Mrs Matthews rose to her feet. “If you mean me, Gertrude, pray do not hesitate to say so!” she begged. “I am becoming quite accustomed to having the most heartless and wicked accusations made against me! But I should very much like to know how I am supposed to have got hold of any nicotine!”
“We all know how morbidly interested you are in anything to do with illness or medicine,” returned Mrs Lupton. “No doubt you could have found out, had you wanted to, where to obtain nicotine.”
Stella sat up suddenly. “You don't buy nicotine,” she said. “You extract it from tobacco. Deryk Fielding told me so. Mother wouldn't have known how to do that.”
“If it comes to that,” said Guy, “who would know, except Fielding himself?” He looked quickly up, and across the room at his cousin, his eyes narrow all at once. “Or—you, Randall!”
Randall was unperturbed by this attack. He merely tipped the ash off the end of his cigarette, and said: “Somehow I thought it wouldn't be long before I was identified with the mysterious killer of Stella's little bedtime story.”
Mrs Lupton fixed him with a cold, appraising stare. “Yes,” she said slowly, “that is perfectly true, though what reason you could have had for poisoning your Aunt Harriet I fail to see. But perhaps the Superintendent is not aware that you were training to be a doctor when your father died?”
“Yes, Mrs Lupton, I am aware of that,” Hannasyde replied.
“I do not say that it has necessarily any bearing on this case,” said Mrs Lupton fairly. “But the fact remains that you have a certain medical knowledge. You had also the strongest motive of anyone for murdering your uncle Gregory.”
Stella said, grasping the arms of her chair: “No! No, he hasn't. He doesn't want uncle's money. He told me himself he was going to get rid of it.”
An astonished silence greeted her words. Hannasyde, closely watching Randall, saw a flicker of annoyance in his face, and caught the gleam of warning in the look he flashed at Stella.