Crooked House recap

Charles Hayward returns to England intending to marry Sophia Leonides, but her wealthy grandfather Aristide has been poisoned at the family's crowded home, Three Gables. Charles joins the inquiry and finds motives among Aristide's dependent children, his young widow Brenda, and Brenda's friend Laurence Brown. Family business failures, an unexpected inheritance for Sophia, and secret love letters deepen suspicion. Sophia's young sister Josephine claims to know the culprit, survives an apparently murderous attack, and continues spying after Brenda and Laurence are arrested. When the family nurse is poisoned, Edith de Haviland discovers the truth: Josephine killed Aristide, staged her own attack, and killed the nurse. Edith drives herself and Josephine to their deaths, leaving letters and Josephine's notebook to explain her protective murder-suicide. The innocent suspects are freed, and Charles and Sophia look beyond Three Gables toward marriage.

After wartime service abroad, Charles Hayward returns to London and reunites with Sophia Leonides, whom he hopes to marry. Sophia tells him that her grandfather Aristide has died at Three Gables, the sprawling and oddly proportioned house where several branches of the family live. The death is being treated as murder: Aristide's regular insulin injection contained eserine from his eye medicine. His much younger wife Brenda administered the injection but denies switching the contents. Sophia will not marry Charles until the killer is identified, because she fears what the crime means about her family. Charles's father, a senior police official, arranges for him to enter the house alongside Chief Inspector Taverner and observe the household from within.

Charles meets the relatives whose lives Aristide organized and financed. Brenda is resented as an outsider and suspected of an attachment to Laurence Brown, tutor to the younger children. Edith de Haviland, sister of Aristide's first wife, distrusts Brenda and maintains a stern watch over the household. Aristide's sons present contrasting disappointments: Philip is a secluded writer who has long resented the preference shown to his brother, while the more amiable Roger has made a serious failure of the family business. Roger and his practical wife Clemency had intended to leave England and live modestly before the murder. Philip's actress wife Magda responds to the inquiry as though it were a drama, while Sophia tries to judge her relatives without sentiment. No one appears financially independent of the victim, and several family members had access to the medicines.

The inquiry expands to Philip and Magda's younger children. Eustace is bitter about the illness that interrupted his life, while twelve-year-old Josephine spies on everyone, keeps a notebook, and claims that she can solve the murder. Laurence Brown proves anxious and evasive, strengthening the household's suspicions about him and Brenda, though nervousness is not proof. Charles also learns that Aristide knew Roger's business was near collapse and had offered to rescue it, undercutting the simplest financial theory against Roger. Questions about Aristide's will add another source of tension: the expected document cannot straightforwardly account for his intentions, leaving the family uncertain about who will control the fortune. Charles grows convinced that the house's long history of dependence matters more than any single obvious clue.

Josephine repeatedly hints that she knows who killed Aristide but refuses to share her conclusion. She is then found unconscious after being struck at a place where she often concealed herself to listen to adults, and her notebook disappears. The family assumes that the murderer has tried to silence her. While Josephine recovers, the inheritance question is settled by evidence of Aristide's actual plan: he chose Sophia, rather than either of his sons, to receive controlling responsibility for his estate. The decision surprises the household but fits his confidence in her judgment. It also gives Sophia an apparent motive, which she faces directly rather than denying. Charles remains torn between his wish to protect her and the need to treat every member of the enclosed family as a possible killer.

Evidence finally appears to support the prevailing suspicion of Brenda and Laurence. Their private letters establish that they are in love and had imagined a future together, giving the police a plausible motive to pair with their access to Aristide. Both are arrested, but Charles and Sophia remain uneasy because the case does not explain every feature of the household's behavior. Josephine returns from hospital pleased by the attention surrounding her and continues to boast about her knowledge. The danger then resumes inside Three Gables: Nanny drinks poisoned cocoa and dies. Josephine says the drink had been prepared for her, encouraging the belief that the killer has made a second attempt to stop her from disclosing the truth. The new death makes the apparently solved case unstable and leaves the remaining family members frightened of one another.

Edith de Haviland discovers Josephine's missing notebook and understands that the child, not Brenda or Laurence, killed Aristide. Josephine poisoned her grandfather after he denied a wish, then approached the consequences as an opportunity to imitate the detectives she admired. She arranged the blow that injured her so it would look as though an unknown murderer feared her knowledge. Nanny later became another victim when she recognized Josephine's cruelty and represented a threat to her freedom. Believing that a public prosecution would compound the harm and leave no safe future, Edith writes one confession for the authorities, takes Josephine out in a car, and deliberately drives them both over a quarry edge. Her private letter to Charles gives the real account and includes Josephine's record. Brenda and Laurence can be cleared. Sophia accepts that the crime does not determine her own character, and she and Charles are free to leave the influence of Three Gables and marry.

Josephine is the murderer. She poisoned Aristide after he refused one of her wishes, then treated the investigation as a game in which she could display her cleverness. She staged the attack on herself to reinforce her claim that she knew too much. Later she poisoned Nanny, who had begun to recognize how dangerous she was. Edith de Haviland finds Josephine's private account and concludes that exposure through the courts would destroy the family without providing a humane future for the child. Edith leaves a confession taking responsibility for the crimes, then drives Josephine away from Three Gables and deliberately sends the car over a quarry edge, killing them both. A separate letter tells Charles the truth and encloses Josephine's written record. Brenda and Laurence are cleared. With the murder resolved, Sophia accepts that she is not responsible for inheriting her family's capacity for violence, and she and Charles can plan a life together away from the house.