Behold Here's Poison (4 page)

Stella, not much impressed, flicked the ash off her cigarette on to the carpet 'But when they don't find poison in uncle they won't ask us any questions at all.'

'Yes, but what if they do find poison?' Guy demanded.

'They won't.' She looked up quickly. 'Good lord, you don't—you don't really think he was done-in, do you?'

'No, of course not,' answered Guy. 'Still, we've got to face the fact that he may have been. Mind you, I don't believe he was, but that ass Fielding didn't seem any too sure.'

'Do you frightfully mind not calling Deryk "that ass"?' asked Stella frigidly. 'I happen to be going to marry him.'

'Well, you'll have a jolly job explaining that to the police,' retorted Guy. 'And you'll also be able to tell them what uncle said about it, not forgetting the bit about the Inebriates' Home.'

'Shut up!' Stella said fiercely. 'It isn't Deryk's fault that his father drank!'

'No, but it's definitely his misfortune,' mocked Guy. 'Particularly if it comes out that uncle, in his well-known playful way, threatened to blow the gaff if Fielding didn't lay-off you.'

Stella's hand as she raised her cigarette to her lips was shaking, but she controlled her temper, and merely said: 'I suppose you have to be vulgar as well as spiteful?'

'I may be vulgar, but I'm not in the least spiteful,' replied Guy. 'I'm merely pointing out to you how and where you stand. I don't blame Fielding for having a Hopeless Inebriate for a father, but if you think Grinley Heath would be nice about it you've got another guess coming. A fat lot of practice he'd have had here by now if uncle had split! 'Tisn't as though he were even T.T. himself. Far from it, in fact.'

'You're a filthy, backbiting little cad!' Stella exploded, her cheeks flaming. 'If you're hinting that Deryk poisoned uncle, let me tell you that I'd a lot sooner believe you did!'

'Oh, you would, would you?' said Guy, suddenly furious. 'Thanks very much! Well, I didn't poison him, and I'll trouble you to refrain from suggesting that I did! Because if there's going to be any chat of that sort from you, there'll be quite a spot from me about your precious Deryk! Quite got that?'

'If you think that I'd—' Stella broke off, staring across the room at him. She gave an uncertain laugh. 'What on earth did you start this futile argument for? You talk as though we knew uncle had been poisoned, and you know perfectly well it's all rot!'

'Yes, of course,' Guy said, his anger evaporating. 'Utter rot. Sorry; I didn't mean to be offensive. Only if there does happen to be trouble we've damned well got to stick together.'

'What's going to be done?' asked Stella, after a slight pause. 'Did Aunt Gertrude ring up the police?'

'No; Fielding's going to get on to the Coroner. They'll come and take uncle's body away, and I suppose we shan't know anything much for a day or two. I asked Fielding, and he said it would be a question of sending the organs up to the Home Office, or somewhere. I've rung up uncle's lawyer, by the way, so no doubt he'll come down with the Will. Personally I can't see any reason why I shouldn't go up to town as usual.'

His mother, entering the room at that moment, overheard this last remark and read him a fond but reproving lecture on the respect due to the dead. When she perceived that this made very little impression on him she begged him to consider her feelings. Stella, realising that her mother was going to expatiate sadly on the loneliness of widowhood, slipped out of the room, and went upstairs, only to run into her aunt, who had temporarily forgotten her woes in the discovery that owing to the window in Gregory Matthews' bathroom having been left open the new bottle of his medicine had been blown over into the washbasin, and smashed.

'I can't see that it matters,' said Stella crossly. 'You couldn't use up somebody else's tonic.'

'No, but the chemist always allows us something on the bottles,' said Miss Matthews severely.

Stella looked with faint repulsion at the assortment of objects in her aunt's clutch, and wondered how one could be expected to feel solemn about death when one's relatives behaved like Aunt Harriet. Miss Matthews had triumphantly collected from her brother's bathroom his sponges and face-flannel (which would all come in useful for cleaning-rags), a cake of soap, two toothbrushes (excellent for scrubbing silver filigree dishes), a half-used tube of toothpaste (which she proposed to use up herself as soon as her own was finished), a bottle of mouth-wash, and a loofah.

'I thought Guy might like the loofah,' said Miss Matthews. 'It's a very good one. There's the end of a stick of shaving-soap too.'

'If you take my advice you won't offer it to him,' said Stella. 'He's a bit squeamish.'

'If there's one thing I hate above all others,' declared Miss Matthews, 'it is waste!'

Her activities during the rest of the morning were surprising. Having ordered cold lamb and rice-pudding for lunch, spurning all Mrs Beecher's more appetising suggestions on the score that no one would care what there was to eat on such an occasion as this, she announced her intention of having Gregory Matthews' room turned out. No sooner had his body been removed in an ambulance than she ordered both Rose and Mary upstairs to begin this work of purification. Rose at once started to cry, saying that she couldn't bear to enter the Master's room, but Miss Matthews, her own late qualms forgotten, told her not to be silly, but to gather up all the Master's discarded underclothing, and carry them to the dirty-linen basket. Rose immediately gave notice, and retired sobbing. Mrs Matthews came up to suggest that they should all of them devote the rest of this unhappy day to quiet and meditation, but was tartly informed that if a thing had to be done her sister-in-law did not believe in putting it off. She went away, routed, and since Guy was occupied in designing an overmantel for a house in Dorking, and flatly refused to meditate with his mother, and Stella could not be found, abandoned all ideas of a contemplative day, and ordered the chauffeur to motor her to town for the purpose of buying mourning clothes.

When Miss Matthews, busily engaged in inspecting the condition of Gregory's suits (with a view to selling them), heard of her sister-in-law's action she could scarcely contain herself. To go to London for no nobler purpose than to squander money on dress seemed to her the height of callousness. 'After all her talk about setting our minds on higher things! Meditation indeed! And I should very much like to know what right she has to take the car out without one word to me!' This aspect of the case soon outweighed every other. Miss Matthews went muttering about the house, and by lunch-time had muttered herself into a state of considerable agitation which found expression in a sudden announcement to her nephew and niece that she could not enjoy a moment's peace until she had seen Gregory's Will, and had the Whole Thing settled Once and for All.

One glance at the rice pudding which succeeded the lamb at luncheon drove Stella from the table. She said in a wan voice that she really didn't feel she could, and betook herself to the house next door.

Dr Fielding had come in from his rounds when Stella arrived, and had just gone in to luncheon. He was glancing through his notebook when Stella was ushered into the room, but at sight of her he threw the book aside, and jumped up. 'Stella, my dear!'

'I've come to lunch,' said Stella. 'There's nothing but mutton and rice chez noun, and I can't bear it.'

He smiled. 'Poor darling! Jenner, lay for Miss Matthews. Sit down, my dear, and tell me all about it. Have you had a difficult morning?'

'Ghastly,' said Stella, accepting a glass of sherry. 'Enough to make one wish uncle hadn't died.'

Fielding gave her a warning look, and said: 'I was afraid you'd have rather a bad time. All right, Jenner, we'll wait on ourselves.' He paused while the manservant withdrew, and then said: 'Stella, be careful what you say in front of people. You don't want anyone to get the impression that you wished your uncle to die.'

'I didn't wish him to,' replied Stella. 'I hadn't ever considered the possibility. He wasn't the sort of person you'd expect to die, was he?'

'Well, I'm a doctor,' said Fielding, smiling.

'You mean you did expect it? You never told me.'

'No, I didn't exactly expect it. Nor should I have told you if I had, my darling.'

Stella laid down her knife and fork. 'Deryk, please tell me one thing: Do you believe uncle was poisoned?'

'No, I don't,' he answered. 'But although there were no signs not compatible with death from syncope, I couldn't undertake to state definitely that he was not poisoned upon a purely superficial examination.'

She looked a little troubled, and presently said: 'I do wish there hadn't got to be a post-mortem. Whatever you may say, I believe you're secretly a bit afraid that they may find something.'

'I'm not in the least afraid of it,' said Fielding calmly. 'I hope they won't, for all your sakes, but if there's any doubt I want it cleared up.'

Stella was unappeased. 'Well, it's pretty beastly for the rest of us. I must say I hoped you weren't going to give in to Aunt Gertrude. Couldn't you have stopped it all?'

He raised his eyebrows rather quizzically. 'My dearest child! What about my professional reputation?'

'I don't know, but you said yourself you were prepared to sign a death certificate. I can't understand your wanting a post-mortem. Supposing they do find poison? Everyone knows uncle had a row with you about me, and it seems to me the police are quite likely to start suspecting you of having given him poison.'

'They can suspect what they like,' said Fielding coolly. 'But they'll be darned clever if they manage to prove that I ever administered poison to your uncle. Don't you worry your head about me, Stella: I haven't the slightest reason to fear a post-mortem.'

'Of course I didn't mean that I thought you really might have poisoned uncle,' said Stella. 'But it does seem to me that things are going to be fairly beastly one way and another. The only nice part of it is that we shall be able to get married now without an awful fight. I don't think mother really minds about it. She's much more wrapped up in Guy than she is in me.'

He stretched out his hand to her across the table. 'Well, that's a very nice part, anyway.'

She nodded. 'Yes, because I hate rows. I should have married you whatever uncle said, but it makes it easier now that he's dead.'

Fielding got up, and came round behind her chair. 'I'm going to ring for Jenner to bring in the next course,' he said, laying his hands on her shoulders. 'But first I must kiss you.'

She raised her face, and as he bent over her put her hand to caress his lean cheek. 'How many girls have you kissed, like that?' she asked, when she was able.

'Crowds,' he said, laughing.

She smiled, but said seriously: 'I expect that's true. You were keen on Betty Mason before you thought of me, weren't you?'

'Never!'

'Oh, I'm not throwing a jealous fit,' Stella assured him. 'You needn't mind admitting it. I think you're rather the type that can't help making love to girls who aren't actually cross-eyed or hare-Tipped. I shall probably have an awful time with you when we're married.'

'It sounds as though it's I who will have the awful time,' he replied teasingly.

'Well, I must say I shouldn't like it if you got off with anyone else now that you're engaged to me,' admitted Stella.

'I'll watch my step,' he promised, walking over to the bell and setting his finger on it.

Jenner's entrance put an end to the conversation. He brought word of two patients awaiting the doctor in the surgery.

'Who are they?' asked Fielding.

'Young Jones, sir, and Mrs Thomas about her little girl's leg.'

'Oh, well, tell them I don't see patients until two o'clock. Put the clocks back, or something.'

'Very good, sir.'

'Don't think you've got to stay here because of me,' said Stella. 'I'm just going anyway.'

'It's nobody who matters,' he said lightly.

Stella looked at him with a hint of austerity in her candid eyes. 'You don't only care about the people who matter, do you, Deryk?'

'Of course not, but there's nothing urgent about these cases. Have some more cream?'

'No, thanks. If it's Mrs Thomas from North End Cottages I do wish you'd go. She told Aunt Harriet that Minnie dreads having her leg dressed, and I must say I'm not surprised. I hate kids to be scared, don't you? I used to be at the dentist's, and he always kept me waiting, which made it worse.'

He got up, pushing his chair back, and said ruefully: 'You're determined to keep my nose to the grindstone, young woman. Shall I ever be allowed to have a meal in peace when we're married?'

'Yes, lots,' said Stella, kissing her hand to him.

She finished her luncheon alone, and strolled back to the Poplars. She noticed as she walked up the drive that the blinds were all down in the front windows, and found, upon entering the house, that this had been brought about by the relentless hand of her aunt Gertrude, who had returned to the Poplars, accompanied this time by her younger daughter, Janet.

In consequence of the gloom reigning over the library and the dining-room the family had been forced to sit in the drawing-room, a large and cheerless apartment at the back of the house, elegantly but uncomfortably furnished in the style of Louis XV. Mrs Lupton was discussing with her sister what had best be done with Gregory Matthews' clothing, and Janet, a pale, earnest looking young woman of five-and-twenty, was trying to be bright and intelligent over her cousin Guy's sketch of the overmantel for the house in Dorking. Stella paused on the threshold, meditating instant flight, but Guy cast her a supplicating look, and feeling that at least she had enjoyed a very good luncheon while he regaled himself on cold lamb and rice pudding she took pity on him, and advanced into the room. 'Hullo, Janet!' she said.

Mrs Lupton looked up, folding her lips. She was a just woman and she did not blame Stella for being much better-looking than either of her own daughters. She was merely sorry that Stella should ruin her complexion with make-up, and squander her mother's (or more probably Gregory's) money on ridiculously unsuitable clothes. 'Well, Stella?' she said. 'And where have you been, may one ask?'