"There's Woodward. Nobody could have a better opportunity of tampering with the General's pill-boxes."
"And I suppose his little legacy might have been a motive."
"Or he may have been in the enemy's pay. Sinister menservants so often are, you know. Look what a boom there has been lately in criminal butlers and thefts by perfect servants."
"That's a fact. And now, how about the people at the Bellona?"
"There's Wetheridge. He's a disagreeable devil. And he has always cast covetous eyes at the General's chair by the fire. I've seen him."
"Be serious, Peter."
"I'm perfectly serious. I don't like Wetheridge. He annoys me. And then we mustn't forget to put down Robert."
"Robert? Why, he's the one person we can definitely cross off. He knew it was to his interest to keep the old man alive. Look at the pains he took to cover up the death."
"Exactly. He is the Most Unlikely Person, and that is why Sherlock Holmes would suspect him at once. He was, by his own admission, the last person to see General Fentiman alive. Suppose he had a row with the old man and killed him, and then discovered, afterwards, about the legacy."
"You're scintillating with good plots to-day, Peter. If they'd quarreled, he might possibly have knocked his grandfather down—though I don't think he'd do such a rotten and unsportsmanlike thing—but he surely wouldn't have poisoned him."