Читать «Crooked House / Скрюченный домишко. Книга для чтения на английском языке» онлайн - страница 102

I hesitated for only a moment, then I handed the letter to Sophia. Together we again opened Josephine’s little black book.

Today I killed grandfather.

We turned the pages. It was an amazing production. Interesting, I should imagine, to a psychologist. It set out, with such terrible clarity, the fury of thwarted egoism. The motive for the crime was set down, pitifully childish and inadequate.

Grandfather wouldn’t let me do bally dancing so I made up my mind I would kill him. Then we should go to London and live and mother wouldn’t mind me doing bally.

I give only a few entries. They are all significant.

I don’t want to go to Switzerland—I won’t go. If mother makes me I will kill her too—only I can’t get any poison. Perhaps I could make it with youherries. They are poisonous, the book says so.

Eustace has made me very cross today. He says I am only a girl and no use and that it’s silly my detecting. He wouldn’t think me silly if he knew it was me did the murder.

I like Charles—but he is rather stupid. I have not decided yet who I shall make have done the crime.

Perhaps Brenda and Laurence—Brenda is nasty to me— she says I am not all there but I like Laurence—he told me about Chariot Korday—she killed someone in his bath. She was not very clever about it.

The last entry was revealing.

I hate Nannie… I hate her… I hate her… She says I am only a little girl. She says I show off. She’s making mother send me abroad… I’m going to kill her too—I think Aunt Edith’s medicine would do it. If there is another murder, then the police will come back and it will all be exciting again.

Nannie’s dead. I am glad. I haven’t decided yet where I’ll hide the bottle with the little pill things. Perhaps in Aunt Clemency’s room—or else Eustace. When I am dead as an old woman I shall leave this behind me addressed to the Chief of Police and they will see what a really great criminal I was.

I closed the book. Sophia’s tears were flowing fast.

‘Oh, Charles—oh, Charles—it’s so dreadful. She’s such a little monster—and yet—and yet it’s so terribly pathetic.’

I had felt the same.

I had liked Josephine… I still felt a fondness for her… You do not like anyone less because they have tuberculosis or some other fatal disease. Josephine was, as Sophia had said, a little monster, but she was a pathetic little monster. She had been born with a kink—the crooked child of the little crooked house.

Sophia asked.

‘If—she had lived—what would have happened?’

‘I suppose she would have been sent to a reformatory or a special school. Later she would have been released— or possibly certified, I don’t know.’

Sophia shuddered.

‘It’s better the way it is. But Aunt Edith—I don’t like to think of her taking the blame.’

‘She chose to do so. I don’t suppose it will be made public. I imagine that when Brenda and Laurence come to trial, no case will be brought against them and they will be discharged.

‘And you, Sophia,’ I said, this time on a different note and taking both her hands in mine, ‘will marry me. I’ve just heard I’m appointed to Persia. We will go out there together and you will forget the little Crooked House. Your mother can put on plays and your father can buy more books and Eustace will soon go to a university. Don’t worry about them any more. Think of me.’