much?”
    “Yes, but it's about all I do know.”
    The door opened and Glover came in to say that Chief Inspector Taverner was here.
    “He's in charge of the case,” said my father. “We'd better have him in. He's been checking up on the family. Knows more about them than I do.”
    I asked if the local police had called in the Yard.
    “It's in our jurisdiction. Swinly Dean is Greater London.”
    I nodded as Chief Inspector Taverner came into the room. I knew Taverner from many years back. He greeted me warmly and congratulated me on my safe return.
    “I'm putting Charles in the picture,” said the Old Man. “Correct me if I go wrong, Taverner. Leonides came to London in 1884. He started up a little restaurant in Soho. It paid. He started up another. Soon he owned seven or eight of them. They all paid hand over fist.”
    “Never made any mistakes in anything he handled,” said Chief Inspector Taverner.
    “He'd got a natural flair,” said my father. “In the end he was behind most of the well known restaurants in London. Then he went into the catering business in a big way.”
    “He was behind a lot of other businesses as well,” said Taverner. “Second hand clothes trade, cheap jewellery stores, lots of things. Of course,” he added thoughtfully. “He was always a twister.”
    “You mean he was a crook?” I asked.
    Taverner shook his head.
    “No, I don't mean that. Crooked, yes - but not a crook. Never anything outside the law. But he was the sort of chap that thought up all the ways you can get round the law. He's cleaned up a packet that way even in this last war, and old as he was. Nothing he did was ever illegal - but as soon as he'd got on to it, you had to have a law about it, if you know what I mean. But by that time he'd gone on to the next thing.”
    “He doesn't sound a very attractive character,” I said.
    “Funnily enough, he was attractive. He'd got personality, you know. You could feel it. Nothing much to look at. Just a gnome - ugly little fellow - but magnetic - women always fell for him.”
    “He made a rather astonishing marriage,” said