Behold Here's Poison Read online

  ‘Various reasons. For one thing I find I’m – not really – in love with him.’

  ‘And for another you’ve discovered that he isn’t really in love with you. It’s nice to see glimmerings of intelligence in you, darling.’

  ‘You’re perfectly right,’ said Stella, keeping her voice rigidly under control. ‘He thought I was going to inherit a lot of money, and when I didn’t he cooled off. Have a good laugh: I don’t mind. I think it’s rather funny myself. Anyway, I’m not breaking my heart over it.’

  ‘Why should you?’ said Randall, handing her a glass. ‘Are you expecting me to ooze sympathy?’

  ‘No, I’m not. I didn’t come here to talk about Deryk, only to tell you that the engagement’s off, and to ask if I can have the money uncle left me.’

  ‘When you’re twenty-five, certainly.’

  ‘The whole point is that I want it now,’ said Stella.

  ‘Why this sudden need?’

  ‘Because I’m frightfully hard-up, and I want to share a flat with a girl I was at school with, and get something to do. Only I shall probably have to learn shorthand or something first, and if I’m not earning anything I don’t quite see how I’m to live. Mother says she can’t afford to increase my allowance – besides, she’s dead against the idea, anyway – and I haven’t got any money of my own, except what uncle left me. Of course, I know the Will said not till I’m twenty-five, but I thought if I signed a paper promising not to marry Deryk, and you and Mr Carrington agreed – because if both the trustees agree you can sort of wangle things, can’t you?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. As I haven’t the remotest intention of agreeing, the point doesn’t arise.’

  ‘Why not?’ Stella demanded. ‘As long as I sign a paper, what difference can it possibly make? I don’t mean I want to blue the capital. All I want is the income from it.’

  ‘You won’t get it, my love.’

  Stella put down her glass, and rose. ‘Thanks so much!’ she said. ‘I was a fool to come. I might have known you’d put a spoke in my wheel if you could. But considering what you’ve inherited, I think you might have been willing to let me have my rotten two thousand!’

  ‘Dear cousin,’ said Randall, ‘until after Probate I have inherited nothing, and nor have you. After Probate the first charity that meets my eye will get the lot.’

  Stella was so surprised that for a moment she could only stare at him. Then she said: ‘Rot! I don’t believe you!’

  Randall laughed. ‘I don’t suppose you do, my sweet.’

  ‘But why?’ she demanded. ‘What’s the idea?’

  He shrugged. ‘Oh, I already have enough for my – er – simple needs,’ he said.

  ‘Either you’re mad or you’re up to something,’ said Stella with conviction. ‘Whoever heard of giving away a whole fortune?’

  ‘Yes, I feel that there’s a certain pleasing originality about it,’ agreed Randall. ‘Have some more sherry?’

  She shook her head. ‘No thanks. Even you wouldn’t do a thing like that for a gesture. Is it to stop people saying that you probably killed uncle because you were hard-up?’

  ‘Do they say so?’ inquired Randall. ‘I thought that particular theory was confined to the members of my affectionate family. Moreover, I’m not hard-up.’

  She said shrewdly: ‘It’s my belief you know something about uncle’s death that we don’t.’

  ‘If by that ambiguous remark you mean that you believe I had something to do with uncle’s death, I would point out to you, my sweet one, that the last time I saw him was on Sunday, May 12th.’

  ‘I know. And I didn’t mean that. I don’t see how you could have done it. What does that Superintendent think?’

  ‘He, like you, sweetheart, doesn’t see how I could have done it. It disheartens him, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Randall, will they ever find out who did it?’

  ‘Why ask me?’ he countered.

  ‘Because you know something. It’s no good saying you don’t. I don’t see how you could have murdered uncle, but I’m certain you’re hiding some fact, or clue, or something which you don’t want anyone to get hold of. I haven’t forgotten that I saw you coming out of uncle’s room that day. You were looking for something.’

  ‘I was,’ said Randall imperturbably. ‘But I didn’t find it.’

  ‘What was it?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t know?’

  ‘Not yet. I was looking for something that might have contained the poison. I admit it was a forlorn hope.’

  ‘I don’t think I altogether believe you,’ said Stella.

  ‘Well, that doesn’t surprise me,’ he replied, quite unmoved. ‘Shall we talk of something else for a change? I find these eternal and barren discussions on uncle’s death begin to pall on one after a time.’

  ‘Mr Rumbold thinks it will fizzle out for want of evidence.’

  ‘Mr Rumbold is probably right. Does he continue to sustain my afflicted aunts in their more anguished moments?’

  ‘He does manage to soothe them,’ admitted Stella, with a smile. ‘All the same, you needn’t sneer at him, Randall: he’s been most frightfully decent to us all.’

  ‘I regard him with profound respect,’ said Randall.

  ‘I suppose that means you don’t.’

  ‘Why you should suppose anything of the sort is quite beyond my comprehension,’ said Randall wearily.

  ‘Well, whenever you say something nice about anybody it generally means the reverse,’ said Stella.

  ‘Ah, that is only when I am talking about my relations, or other persons of sub-normal intelligence,’ said Randall. ‘I always respect brain when I meet it.’

  ‘Thanks very much!’ said Stella warmly. ‘I suppose you would class me as a sort of moron?’

  ‘Oh no, not quite,’ said Randall. ‘I have several times known you actually to think before you spoke. Occasionally you even show signs of a certain quickness of intellect. I admit that during your adolescence I had no hope of you at all, but you’ve improved a lot, my precious.’

  ‘I am glad,’ said Stella. ‘Of course, you’ve taken such an interest in my progress, haven’t you? I expect, if I only knew it, all your visits to the Poplars this last year have been really to see me.’

  ‘Well, I imagine you don’t suppose I came to see your mother, do you?’

  Stella blinked at him. ‘You came to see uncle!’

  ‘Good God!’ said Randall. He took her arm above the elbow, and propelled her towards the door. ‘Not one of your intellectual days, my love. Let us go in to lunch.’

  Eleven

  Stella drove herself home to Grinley Heath, profoundly meditating on her cousin Randall’s astonishing words. She had received them with surprise and suspicion, and had consequently assumed a defensive, unapproachable attitude. Randall had made no attempt to pursue the subject, but had taken her in to luncheon, and regaled her on lobster à la Newburgh, and an excellent Chablis. Stella, who had eaten no meals away from the Poplars since her uncle’s death, frankly enjoyed herself, and managed to forget the troubles clustering about the family until coffee was brought into the room. Some chance words of Randall’s recalled them to her then, and her face clouded, and she said with a sigh that it was beastly having murders in the family, because it was like a black cloud hanging over one.

  ‘Everybody suspects everybody else,’ she said. ‘And though uncle was horrid to people, it isn’t any better in any way now that he’s dead. I mean, take me, for instance. Uncle made it practically impossible for me to marry Deryk while he was alive, and that was beastly, but as soon as he died and I could marry Deryk, it all started to go wrong.’

  ‘Now please don’t fall into a sickening mood of self-pity,’ said Randall dampingly. ‘You have been a charming companion during lunch, and not one thought of your late swain has crossed your head. You are not in the least heartbroken, so it is no use trying to get me to utter facile expressions of sympathy. I