“No, and a darned good job too!” said Guy. “Haven't you heard? There's a chap from Scotland Yard downstairs, cross-examining everybody!”
Mrs Matthews' comb was stayed in mid-air; in the mirror her eyes met Guy's for one startled moment. Then she put the comb down, and turned in her chair to face him. “Scotland Yard,” she repeated. “That means he was poisoned.”
“Yes, something to do with nicotine. I never heard of poisoning anybody with nicotine myself but that's what Fielding said. The Superintendent's interviewing Aunt Harriet now, and then he wants to see you and Stella. He's already asked Aunt Harriet and me a whole lot of questions. Aunt was scared out of her life at first, but personally I found it rather amusing.”
“What did your aunt say?” asked Mrs Matthews quickly.
“Oh, she drivelled on in her usual style! Mostly irrelevant. Except that she would insist on stressing the fact that it was I who poured out uncle's drink for him on the night he died.” He gave a little laugh. “Actually it wouldn't be a bad plan if someone tipped her the wink not to talk so much. Given time she'll tell the police all the family details, down to what uncle was like in the cradle.”
Mrs Matthews began to put up her hair. “I'll go down at once. Run along while I finish dressing, dear. Oh, and Guy!—Find Stella, and tell her I want her, will you? And just remember, darling, that the less you say the better. It isn't that there's anything to conceal, but you and Stella are inclined to let your tongues run away with you, and you very often give a totally wrong impression to people. I want you for all our sakes to be careful what you say.”
“Well, of course!” said Guy, rather impatiently. “You don't suppose I'm going to give anything away, do you, mother?”
“There's nothing to give away, dear. All I mean is that I don't want you to talk in that silly, exaggerated way you and Stella so often fall into, particularly when speaking of your uncle.”
“All right, all right!” Guy said. “I'm not quite a fool, mother!”
He went downstairs again, and found his sister in the hall, holding a low-voiced conversation with Dr Fielding. They both looked up as Guy rounded the bend in the stairs, and he saw that Stella was rather pale. “Mother wants you,” he told her. “Seen the giddy detective yet?”
“No. I'm scared stiff of him,” Stella confessed.
“You needn't be, Stella; he's not at all alarming,” said the doctor reassuringly.
“I shall go and blurt out something stupid. Policemen always terrify me,” said Stella with a nervous laugh. “You know, in spite of talking about it, and wondering what would happen if uncle had been poisoned, I never really believed he had been, did you, Guy? Deryk says it was nicotine, which, as a matter of fact, I always thought was the stuff you get in tobacco.”
“Well, so it is,” said Guy. “I didn't know you could poison people with it either. Is it often done, Fielding?”
“No, I don't think so,” replied the doctor shortly.
“I suppose he couldn't have taken it by accident, could he?” suggested Stella hopefully.
The doctor shrugged. “I should say, very unlikely.”
“Well, but when could he have swallowed it if not at dinner?”
“My dear girl, what's the use of asking me? I don't know.”
“You needn't be stuffy about it,” said Stella mildly. “It's my belief you know more than you pretend about this nicotine stuff.”
“Actually I know extremely little about nicotine,” answered Fielding. “Sorry if that blights your faith in me, but it is not the sort of poison that comes in the way of general practice.”
“Jolly lucky for you,” remarked Guy. “I mean, if it had been an ordinary sort of poison, like arsenic, they might have suspected you.”
“Why should they?” demanded Stella fiercely. “There's no reason to suspect Deryk!”
Fielding smiled. “Oh yes, there is, Stella! Guy is quite right, and I have no hesitation in freely acknowledging it: it might easily have looked as though I could have done it, had the poison been one you'd find in a doctor's poison-cupboard. A great many people know that I was not on good terms with your uncle, and I imagine that all the members of your family know that he had threatened to spread an unpleasant scandal which would in all probability have injured my practice considerably.”
“Yes, but we shan't say anything about it, you know,” said Guy, a little awkwardly.
“I don't wish you to conceal it, I assure you,” replied Fielding calmly. “If I am asked I shall certainly tell the police the entire story.” He added with a slight smile: “Nor do I imagine that Miss Matthews will be as discreet as you and Stella would be!”
In the library Miss Matthews was proving the justice of this mistrust of her. Having discovered that Superintendent Hannasyde was a sympathetic listener she had soon lost her first dread of him, and had told him any number of things which her family would no doubt have preferred her to have kept hidden. She told him the whole history of the duck; she told him how disagreeable Gregory used to be; and she complained bitterly to him of the wicked unfairness of the Will.
“I did think,” she said, “that after the years I've lived with him my brother would have had the common decency to have left the house all to me. But that's just the kind of man he was. I'm sure it's no wonder he was poisoned. And if we could only see him I've no doubt he's laughing about it now in that sneering way of his. If you were to ask me, I should have to say that I believe he liked to make people uncomfortable, which he certainly has done, getting himself poisoned in this tiresome way, and leaving a most unfair Will.”
“You had lived with him a long time, Miss Matthews?”
“Oh yes, ever since my mother died, eighteen—or was it only seventeen? no, I'm sure it was eighteen years ago. Not that I ever wanted to keep house for him; in fact, if it hadn't been for my sister I would much have preferred to work for my living, because I never did get on with Gregory, even when we were children. He always wanted to be top-dog, which I think very wrong myself, not that my opinion is likely to count with anyone in this family. But when you've looked forward for years to having the house to yourself one day, and then find you've got to share it with the last person in the world you'd choose—”
“The house is left to you and to someone else as well?”
“Yes, my sister-in-law,” nodded Miss Matthews. “Oh, I've no doubt you'll think she's very sweet and charming when you see her! People do. But I know better. She's pleasant enough on the surface, but never in my life have I met anyone, I don't care who it is, who's more thoroughly selfish! That woman,” she said impressively, “will go to any lengths to get her own way. My one comfort is that whatever she chooses to say I know she's just as disappointed in the Will as anyone else. I know very well that she counted on being left the house, and money too, if the truth be told. And if she tells you she's badly off, don't you believe it! She's got quite enough for one person; too much, if you ask me! In fact, I should have thought she could well have given some money to Guy, instead of expecting his uncle to do it!”
“Guy?” repeated Hannasyde. “That is the nephew who came in with you a little while ago, isn't it?”
“Yes,” answered Miss Matthews. “Such a nice boy! And I do hope you won't listen to any spiteful tales about him from my sister. Gregory was extremely unkind to him, and Guy had every reason to dislike him. The idea of sending a boy like that to South America! I shouldn't have been in the least surprised if he had poisoned his uncle. Not that he did, of course. I'm quite sure he didn't, and if you want to know I'd much rather think it was Randall—my other nephew. Only he wasn't here at the time, so I'm afraid that's out of the question.”
Inspector Davis, who had been listening to this illuminating monologue with a slightly dazed but intent expression on his face made a stifled sound, and put up his hand to hide his mouth. But the Superintendent, though there was a twinkle at the back of his eyes, said with perfect gravity: “Well, yes, at first glance that does seem to rule him out. And to what part of South America was Mr Matthews proposing to send his nephew?”