I said to Sophia:
"She may have taken Josephine to a hotel - or up to London.
I think she fully realised that the child was in danger - perhaps she realised it better than we did."
Sophia replied with a sombre look that I could not quite fathom.
"She kissed me goodbye..."
I did not see quite what she meant by that disconnected remark, or what it was supposed to show.
I asked if Magda was worried.
"Mother?
No, she's all right.
She's no sense of time.
She's reading a new play of Vavasour Jones called
'The Woman Disposes'.
It's a funny play about murder - a female Bluebeard - cribbed from
'Arsenic and Old Lace' if you ask me, but it's got a good woman's part, a woman who's got a mania for being a widow."
I said no more. We sat, pretending to read.
It was half past six when Taverner opened the door and came in.
His face prepared us for what he had to say.
Sophia got up.
"Yes?" she said.
"I'm sorry. I've got bad news for you.
I sent out a general alarm for the car.
A motorist reported having seen a Ford car with a number something like that turning off the main road at Flackspur Heath - through the woods."
"Not - the track to the Flackspur Quarry?"
"Yes, Miss Leonides." He paused and went on: "The car's been found in the quarry.
Both the occupants were dead.
You'll be glad to know they were killed outright."
"Josephine!" It was Magda standing in the doorway.
Her voice rose in a wail. "Josephine... My baby."
Sophia went to her and put her arms round her. I said:
"Wait a minute."
I had remembered something! Edith de Haviland writing a couple of letters at the desk, going out into the hall with them in her hand.
But they had not been in her hand when she got into the car.
I dashed out into the hall and went to the long oak chest.
I found the letters - pushed inconspicuously to the back behind a brass tea urn.
The uppermost was addressed to Chief Inspector Taverner.
Taverner had followed me.
I handed the letter to him and he tore it open.
Standing beside him I read its brief contents.
My expectation is that this will be opened after my death.
I wish to enter into no details, but I accept full responsibility for the deaths of my brother-in-law Aristide Leonides and Janet Rowe (Nannie).
I hereby solemnly declare that Brenda Leonides and Laurence Brown are innocent of the murder of Aristide Leonides.
Enquiry of Dr Michael Chavasse, 783 Harley Street will confirm that my life could only have been prolonged for a few months.
I prefer to take this way out and to spare two innocent people the ordeal of being charged with a murder they did not commit.
I am of sound mind and fully conscious of what I write.
Edith Elfrida de Haviland.
As I finished the letter I was aware that Sophia, too, had read it - whether with Taverner's concurrence or not, I don't know.
"Aunt Edith." murmured Sophia.
I remembered Edith de Haviland's ruthless foot grinding bindweed into the earth.
I remembered my early, almost fanciful, suspicions of her.
But why - Sophia spoke the thought in my mind before I came to it.