84 pages • 2 hours read
Crooked House
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Chapters 12-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary
Charles asks his father what murderers are like. Arthur replies that most murderers present as nice, normal people, but inwardly they lack a sense of morality. To them murder isn’t a crime but a necessity to get whatever it is that they want. Murderers are most likely to kill people they love, “because only the people you love can really make life unendurable to you” (96). Arthur muses that a common characteristic shared by all murderers is vanity. They naturally want to boast about their crimes but can’t talk openly because they must be careful not to betray too much information. He advises Charles to stay at Three Gables for a longer period and talk to the family again. As neither an investigator nor a family member, his neutral perspective might be useful. Taverner also asks him to keep an eye on Josephine, who might know too much for her own good.
Chapter 13 Summary
Returning to Three Gables, Charles finds Josephine sitting outside on a bench. She reproaches him for going to the police with her information about Roger, and he apologizes. The family is planning to gather later that night to discuss Roger’s bankruptcy. Josephine believes that Edith is inclined to give him her share of Aristide’s money, but Philip is not. Josephine is now certain she knows who the killer is but won’t tell Charles because a good detective never reveals their suspicions until the “last chapter” (102). Bemused, Charles brings Josephine with him into the house.
Chapter 14 Summary
Charles wanders through the house, entering a warm kitchen where he meets Janet. Sophia joins them shortly, and they discuss Aristide’s murder. Sophia reveals that everyone in the house knew that the eserine eye drops could be deadly after Josephine asked about them in front of the whole family. She entreats Charles to join her at the family meeting, and he reluctantly agrees.
In the drawing room, the whole family is assembled with Philip at the head of the room. A terse discussion takes place, with Edith beseeching the family to spare their reputation by bailing out Associated Catering. Roger, however, states his intent to give up on saving the company. The room empties slowly until only Clemency and Charles are left.
Clemency dismissively claims that the entire conversation was just a dramatic scene set by Magda and served no real purpose, as Associated Catering is already done for. Charles is surprised that Clemency isn’t upset over the business’ closure—rather, she sounds content. When he presses her, Clemency says that Aristide kept the family too close, pressuring Roger into taking over Associated Catering despite his lack of passion and skill. Now, with Aristide dead and the business bankrupt, they are finally free to move away from England and live a humble, happy life.
Clemency leaves the room and Edith enters, wanting to talk to Charles. She assures him that Philip isn’t miserly or cruel. His reluctance to give Roger any money is due to his long-standing jealousy of how Aristide favored Roger, the first son, over him. She leaves, uttering the cryptic remark “this side idolatry” (117).
Chapter 15 Summary
Sophia shows Charles to the room where he’ll be staying. From the window, they watch Brenda and Laurence return from a walk, looking “furtive and unsubstantial” (118). Sophia expresses worry about her brother Eustace, who has become moody and hateful since being paralyzed by polio. She complains that the whole family lives “too much in each other’s pockets” (120). The crooked house is not crooked because of dishonesty but because of a lack of independence—everyone has relied too much on one another and grown “twisted and twining” (120).
Magda sweeps in, wanting to discuss the scene in the drawing room. She mentions how sweet it was of Edith to offer her share of the fortune to Roger. Charles asks about Edith’s dislike of Aristide, to which Magda responds that, on the contrary, she was in love with her brother-in-law and devastated when he married Brenda.
Magda tells Charles and Sophia that she’s decided to send Josephine off to school in Switzerland. Charles approves of the decision to let Josephine be around people her own age and away from the close quarters of Three Gables, but Sophia counters that it’s not what her grandfather would have wanted.
Chapters 12-15 Analysis
In Chapter 12, Christie outlines a philosophy on good and evil that plays a key role in the rest of the narrative. As the chief police inspector, Charles’s father Arthur is the de facto moral authority of the novel. His view on human nature represents the truth of Crooked House’s world. Arthur believes that most murderers are just like everyone else except that they lack a moral “brake,” an inborn ability to separate right and wrong that discourages ordinary people from harming others. Following this belief, people are born capable or incapable of murder, a determination made long before their life’s experiences inform their development. Sophia’s fear that there is a wicked strain in her lineage is founded in this belief; if the ability to kill is a product of nature and not nurture, then it might be passed down through generations.
Christie has already introduced the theme of hereditary characteristics through Sophia’s descriptions of her family’s “ruthlessness” and “unscrupulousness.” Here she expands on the theme, suggesting that the quality that separates the murderer from the other Leonideses is not willful evil but an inborn moral defect. Aristide had this quality himself because he was capable of stabbing two men as a teenager. He seems to have handed it down to someone in his family, but the identity of the heir to his crooked inheritance remains unclear.
Arthur warns Charles that whoever killed Aristide will be eager to talk about their crime but guarded in their approach. So far, the person who has been most eager to talk about Aristide’s death is Josephine, but she is not part of the suspect pool due to her age. Apart from Sophia, all the Leonideses are somewhat ignoble, but they all have the redeeming quality of kindness. On the other side of the family is Edith, who has the de Haviland’s trademark ruthlessness but is redeemed by being honest and fair. Neither of these bad traits alone is enough to make a murderer, but as Sophia warns, “a descendant who inherited both of those traits” (97) might be a very dangerous person, implying that the killer must be a descendant of Aristide and Marcia de Haviland.
Unhealthy family relationships emerge as another prominent theme in this section of the novel. In Chapter 15, Sophia talks about the corrupted bonds between her family members. Living together under Aristide’s roof as the constant beneficiaries of his overbearing love and generosity has caused the Leonideses to grow “twisted and twining” (120) like bindweed. Aristide clearly loved his family, but under his influence they haven’t realized independence or strength of character. Their conflicts come not from hatred but from a smothering excess of love.
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