He feels you don't trust him."
Sophia did not reply and it was at that moment that Taverner's car had arrived.
Standing there, shivering in the moist autumn air, Brenda muttered,
"What do they want?
Why have they come?"
I thought I knew why they had come.
I had said nothing to Sophia of the letters I had found by the cistern, but I knew that they had gone to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Taverner came out of the house again. He walked across the drive and the lawn towards us.
Brenda shivered more violently.
"What does he want?" she repeated nervously. "What does he want?"
Then Taverner was with us. He spoke curtly in his official voice using the official phrases.
"I have a warrant here for your arrest - you are charged with administering eserine to Aristide Leonides on September 19th last.
I must warn you that anything you say may be used in evidence at your trial."
And then Brenda went to pieces.
She screamed. She clung to me. She cried out,
"No, no, no, it isn't true!
Charles, tell them it isn't true!
I didn't do it. I didn't know anything about it. It's all a plot.
Don't let them take me away. It isn't true, I tell you... It isn't true... I haven't done anything..."
It was horrible - unbelievably horrible.
I tried to soothe her, I unfastened her fingers from my arm.
I told her that I would arrange for a lawyer for her - that she was to keep calm - that a lawyer would arrange everything...
Taverner took her gently under the elbow.
"Come along, Mrs Leonides," he said.
"You don't want a hat, do you?
No?
Then we'll go off right away."
She pulled back, staring at him with enormous cat's eyes.
"Laurence," she said. "What have you done to Laurence?"
"Mr Laurence Brown is also under arrest," said Taverner.
She wilted then.
Her body seemed to collapse and shrink.
The tears poured down her face.
She went away quietly with Taverner across the lawn to the car.
I saw Laurence Brown and Sergeant Lamb come out of the house. They all got into the car... The car drove away.
I drew a deep breath and turned to Sophia.
She was very pale and there was a look of distress on her face.
"It's horrible, Charles," she said.
"It's quite horrible."
"I know."
"You must get her a really first class solicitor - the best there is.
She - she must have all the help possible."
"One doesn't realise," I said, "what these things are like. I've never seen anyone arrested before."
"I know.
One has no idea."
We were both silent.
I was thinking of the desperate terror on Brenda's face.
It had seemed familiar to me and suddenly I realised why.
It was the same expression that I had seen on Magda Leonides's face the first day I had come to the Crooked House when she had been talking about the Edith Thompson play.
"And then," she had said, "sheer terror, don't you think so?"