The doctor stood up, all pleasant serenity. “I do think I was very careful to say that suspicion pointed most readily to me, but we are delaying too long and there are things that must be done. The police must be informed—they will have to investigate the matter—and so this is perhaps the last opportunity we shall have of talking quietly together. Stella has been killed unmercifully and in cold blood—it seems impossible to believe, but terrible if it is true—that the murderer is probably here with us in this room now. Possibly you are wondering, even as I am talking to you, whether I am the murderer and whether I could have nerve enough to face you all like this. Well, I want to beg and pray of you that you will put all such thoughts on one side, for if we once allow our imaginations to run riot and let our suspicions get the better of our friendships and beliefs, these next few days may grow memories that we shall all look back on with nothing but shame and regret. I do solemnly swear to you that I did not do this horrible thing. If I am arrested on suspicion, remember that suspicion may still fall on you. We shall all be questioned again and again by the police. If any information should come to light to ease my own position, then it may equally throw suspicion on one of the rest of you. I don’t for one moment suggest that we should do anything to hinder their investigations, but apart from that, for God’s sake let us keep our heads and admit no one guilty until his or her guilt has been actually proved.”
I think that we were all of us impressed by the earnest way in which he spoke, and Ethel went up to him and kissed him there in front of us all. “Of course you didn’t do it, Tundish dear,” she said, “and no one who knows you could think so for a moment.”
Kenneth said, “Oh, yes, that’s all very well, but doesn’t it apply equally to us all?”
“Why, of course it does. Who suggested that it didn’t.”
“But unless the doctor is mistaken about the poison, one of us must have done it. You simply can’t get away from that.”
I said, “I am sure that the doctor is right, the less we think about who it may have been the better.” But I was already thinking of the conversation I had overheard between Ethel and the doctor at the club, and what he and Stella had said in the drawing-room last night. The words, “Your abominable share . . . father’s death . . . I shall tell them,” came whispering in my ears.
Ethel had taken her chair again, and I saw the tears well up in her brown eyes as Kenneth was speaking, and then suddenly she buried her face in her arms. The Tundish put his hand on her shoulder, saying, “Now we must waste no more time. First the servants must be told. Ralph, please ring the bell. And I must telephone or wire to Stella’s people. What is her address, Ethel?”
“It’s in Kensington. She lives with her uncle, Mr. Crawford, but she told me only yesterday that he is away and that the house is shut. I haven’t the least idea where he has gone to or what his address is now. Whatever shall we do?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. The police will see to it for us. Very likely she may have some letter stating where he is. We will tell them directly they come.”
Annie, the maid who had taken the fateful medicine up-stairs the night before, appeared with a tray to clear away the things. She was a nice quiet girl of about twenty-eight who had been with the Hansons a good ten years. She put the tray down on the sideboard, saying, “Why, what’s the matter with. Miss Ethel? There’s no bad news from Folkestone, I hope, sir?”