'What on earth for?'
'Something to do with the verdict.
I can't very well explain.'
'You ought to get it quashed,' she said.
'It's ridiculous, quite ridiculous. And so bad for Maxim, all this frightful publicity.
It's going to reflect on him.'
'Yes,' I said.
'Surely Colonel Julyan can do something?' she said.
'He's a magistrate.
What are magistrates for?
Old Horridge from Lanyon must have been off his head.
What was her motive supposed to be?
It's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard in my life.
Someone ought to get hold of Tabb.
How can he tell whether those holes in the boat were made deliberately or not?
Giles said of course it must have been the rocks.'
"They seemed to think not,' I said.
'If only I could have been there,' she said.
'I should have insisted on speaking.
No one seems to have made any effort.
Is Maxim very upset?'
'He's tired,' I said, 'more tired than anything else.'
'I wish I could come up to London and join you,' she said, 'but I don't see how I can.
Roger has a temperature of 103, poor old boy, and the nurse we've got in is a perfect idiot, he loathes her.
I can't possibly leave him.'
'Of course not,' I said.
'You mustn't attempt it.'
'Whereabouts in London will you be?'
'I don't know,' I said.
'It's all rather vague.'
'Tell Maxim he must try and do something to get that verdict altered.
It's so bad for the family.
I'm telling everybody here it's absolutely wicked.
Rebecca would never have killed herself, she wasn't the type.
I've got a good mind to write to the Coroner myself.'
'It's too late,' I said.
'Much better leave it. It won't do any good.'
"The stupidity of it gets my goat,' she said.
'Giles and I think it much more likely that if those holes weren't done by the rocks they were done deliberately, by some tramp or other.
A Communist perhaps.
There are heaps of them about.
Just the sort of thing a Communist would do.'
Maxim called to me from the library.
'Can't you get rid of her?
What on earth is she talking about?'
'Beatrice,' I said desperately,
'I'll try and ring you up from London.'
'Is it any good my tackling Dick Godolphin?' she said.
'He's your MP.
I know him very well, much better than Maxim does.