Behold Here's Poison Read online

  Guy, quite pale with dismay, came hurriedly across the room to look over his aunt’s shoulder at the offending paragraph. ‘“One has to remember that life goes on … irreparable loss … as much a mystery to us as to Scotland Yard …” Good God, she can’t have said all this muck!’

  ‘Of course she said it!’ snapped Miss Matthews. ‘It’s just the sort of rubbish I should expect her to talk. “There was a great bond between my poor brother-in-law and me!” … oh, was there? And not one word about what my feelings are! … “Calm and self-possessed.” … Self-possessed! Brazen would be nearer the mark! Oh, I’ve no patience with it!’

  Guy rescued the paper, which Miss Matthews seemed to be inclined to rend in pieces, and retired with it to the window. Stella, deep meanwhile in the Morning Star, suddenly gave a gasp, and exclaimed: ‘Of all the cheek! Aunt Harriet, listen to this! “‘Mr Matthews’ death was a terrible shock to us all,’ pretty, blue-eyed Rose Daventry, the twenty-three-year-old housemaid at the Poplars, informed our representative yesterday.” There’s miles more of it, and even a bit about Rose’s young man. Oh, she says they all feel it as a personal loss!’

  ‘What?’ shrieked Miss Matthews.

  ‘There’s a photograph too,’ said Stella.

  Miss Matthews snatched the paper from her. ‘She leaves the house today, month or no month!’ she declared. ‘The impertinence of it! Personal loss! What’s more it’s a lie, because every servant we ever had hated Gregory! She’d never have dared to do this if she hadn’t been under notice!’

  Beecher came into the room at this moment, and was promptly glared at by his incensed mistress. ‘Do you know anything about this disgraceful affair?’ demanded Miss Matthews, striking the paper with her hand.

  Beecher coughed. ‘Yes, miss. Very reprehensible indeed. Mrs Beecher has been giving Rose a piece of her mind. Mr Randall is on the phone, miss.’

  ‘What does he want?’ growled Guy.

  ‘He did not say, sir.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to answer it,’ said Guy, sitting down at the table. ‘Tell him we’re out.’

  ‘You go, Stella,’ said her aunt. ‘Though what he can want I’m sure I don’t know.’

  Stella sighed, and put down the paper. ‘Why it should have to be me I fail to understand,’ she remarked, but she went out into the hall and picked up the receiver. ‘Hullo?’ she said in a discouraging voice. ‘Stella speaking. What is it?’

  Randall’s dulcet voice answered her. ‘Good-morning, my sweet. Tell me at once – I am quite breathless with excitement – why have I never been privileged to set eyes on pretty, blue-eyed Rose Daventry?’

  ‘Oh, damn you, shut up!’ said Stella crossly. ‘What is it you want?’

  A laugh floated to her ears. ‘Only that, darling.’

  ‘Then go to hell!’ said Stella, and slammed the receiver down.

  Others beside Randall had seen the picture papers that morning, and it was not long before Mrs Lupton arrived at the Poplars in a state of outraged majesty. She wished to know whether Rose had been turned out of the house, and if not why not; whether Mrs Matthews realised the height of her own folly; what her sister Harriet had been about to let a reporter set foot inside the house; and what steps were being taken by the police to discover Gregory Matthews’ murderer. No one was able to give an answer to this last question, and Mrs Lupton, not in any hasty spirit, but as the result of impartial consideration, pronounced her verdict. ‘The case is being handled with the grossest incompetence,’ she declared. ‘I do not find that the police are making the smallest effort to trace my unfortunate brother’s assassin.’

  This harsh judgment, however, was not quite fair to Superintendent Hannasyde, who at that very moment was seated in Giles Carrington’s office with Gregory Matthews’ Pass-book open on the desk between them.

  ‘Do you know what connection Matthews had with a man called Hyde?’ Hannasyde asked.

  Giles shook his head. ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t. Why do you want to know?’

  ‘I’ve been going through these Bank accounts,’ replied Hannasyde, ‘and it appears that a considerable number of the cheques paid into his Bank by Matthews came from this Hyde. Take a look. They’re all rather large sums, and seem to have been paid in regularly once a month.’

  Giles took the Pass-book, and studied the marked entries. ‘Looks as though he were running some sort of a business,’ he remarked. ‘If he was, I never heard of it. Do you suppose he owned a Pawnbroker’s, or a Fish-and-Chips shop, and didn’t want anyone to know of it?’

  ‘I can’t make it out at all. It may be something of that nature. I’ve had an interview with the Bank Manager, but he doesn’t know any more than you do. The cheques were all drawn on the City Branch of Foster’s Bank. The Chief Cashier remembered them at once. I’ll have to go and see what I can find out there.’ He got up, and held out his hand for the Pass-book. ‘I came to see you first because it’s always a bit of a job getting information out of Banks.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Giles. ‘Nothing doing at all. I’ll tell you what, though: if anyone knows, Randall Matthews would. It’s my belief there’s precious little about his uncle that young gentleman doesn’t know.’

  Hannasyde smiled rather grimly. ‘Yes, I had thought of him. But I haven’t found Mr Randall Matthews precisely falling over himself to take me into his confidence. Still, I can try him if all else fails.’

  He left Adam Street, and journeyed east, to the City. At Foster’s Bank the manager was civil, but by no means friendly. The Bank, he said, was no doubt what Superintendent Hannasyde would consider old-fashioned; they had old-fashioned ways in it; he himself greatly deplored the modern methods of the police in trying to obtain information through Banks. Time was … Hannasyde, who never made enemies wantonly, listened, and sympathised, and quite agreed with the manager. In the end he got some information out of him, though not very much. The manager knew very little about John Hyde, who hardly ever came in person to the Bank. He had opened an account a good many years ago now. It was believed that he was an agent for some northern firm of manufacturers; his address was 17 Gadsby Row; the manager regretted he could give Hannasyde no further information.

  Gadsby Row, which was a narrow, crowded street in the heart of the City, did not take Hannasyde long to find. He turned down it from the busy thoroughfare which it bisected, and, threading his way between hurrying typists and bare-headed errand-boys, soon arrived at No. 17. This was found to be a newsagent’s shop, which also sold the cheaper kinds of cigarettes and tobacco. It was a mean little place, with dirty, fly-blown windows, and it bore the name H. Brown on the fascia-board. A couple of steps led up into the interior of the shop, which was dark, and small, and smelled of stale smoke. Hannasyde walked in, and almost at once a door at the back of the shop opened, and a stout woman in an overall came into the shop, and asked him what he wanted.

  ‘I am looking for a Mr John Hyde,’ said Hannasyde. ‘I understand this is where he lives.’

  ‘He ain’t in,’ she replied shortly. ‘Don’t know when he’ll be back.’

  ‘Where can I find him, do you know?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure.’

  The door at the back of the shop opened again, and a middle-aged man with a wispy moustache and a pair of watery blue eyes came out in his shirt-sleeves, and said: ‘What’s the gentleman want, Emma?’

  ‘Someone asking for Mr Hyde,’ she answered indifferently.

  ‘You’ll have to call back. He’s not here.’

  ‘That’s what I told him,’ corroborated his wife.

  ‘Is this where he lives?’ asked Hannasyde.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ said Mr Brown, eyeing him with dawning dislike.

  ‘Then perhaps you can tell me where he does live?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, I can’t. Take a message, if you like.’

  Hannasyde produced a card, and gave it to him. ‘That’s my name,’ he said. ‘It may help your memory a bit.’

  Mr B