I can have some lunch there and go to Harley Street afterwards."
"I hope -" I began and stopped.
"That's why I didn't want to go up with Magda.
She dramatizes things. Lot of fuss."
"I'm very sorry," I said.
"You needn't be.
I've had a good life.
A very good life." She gave a sudden grin. "And it's not over yet."
Chapter 23
I had not seen my father for some days.
I found him busy with things other than the Leonides case, and I went in search of Taverner.
Taverner was enjoying a short spell of leisure and was willing to come out and have a drink with me.
I congratulated him on having cleared up the case and he accepted my congratulations, but his manner remained far from jubilant.
"Well, that's over," he said. "We've got a case.
Nobody can deny that we've got a case."
"Do you think you'll get a conviction?"
"Impossible to say.
The evidence is circumstantial - it nearly always is in a murder case - bound to be.
A lot depends on the impression they make on the jury."
"How far do the letters go?"
"At first sight, Charles, they're pretty damning.
There are references to their life together when her husband's dead.
Phrases like - 'it won't be long now.'
Mind you, defence counsel will try and twist it the other way - the husband was so old that of course they could reasonably expect him to die.
There's no actual mention of poisoning - not down in black or white - but there are some passages that could mean that.
It depends what judge we get.
If it's old Carberry he'll be down on them all through.
He's always very righteous about illicit love.
I suppose they'll have Eagles or Humphrey Kerr for the defence - Humphrey is magnificent in these cases - but he likes a gallant war record or something of that kind to help him do his stuff.
A conscientious objector is going to cramp his style.
The question is going to be will the jury like them?
You can never tell with juries.
You know, Charles, those two are not really sympathetic characters.
She's a good looking woman who married a very old man for his money, and Brown is a neurotic conscientious objector.
The crime is so familiar - so according to pattern that you can't really believe they didn't do it.
Of course, they may decide that he did it and she knew nothing about it - or alternatively that she did it, and he didn't know about it - or they may decide that they were both in it together."
"And what do you yourself think?" I asked.
He looked at me with a wooden expressionless face.
"I don't think anything.
I've turned in the facts and they went to the D.P.P. and it was decided that there was a case.
That's all.
I've done my duty and I'm out of it.
So now you know, Charles."
But I didn't know. I saw that for some reason Taverner was unhappy.
It was not until three days later that I unburdened myself to my father.
He himself had never mentioned the case to me.
There had been a kind of restraint between us - and I thought I knew the reason for it.
But I had to break down that barrier.
"We've got to have this out," I said. "Taverner's not satisfied that those two did it - and you're not satisfied either."
My father shook his head. He said what Taverner had said: