Randall was in Stella's thoughts as she waited for her brother to conclude his conversation with Nigel Brooke. When he put the receiver down at last she said abruptly: “Do you suppose uncle left everything to Randall, Guy?”
“You bet he did—most of it, anyway,” replied Guy. “Randall's been working for it for months, if you ask me—always turning up here for no known reason except to oil up to uncle by suddenly being attentive to him. It's so damned unfair! I come down from Oxford, and get a job absolutely bang-off, and stick to it, and all Randall does is to drift around looking willowy and run through a packet of money (because Uncle Hubert left a fair spot, so Aunt Harriet told me) and never do a stroke of work, or attempt to! It makes me sick! Besides, he's so utterly poisonous.”
Stella lit a cigarette. “I suppose he'll turn up next. And say foul things to everybody in a loving voice. Do you think uncle's left mother any money?”
“Yes, I'm pretty sure he has,” said Guy confidently. “Anyway, the main point is she's my sole trustree now, which means I shall be able to carry on with Nigel.” His brow clouded. “Everything would be all right if it weren't for that blasted old harridan Aunt Gertrude! What the hell she wanted to stick her nose into it for I can't imagine.”
Jealous of us,” said Stella negligently. “She probably thinks mother's getting more out of uncle's death than she is. Of course it's fairly noxious, but I suppose it doesn't really matter—the post-mortem, I mean.”
“Oh, doesn't it matter?” said Guy with considerable bitterness. Well, for once in her life Aunt Harriet hit the nail on the head! We shall have the police barging in and asking damned awkward questions, and if that's your idea of a good time it isn't mine! Everyone knows I had a flaming row with uncle over his precious South American scheme, and when the police hear about that I shall be in a nice position.”
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.