"She'd persuaded Roger to go without telling his father.
Then the old man found out.
He was going to back up Associated Catering.
All Clemency's hopes and plans were frustrated.
And she really does care desperately for Roger - beyond idolatry."
"You're repeating what Edith de Haviland said!"
"Yes.
And Edith's another who I think - might have done it.
But I don't know why.
I can only believe that for what she considered good and sufficient reason she might take the law into her own hand.
She's that kind of a person."
"And she also was very anxious that Brenda should be adequately defended?"
"Yes.
That, I suppose, might be conscience.
I don't think for a moment that if she did do it, she intended them to be accused of the crime."
"Probably not.
But would she knock out the child Josephine?"
"No," I said slowly, "I can't believe that.
Which reminds me that there's something that Josephine said to me that keeps nagging at my mind, and I can't remember what it is.
It's slipped my memory.
But it's something that doesn't fit in where it should. If only I could remember -"
"Never mind. It will come back.
Anything or anyone else on your mind?"
"Yes," I said.
"Very much so.
How much do you know about infantile paralysis.
Its after effects on character, I mean?"
"Eustace?"
"Yes.
The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that Eustace might fit the bill.
His dislikes and resentment against his grandfather.
His queerness and moodiness.
He's not normal.
He's the only one of the family who I can see knocking out Josephine quite callously if she knew something about him - and she's quite likely to know.
That child knows everything.
She writes it down in a little book -" I stopped.
"Good Lord," I said.
"What a fool I am."
"What's the matter?"
"I know now what was wrong.
We assumed, Taverner and I, that the wrecking of Josephine's room, the frantic search, was for those letters.
I thought that she'd got hold of them and that she'd hidden them up in the cistern room.
But when she was talking to me the other day she made it quite clear that it was Laurence who had hidden them there.
She saw him coming out of the cistern room and went snooping around and found the letters.
Then, of course she read them.
She would!
But she left them where they were."
"Well?"
"Don't you see?
It couldn't have been the letters someone was looking for in Josephine's room. It must have been something else."