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After the Second World War, Charles Hayward returned to England, where he met Sophia Leonides, a young woman he had fallen in love with while serving abroad. Their relationship deepened, but Sophia refused to marry him until the mystery surrounding her grandfather’s death was resolved. Aristide Leonides, the wealthy patriarch of the Leonides family, had recently died under suspicious circumstances, and Sophia believed that living under the shadow of an unsolved murder would destroy their future together. Charles, whose father was an assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard, decided to involve himself in uncovering the truth.
Aristide Leonides had been a self-made man, a Greek immigrant who built a fortune and a sprawling mansion called Three Gables in Swinly Dean. The family was large and complicated: his much younger second wife Brenda, his two sons Roger and Philip, Roger’s wife Clemency, Philip’s wife Magda, their three children Sophia, Eustace, and Josephine, and the family’s governess Edith de Haviland, who had been a companion to Aristide’s first wife. They all lived together under one roof, which gave the place both a grand and claustrophobic atmosphere. When Aristide died, his insulin had been replaced with eserine—a deadly poison that paralyzed him but left him fully conscious until his heart stopped. Everyone in the house became a suspect.
Charles visited the Leonides mansion, meeting each member of the household. He noticed immediately how strange and divided they were. Brenda, young, pretty, and twenty years younger than Aristide, had married him out of what seemed like affection, but most of the family despised her. Rumors suggested she had been having an affair with the children’s tutor, Laurence Brown, a nervous intellectual type who idolized her. The police quickly suspected the pair of killing Aristide to inherit his fortune and live freely together. But things were never simple in the Leonides house.
Inspector Taverner and Charles began their inquiry. They discovered that Aristide had changed his will recently, leaving all his wealth to Sophia, bypassing the rest of the family. This revelation created instant motives for nearly everyone: Brenda, who would inherit nothing; Roger, who was struggling with his failing business; Philip, an embittered man overshadowed by his father; and even Sophia herself, who now stood to gain everything. Charles’s affection for Sophia clashed with his growing sense of duty to find the truth.
Magda, Sophia’s mother, was a melodramatic actress who treated the murder like a stage tragedy. Roger’s wife Clemency was cold, practical, and detached, a scientist more interested in facts than emotions. Edith de Haviland, the elderly spinster aunt, was sharp, firm, and disapproved of Brenda’s influence over the household. Eustace, Sophia’s brother, had been crippled by polio and often stayed silent, observing others. Josephine, the youngest, was an eleven-year-old girl with an unnerving intelligence and a habit of listening at doors. She kept a secret notebook, writing down everything she saw and heard.
As the investigation deepened, Brenda and Laurence were arrested. Police had found a letter between them suggesting a romantic relationship, and a bottle of eserine was missing from Laurence’s medical supplies. It seemed an open-and-shut case. However, Charles remained uneasy. Something about the setup felt too neat, as though someone had deliberately planted the evidence. Sophia also felt that way—she told Charles she did not believe Brenda was guilty. She was convinced the real killer was still in the house.
Then a shocking event occurred: Josephine was attacked. Someone struck her on the head with a marble doorstop while she was playing in the yard. She survived but was unconscious for days. The family was horrified, believing the murderer had tried to silence the child because she had discovered something. Tension in the house reached unbearable levels. Edith de Haviland took control, trying to maintain order. Magda’s theatrics became intolerable, Roger and Clemency withdrew, and even Charles began to doubt his own instincts. The sense of evil lurking in that crooked house was suffocating.
Soon after the attack, a second tragedy struck. The family nanny, Nurse Agda, was found dead in her bed, poisoned by hot cocoa. Everyone believed the killer had meant to kill Josephine again, as the cocoa had been intended for her. It seemed the murderer was desperate and ruthless, willing to destroy anyone to cover their tracks. Charles and the police scoured the house for clues. They searched Josephine’s notebook but found it missing. Charles suspected that the girl herself had hidden it. When Josephine finally awoke, she seemed more pleased with the attention than frightened by her brush with death. Her strange behavior unsettled everyone.
Days later, Edith de Haviland announced that she was taking Josephine out for a drive to the seaside to help her recover. The family was relieved that Josephine was getting fresh air. Hours passed, but they did not return. Then the news came: their car had gone off a cliff. Both Edith and Josephine were killed instantly. A note was later found in Edith’s handwriting. In it, she confessed to poisoning Aristide Leonides, saying she could no longer bear the guilt and had taken Josephine with her so the child would not grow up to suffer the same moral corruption that had destroyed their family. The police closed the case, accepting the note as a confession.
Yet Charles could not rest. Something about Edith’s letter felt too calm, too deliberate. He returned to the mansion, searching Josephine’s belongings. In a hidden compartment in her toy box, he discovered her notebook. The entries were chilling. Josephine had written gleefully about “playing detective” and about how she had poisoned her grandfather because he had refused to pay for her ballet lessons. She had wanted to prove how clever she was, just like the detectives in her stories. When everyone began suspecting Brenda, Josephine felt thrilled that her plan had worked. She had even attacked herself to draw more attention and killed the nanny for scolding her. Edith had discovered the truth from Josephine’s diary and, realizing the horror of it, decided to kill both herself and the child to end the evil she had created.
Charles was shaken to the core. He burned the notebook in silence, deciding to protect Sophia from the unbearable truth. When he met her again, he told her only that everything was over. She understood that something dreadful had been hidden forever. The Leonides house, full of twisted love, jealousy, and pride, stood silent once more. It had been crooked not in structure, but in the hearts of those who lived there.