Twenty-one
My one feeling of regret at this time was that Josephine was out of it all.
She would have enjoyed it all so much.
Her recovery was rapid and she was expected to be back any day now,but nevertheless she missed another event of importance.
I was in the rock garden one morning with Sophia and Brenda when acar drew up to the front door. Taverner and Sergeant¹ Lamb got out of it.
They went up the steps and into the house.
Brenda stood still, staring at the car.
“It’s those men,” she said. “They’ve come back, and I thought they’dgiven up—I thought it was all over.”
I saw her shiver.
She had joined us about ten minutes before. Wrapped in her chinchillacoat, she had said: “If I don’t get some air and exercise, I shall go mad. If Igo outside the gate there’s always a reporter waiting to pounce² on me. It’slike being besieged³. Will it go on for ever?”
Sophia said that she supposed the reporters would soon get tired of it.
“You can go out in the car,” she added.
“I tell you I want to get some exercise.”
Then she said abruptly⁴:
“You’re giving Laurence the sack, Sophia. Why?”
Sophia answered quietly:
“We’re making other arrangements for Eustace. And Josephine is goingto Switzerland.”
“Well, you’ve upset Laurence very much. He feels you don’t trust him.”
Sophia did not reply and it was at that moment that Taverner’s car hadarrived.
Standing⁵ 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 said nothing to Sophia of the let-ters I had found by the cistern⁶, but I knew that they had gone to the Direc-tor of Public Prosecutions⁷.
Taverner came out of the house again. He walked across the drive andthe lawn towards us. Brenda shivered more violently.

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