It was patent that Ethel and Kenneth had quarreled. They were standing a little apart in one of the windows at the far side of the room. She was fondling the cat which still lay on the sill, basking in the blazing sun, and he stood looking at her, dour and sullen.
She turned and spoke to him as we came into the room, and I feel almost certain she said, “Very well then, Kenneth, there’s no more to be said. If your love for me depends on my deserting a friend in his trouble, it’s the sort of love I don’t want.”
Allport broke in on them before Kenneth had time to make any reply, saying that he wanted to make the position clear to us all before he took any further steps in the task he had before him.
“I have two alternative courses of action before me,” he explained, “and the one I adopt will rest entirely with you, though I can hardly think that you will show any hesitation in making your choice. Dr. Jeffries, I must tell you, agrees with Dr. Wallace that Miss Palfreeman met her death by poisoning. He is unable to state the nature of the poison used, which tends to confirm Dr. Wallace’s suspicion that an addition was made to the sleeping draft from the small flagon that I now have safely in my bag. That, of course, will be looked into more closely as soon as a proper post-mortem examination can be made.”
He paused for a moment to wipe the perspiration from his face. It was nearly midday and the room was suffocating. The sun shone straight on to the three long windows which stood wide open, but the dark green blinds drawn half-way down prevented the least movement of air. A bee, which had become trapped between one of the blinds and the window, buzzed away unhappily. I took advantage of the detective’s pause to ask him if there could be no possibility of suicide.
Ralph scowled at me for my pains and it was only then that I remembered that my suggestion would be casting a slur on poor Stella. It seemed to me, however, that that would be a comparatively happy solution, bearing in mind that the only alternative was cold-blooded murder. Murder too, not by some unknown outsider, but in all probability by one of us now in the room listening to the little detective making his suggestions. The Tundish, Ralph, Kenneth, or one of the two girls—it seemed equally absurd to associate any one of them with such a crime.
Allport soon settled the point, however. “Suicides don’t usually throw away the glass from which they have drunk,” he said, “and in addition to that, there are other points which preclude any such possibility.”
I had given no thought to the glass from which the poison had been taken. The references seemed to rouse The Tundish. He was sitting on the end of the table, apparently entirely at his ease, his legs swinging idly, as he lighted a cigarette. The match burned down and scorched his finger-ends, making him start, so absorbed was his attention in the detective’s remark. Ethel had seated herself on the window-sill, where she was pensively stroking the cat, her mind occupied, I felt sure, more with her quarrel with Kenneth than with the matter immediately in hand. She turned round quickly, however, directly the glass was mentioned, and burst out with, “But the glass——” Then she paused uncomfortably, reddened, and resumed her caressing of the cat.
“Yes? But the glass——?” Allport queried.
It was The Tundish who completed the broken sentence, however, calmly lighting another match as he did so. “Miss Hanson was going to say that the glass was on the little table at the side of Miss Palfreeman’s bed when she first went up to her room. It was still there when I went up a few minutes later to make my hurried examination. The glass was one of the usual graduated taper measures. I lifted it from the table, saw that there were a few drops of liquid at the bottom, which I smelled, and then I put it back on the table again. When I came down-stairs I meant to lock the door but forgot to do so, and as I have already explained, I asked Mr. Jeffcock to see that no one went into the room just before I went out to see my patient. That is all I can tell you about it.”