Behold Here's Poison Read Online Free PDF

retorted Guy. 'And you'll also be able to tell them what uncle said about it, not forgetting the bit about the Inebriates' Home.'
    'Shut up!' Stella said fiercely. 'It isn't Deryk's fault that his father drank!'
    'No, but it's definitely his misfortune,' mocked Guy. 'Particularly if it comes out that uncle, in his well-known playful way, threatened to blow the gaff if Fielding didn't lay-off you.'
    Stella's hand as she raised her cigarette to her lips was shaking, but she controlled her temper, and merely said: 'I suppose you have to be vulgar as well as spiteful?'
    'I may be vulgar, but I'm not in the least spiteful,' replied Guy. 'I'm merely pointing out to you how and where you stand. I don't blame Fielding for having a Hopeless Inebriate for a father, but if you think Grinley Heath would be nice about it you've got another guess coming. A fat lot of practice he'd have had here by now if uncle had split! 'Tisn't as though he were even T.T. himself. Far from it, in fact.'
    'You're a filthy, backbiting little cad!' Stella exploded, her cheeks flaming. 'If you're hinting that Deryk poisoned uncle, let me tell you that I'd a lot sooner believe you did!'
    'Oh, you would, would you?' said Guy, suddenly furious. 'Thanks very much! Well, I didn't poison him, and I'll trouble you to refrain from suggesting that I did! Because if there's going to be any chat of that sort from you, there'll be quite a spot from me about your precious Deryk! Quite got that?'
    'If you think that I'd—' Stella broke off, staring across the room at him. She gave an uncertain laugh. 'What on earth did you start this futile argument for? You talk as though we knew uncle had been poisoned, and you know perfectly well it's all rot!'
    'Yes, of course,' Guy said, his anger evaporating. 'Utter rot. Sorry; I didn't mean to be offensive. Only if there does happen to be trouble we've damned well got to stick together.'
    'What's going to be done?' asked Stella, after a slight pause. 'Did Aunt Gertrude ring up the police?'
    'No; Fielding's going to get on to the Coroner. They'll come and take uncle's body away, and I suppose we shan't know anything much for a day or two. I asked Fielding, and he said it would be a question of sending the organs up to the Home Office, or somewhere. I've rung up uncle's lawyer, by the way, so no doubt he'll come down with the Will. Personally I can't see any reason why I shouldn't go up to town as usual.'
    His mother, entering the room at that moment, overheard this last remark and read him a fond but reproving lecture on the respect due to the dead. When she perceived that this made very little impression on him she begged him to consider her feelings. Stella, realising that her mother was going to expatiate sadly on the loneliness of widowhood, slipped out of the room, and went upstairs, only to run into her aunt, who had temporarily forgotten her woes in the discovery that owing to the window in Gregory Matthews' bathroom having been left open the new bottle of his medicine had been blown over into the washbasin, and smashed.
    'I can't see that it matters,' said Stella crossly. 'You couldn't use up somebody else's tonic.'
    'No, but the chemist always allows us something on the bottles,' said Miss Matthews severely.
    Stella looked with faint repulsion at the assortment of objects in her aunt's clutch, and wondered how one could be expected to feel solemn about death when one's relatives behaved like Aunt Harriet. Miss Matthews had triumphantly collected from her brother's bathroom his sponges and face-flannel (which would all come in useful for cleaning-rags), a cake of soap, two toothbrushes (excellent for scrubbing silver filigree dishes), a half-used tube of toothpaste (which she proposed to use up herself as soon as her own was finished), a bottle of mouth-wash, and a loofah.
    'I thought Guy might like the loofah,' said Miss Matthews. 'It's a very good one. There's the end of a stick of shaving-soap too.'
    'If you take my advice