Джорджетт Хейер: Behold, Here's Poison

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.