"Wouldn't you miss her?"
"Miss a kid of that age?" said Eustace haughtily. "Of course not.
My goodness, this house is the absolute limit!
Mother always haring up and down to London and bullying tame dramatists to rewrite plays for her, and making frightful fusses about nothing at all.
And father shut up with his books and sometimes not hearing you if you speak to him.
I don't see why I should be cursed with such peculiar parents.
Then there's Uncle Roger - always so hearty that it makes you shudder.
Aunt Clemency's all right, she doesn't bother you, but I sometimes think she's a bit batty.
Aunt Edith's not too bad, but she's old.
Things have been a bit more cheerful since Sophia came back - though she can be pretty sharp sometimes.
But it is a queer household, don't you think so?
Having a step-grandmother young enough to be your aunt or your older sister. I mean, it makes you feel an awful ass!"
I had some comprehension of his feelings.
I remembered (very dimly) my own supersensitiveness at Eustace's age. My horror of appearing in any way unusual or of my near relatives departing from the normal.
"What about your grandfather?" I said. "Were you fond of him?"
A curious expression flitted across Eustace's face.
"Grandfather," he said, "was definitely antisocial!"
"In what way?"
"He thought of nothing but the profit motive.
Laurence says that's completely wrong.
And he was a great individualist.
All that sort of thing has got to go, don't you think so?"
"Well," I said rather brutally, "he has gone."
"A good thing, really," said Eustace.
"I don't want to be callous, but you can't really enjoy life at that age!"
"Didn't he?"
"He couldn't have.
Anyway, it was time he went. He -" Eustace broke off as Laurence Brown came back into the schoolroom.
Laurence began fussing about with some books, but I thought that he was watching me out of the corner of his eye.
He looked at his wrist-watch and said:
"Please be back here sharp at eleven, Eustace.
We've wasted too much time the last few days."
"O.K., sir."
Eustace lounged towards the door and went out whistling.
Laurence Brown darted another sharp glance at me. He moistened his lips once or twice.
I was convinced that he had come back into the schoolroom solely in order to talk to me.
Presently, after a little aimless stacking and unstacking of books and a pretence of looking for a book that was missing, he turned to me.
"Er - How are they getting on?" he said.
"They?"
"The police."
His nose twitched. A mouse in a trap, I thought, a mouse in a trap.
"They don't take me into their confidence," I said.
"Oh.
I thought your father was the Assistant Commissioner."
"He is," I said.
"But naturally he would not betray official secrets."
I made my voice purposely pompous.
"Then you don't know how - what - if..." His voice trailed off. "They're not going to make an arrest, are they?"
"Not so far as I know.
But then, as I say, I mightn't know."