"Really, Sophia, you seem - I don't know what's come over you."
"I'm just being honest and not pretending.
You've seen Brenda's side of it, so you say.
Now take a look at my side.
I don't like the type of young woman who makes up a hard luck story and marries a very rich old man on the strength of it.
I've a perfect right not to like that type of young woman, and there is no earthly reason why I should pretend I do.
And if the facts were written down in cold blood on paper, you wouldn't like that young woman either."
"Was it a made up story?" I asked.
"About the child?
I don't know.
Personally, I think so."
"And you resent the fact that your grandfather was taken in by it?"
"Oh, grandfather wasn't taken in." Sophia laughed. "Grandfather was never taken in by anybody.
He wanted Brenda.
He wanted to play Cophetua to her beggarmaid.
He knew just what he was doing and it worked out beautifully according to plan.
From grandfather's point of view the marriage was a complete success - like all his other operations."
"Was engaging Laurence Brown as tutor another of your grandfather's successes?" I asked ironically.
Sophia frowned.
"Do you know, I'm not sure that it wasn't.
He wanted to keep Brenda happy and amused.
He may have thought that jewels and clothes weren't enough.
He may have thought she wanted a mild romance in her life.
He may have calculated that someone like Laurence Brown, somebody really tame, if you know what I mean, would just do the trick.
A beautiful soulful friendship tinged with melancholy that would stop Brenda from having a real affair with someone outside.
I wouldn't put it past grandfather to have worked out something on those lines.
He was rather an old devil, you know."
"He must have been," I said.
"He couldn't, of course, have visualised that it would lead to murder... And that," said Sophia, speaking with sudden vehemence, "is really why I don't, much as I would like to, really believe that she did it.
If she'd planned to murder him - or if she and Laurence had planned it together - grandfather would have known about it.
I daresay that seems a bit farfetched to you -"
"I must confess it does," I said.
"But then you didn't know grandfather.
He certainly wouldn't have connived at his own murder!
So there you are! Up against a blank wall."
"She's frightened, Sophia," I said. "She's very frightened."
"Chief Inspector Taverner and his merry merry men?
Yes, I daresay they are rather alarming.
Laurence, I suppose, is in hysterics?"
"Practically.
He made, I thought, a disgusting exhibition of himself.
I don't understand what a woman can see in a man like that."
"Don't you, Charles?
Actually Laurence has a lot of sex appeal."
"A weakling like that," I said incredulously.
"Why do men always think that a caveman must necessarily be the only type of person attractive to the opposite sex?
Laurence has got sex appeal all right - but I wouldn't expect you to be aware of it." She looked at me. "Brenda got her hooks into you all right."
"Don't be absurd.
She's not even really good looking.
And she certainly didn't -"