Guy said uneasily: “I say, mother, you didn't give them any sort of statement, did you?”
“Dear boy, haven't I told you that I didn't?”
Guy said no more, but the doctor, when Stella saw him off, said: “Really, Stella, I do think you might have prevented your mother seeing that fellow! If you don't object to publicity, I do. This case is doing me quite enough harm as it is.”
“I expect,” said Stella, in a small, very steady voice, “it does you harm to be known to be engaged to me, doesn't it?”
“It's no use discussing that,” said Fielding. “I don't suppose it does me much good, but it can't be helped.”
“It might be,” said Stella, raising her eyes to his face.
“My dear girl, please don't think I'm trying to back out of it,” he said.
Guy came out into the hall at that moment, so the conversation had to be suspended. Guy was as uneasy as the doctor, and said that he wouldn't mind betting that his mother had talked a lot of ghastly hot air to the reporter.
His mistrust of her was justified. Next morning the Daily Reflector carried a fat, black headline on its front page, a photograph of the Poplars, and another (inset) of Mrs Matthews stepping out of the court-room after the Inquest. When Guy came down to breakfast he found his aunt and sister with no less than four picture papers, indignantly reading extracts aloud to each other.
“ "Murdered Man's Sister in Suburban Poison Drama Refuses to Discuss Mystery Death",” read Stella in an awed voice. “ "We think it wiser to say nothing," says Mrs Zoë Matthews, the graceful fair-haired widow concerned in the mysterious poisoning case at Grinley Heath which is baffling the Scotland Yard experts." Mummy will love that bit Guy, look at the photograph of Mummy! I ask you!”
“Listen to this!” begged Miss Matthews in a trembling voice. “I never heard anything to equal it, never!”
“ "Wearing mourning"—I should like to know what else she would be wearing!—"and with a look of strain in her sad eyes, charming Mrs Zoë Matthews, the widowed sister-in-law of Gregory Matthews, whose death under mysterious circumstances took place at his residence at Grinley Heath a week ago, received me yesterday in her sunny drawing-room." Her drawing-room, indeed! Oh, I've no doubt she told him it belonged to her, but as for it being sunny it never gets a ray of sun all day, as she very well knows!”
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."… Selfpossessed! 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.”