My father answered: "Because they don't really, in their hearts, believe she is guilty... Yes, that's sound." Then he asked quietly: "Who could have done it?
You've talked to them all?
Who's the best bet?"
"I don't know," I said.
"And it's driving me frantic.
None of them fits your 'sketch of a murderer' and yet I feel - I do feel - that one of them is a murderer."
"Sophia?"
"No. Good God, no!"
"The possibility's in your mind, Charles - yes, it is, don't deny it.
All the more potently because you won't acknowledge it.
What about the others?
Philip?"
"Only for the most fantastic motive."
"Motives can be fantastic - or they can be absurdly slight.
What's his motive?"
"He is bitterly jealous of Roger - always has been all his life.
His father's preference for Roger drove Philip in upon himself.
Roger was about to crash, then the old man heard of it.
He promised to put Roger on his feet again.
Supposing Philip learnt that.
If the old man died that night there would be no assistance for Roger. Roger would be down and out.
Oh! I know it's absurd -"
"Oh no, it isn't.
It's abnormal, but it happens.
It's human.
What about Magda?"
"She's rather childish. She - gets things out of proportion.
But I would never have thought twice about her being involved if it hadn't been for the sudden way she wanted to pack Josephine off to Switzerland.
I couldn't help feeling she was afraid of something that Josephine knew or might say..."
"And then Josephine was conked on the head?"
"Well, that couldn't be her mother!"
"Why not?"
"But, dad, a mother wouldn't -"
"Charles, Charles, don't you ever read the police news.
Again and again a mother takes a dislike to one of her children.
Only one - she may be devoted to the others.
There's some association, some reason, but it's often hard to get at.
But when it exists, it's an unreasoning aversion, and it's very strong."
"She called Josephine a changeling," I admitted unwillingly.
"Did the child mind?"
"I don't think so."
"Who else is there?
Roger?"
"Roger didn't kill his father.
I'm quite sure of that."
"Wash out Roger then.
His wife - what's her name - Clemency?"
"Yes," I said.
"If she killed old Leonides it was for a very odd reason."
I told him of my conversations with Clemency. I said I thought it possible that in her passion to get Roger away from England she might have deliberately poisoned the old man.