Stella put her parcels rather carefully down on the table, and replied after a slight pause: “Well, we practically knew that. What was it?”
“Nicotine. Same as uncle.”
She nodded. “Bound to be. Where are the police?”
“In the library, with mother. They wouldn't let me stay.”
“Have they found out what the poison was put into?”
“No. At least, I don't think so. They took away a lot of medicines and things from Aunt Harriet's room on Saturday. I suppose there hasn't been time to analyse them yet.”
Stella slowly pulled off her gloves, and smoothed out the fingers. “As long as they don't know how the stuff was given, there's no need for us to panic,” she said.
“No one's panicking,” he answered irritably. “But they'll go on motive. I tell you, I've thought it all out from A to Z. It was all right when uncle died. Anybody might have done it. But Aunt Harriet's death has narrowed the field down to two: myself and Mother. And the serious part of it is that we had motives for both murders. No one else had the slightest motive for murdering Aunt Harriet. It's no use blinking facts: one or other of us is going to be arrested—perhaps both of us.
“Don't be such an ass!” said Stella. “They can't prove anything against either of you—can they?”
Guy stopped pacing up and down, and came to a halt by the table, and stood facing his sister across it. “If you'll take the trouble to look at it fair and square you'll see they've got a nasty-looking case against us,” he said forcibly. “I was in a jam, and nothing would induce me to go to South America, so I poisoned uncle. Then I found that Aunt Harriet had left her money to me, and because I'm hard-up, I poisoned her, too.”