The room was cold and I shivered a little.
Clemency Leonides said in a quiet well bred voice:
"Do sit down, Chief Inspector.
Is there any further news?"
"Death was due to eserine, Mrs Leonides."
She said thoughtfully:
"So that makes it murder.
It couldn't have been an accident of any kind, could it?"
"No, Mrs Leonides."
"Please be very gentle with my husband, Chief Inspector.
This will affect him very much.
He worshipped his father and he feels things very acutely.
He is an emotional person."
"You were on good terms with your father-in-law, Mrs Leonides?"
"Yes, on quite good terms." She added quietly, "I did not like him very much."
"Why was that?"
"I disliked his objectives in life - and his methods of attaining them."
"And Mrs Brenda Leonides?"
"Brenda?
I never saw very much of her."
"Do you think it is possible that there was anything between her and Mr Laurence Brown?"
"You mean - some kind of a love affair?
I shouldn't think so.
But I really wouldn't know anything about it."
Her voice sounded completely uninterested.
Roger Leonides came back with a rush, and the same bumble bee effect.
"I got held up," he said. "Telephone.
Well, Inspector? Well? Have you got any news?
What caused my father's death?"
"Death was due to eserine poisoning."
"It was?
My God!
Then it was that woman!
She couldn't wait!
He took her more or less out of the gutter and this is his reward.
She murdered him in cold blood!
God, it makes my blood boil to think of it."
"Have you any particular reason for thinking that?" Taverner asked.
Roger was pacing up and down, tugging at his hair with both hands.
"Reason?
Why, who else could it be?
I've never trusted her - never liked her!
We've none of us liked her.
Philip and I were both appalled when Dad came home one day and told us what he had done!
At his age!
It was madness - madness.
My father was an amazing man. Inspector.
In intellect he was as young and fresh as a man of forty.
Everything I have in the world I owe to him.
He did everything for me - never failed me.