“Oh, I’m—I’m—no-not sure that there was one really,” she stammered, looking at me beseechingly out of her timid tear-filled eyes. “I must really go now.”
And before we could say another word she ran away through the arch, leaving us alone with our astonishment.
“Well, and what are we expected to make of that?” I queried.
“You know, I wonder whether she really did lose the poison cupboard key!” was Margaret’s rather irrelevant reply.
“But what is—I don’t see the connection.”
“Oh, none, no connection exactly, but her behavior was queer, wasn’t it? And I’ve always thought she looked a little underhand. You see, if she did poison Stella, then it would be quite a good plan to lose the key, a little before the event, say on the afternoon before and in time for some one else to have possibly found it.”
“Oh, I say, how could she though, she wasn’t even in the house?”
“She could—she could have got in through the bedroom window while we were at supper. She may easily have known of the medicine there ready for Stella and handy for the poison. In spite of what he said, the doctor may have made it up before she left; or he may have told her about it; or he may have written himself a reminder on his pad, or—oh, I can think of several ways in which she might have got to know about the draft.”
“But why should she have done it?”
“Oh, you men, how blind you are. Do you seriously mean to tell me that you haven’t noticed that she worships the ground he treads on? Why, she can’t keep her eyes away from him when they are in the room together.”