Guy said softly: “By Jove, that's clever! It might have been done at any time, then. Aunt Harriet has been working her way down the tube for days, till at last she reached the poison! Gosh!”
“It's awful!” Stella said. “It's devilish!”
“One can only be thankful poor Harriet knew nothing about it,” remarked Mrs Matthews in a saintly voice.
“For God's sake don't talk as though she were a sheep being driven to the slaughter-house!” exclaimed Stella, quite pale with disgust.
“Stella dear, you forget yourself,” said Mrs Matthews repressively. She transferred her attention to the Superintendent. “One is terribly shocked, of course, but what my son says is right. This appalling thing may have been done at any time.”
“But not, Mrs Matthews, by any person,” replied Hannasyde.
She spread out her hands. “Anyone who was familiar with this house could have found the opportunity to do it, Superintendent.”
“Possibly,” agreed Hannasyde. “But few people can have had any motive for killing Miss Matthews.”
Guy muttered: “O God, we're just where we were before!”
“Ah, Superintendent,” said Mrs Matthews, sadly shaking her head. “What, after all, do we know of each other's lives? Even I who was so close to my poor sister-in-law would hesitate to say that she had no enemies of whom I knew nothing. She was a strange, eccentric woman! I have sometimes wondered whether there might not have been something in the past to account for many of her oddities. So often an apparently warped nature —”
“If you, who were so close to her, do not know of anything sinister in her past, I think we may assume that there was nothing,” interrupted Hannasyde, with an inflection of contempt in his voice. “The discovery of the medium through which the poison was administered has not enlarged the field of suspects, as a moment's reflection will, I think, show you.”
Stella grasped a chairback, and said desperately: “But not one of us three had a motive for killing Aunt Harriet! Not a real motive! This is like a nightmare! Things don't happen like this! Leave me alone, mother: I won't be quiet!” She shook off her mother's hand, laid warningly on her arm, and said, trembling: “I don't pretend to know who did it. Perhaps she knew something that—that made her dangerous. Supposing it were something about that man you're looking for—the one who disappeared?”
“Well?” said Hannasyde.
“Oh, I don't know!” she said wretchedly. “How can I know? But why don't you try and find out? My cousin told us about that man, and how you believe he had something to do with my uncle's death. Perhaps Aunt knew something about him. After all, we haven't always lived here; we don't know what may have happened in the past. My mother is quite right! You didn't know my uncle, or how Aunt Harriet hated him. Perhaps she was in a plot to murder him, and then—oh, I know this sounds far-fetched, but it isn't as far-fetched as thinking that my mother could murder aunt in that awful, coldblooded way just to get this house to herself!” Her voice broke, but she controlled it and added: “I had as strong a motive as my mother!”
“So had I,” said Guy. “A much stronger one than either of yours, too.”
“No, that isn't true,” Stella answered. “You were the only one who really liked Aunt Harriet! You always stood up for her when Mummy and I ran her down. And she didn't interfere with you. She was awfully fond of you!”
“So much so that she left me her money. Don't forget that bit,” interrupted Guy.
“You didn't want her money! Superintendent, it's all rubbish about my aunt's money! She only had quite a little, and now that Uncle Gregory's dead my brother can do what he likes with his own capital!” She stopped short, aware of the implication of her own words, and grew whiter than ever. “No. I don't mean—I didn't —”
The door opened. “What a charming reunion!” remarked a mellifluous voice. “I'm so glad. I'm not too late to join in. I should not have liked to have missed the dear Superintendent.”
“Oh, Randall!” gasped Stella, and released the chairback, and fled towards him, and clung to his arm.
He looked down at her with a curious lift to his brows. Guy, staring in astonishment at his sister's behaviour, saw a gleam in the blue eyes, hard to interpret.
Randall laid his hand on Stella's, but only to remove it from his sleeve. “My precious, you really must have some regard for my clothes,” he said with gentle reproach. “Much as I love you, I cannot permit you to maul this particular coat.” He drew her hand through his arm, and walked forward with her, his fingers still lightly clasping hers. “Now what has been happening to upset my little cousin Stella?” he inquired of the room at large. “Have you been accusing her of murdering my late aunt, Superintendent?”
“No,” said Hannasyde, “I have not.”
“You had better tell me all about it,” said Randall amiably. “I can see that you are all of you—ah, pregnant with news.”
“Really, Randall!” protested Mrs Matthews.
“They've found out what the poison was put into,” said Guy.
“Have they indeed? Well, that's very nice,” said Randall. “And what was it put into?”
“A tube of toothpaste,” answered Guy.
Randall had led Stella to a chair, and seemed to be more interested in seeing her comfortably settled into it than in Guy's disclosure. It was just a moment before he spoke, and then he merely said: “Really? Some ingenious brain at work, apparently.”
“That's exactly what I was thinking,” said Guy. “Damned ingenious!”
Randall turned away from Stella, and regarded Guy with veiled amusement. “Well, don't stop,” he said encouragingly. “What else were you thinking?”
“I don't know that I was thinking of anything else,” said Guy slowly.
“Physical disability, or cousinly forbearance?” inquired Randall, taking a cigarette out of his case and setting it between his lips.
“Neither. But Stella was saying just as you came in that perhaps Aunt Harriet was mixed up in some way with that missing fellow you told us about. Perhaps she knew too much, and that was why she was poisoned.”
Randall lit his cigarette. “On no account miss tomorrow's instalment of this thrilling story,” he murmured. “What do you call it, sweetheart? The Hand of Death? I can see that the Superintendent is positively spellbound. And so Aunt Harriet carried her secret with her to the grave! Well, well!”
“It isn't funny!” snapped Guy.
“Not in the least; it's maudlin,” said Randall crushingly.
“I don't see why there shouldn't be something in it. After all —”
Randall moaned, and covered his eyes with his hand. “My poor little cousin, have you no sense of the ludicrous?”
“Randall, there might have been something we didn't know about,” Stella said in a low voice.
He glanced down at her. “In Aunt Harriet's life? Pull yourself together, darling.”
It was at this moment that Mrs Lupton sailed into the room, swept a look round, and said in a portentous voice: “I thought as much!”
“That's very interesting,” said Randall, turning towards her immediately. “As much as what?”
“I have not come here to bandy words with you, Randall, but to find out what has been going on in this house. From the presence of these two gentlemen I deduce that my unfortunate sister, incredible as it may seem, was indeed poisoned. I demand to be told exactly what has happened!”
“Well, at the moment,” said Randall, “we are discussing an entrancing theory that your unfortunate sister was murdered because she was in possession of some hideous secret.”
Mrs Lupton cast a withering glance upon him. “Harriet was never able to keep a secret in her life,” she said. “I do not know who was responsible for this piece of nonsense, but I may say that I strongly object to it.” She glared at Hannasyde. “Have you found out how my sister was poisoned, or are you going to tell me that you are still in the dark?”