Bella Brightwell

Bella Brightwell, formerly known as Flossie Oldham, is Stella Brightwell’s estranged younger sister and a practiced impersonator who turns their resemblance into a means of earning money. Her attempted theft of candlesticks from Cy Goldman’s library entangles her in his murder and leads her to plant evidence against Stella; later, when Stella is trapped during the fire at Goldman’s estate, Bella climbs to her window to save her. The contrast between calculated betrayal and urgent care makes Bella more than a disguised suspect: her actions expose the injuries behind her resentment without erasing the harm she chooses to inflict.

Identity and Impersonation

Bella’s face is familiar enough to be mistaken for Stella’s, but her voice gives her away. Georgiana recognizes the difference and identifies her as Stella’s sister, once known as Flossie Oldham; Belinda, who is still holding Bella’s arm, then sees the strong family resemblance. The disguise is not simply a look-alike’s accidental advantage. Bella wears a wig identical to Stella’s hairstyle and uses the likeness deliberately, making another woman’s public identity a practical instrument.

Bella explains that the resemblance became useful after people repeatedly told her she looked like Stella. She had worked in the chorus of pantomimes and seaside shows, but, as she tells it, adopting Stella’s appearance allowed her to make a living more successfully. Her impersonation is therefore both performance and economic strategy: the image that helped Stella become a star can be borrowed by the sister left behind. Bella says she has done well from it and intends to continue, presenting the deception as a business she has built rather than a passing trick.

The Goldman Incident

Bella entered the house intending to take the candlesticks. Stella’s room was directly above the library, and Bella waited there while the other guests were at dinner. She heard the men say they would have cigars and brandy in the library, then waited until the lights went out before climbing down the rough wall and entering through a window. Her account supplies a specific route and sequence, while also making clear that she was not in the library during the earlier gathering.

The curtains across the alcove were closed. On entering, Bella kicked an object, picked it up, and recognized one of the candlesticks. She then noticed blood on her glove and found Cy Goldman lying beyond the curtain. Bella says the discovery frightened her because she understood that being caught there would make her look culpable. She denies striking him and maintains that she found him already dead. Her testimony explains why she fled and what she encountered, but it does not identify the killer.

Bella’s account also leaves an important uncertainty intact: she cannot say whether anyone else was in the dark library. She suggests that a person might have been concealed in another alcove or in the shadows at the far end of the room. Since her small torch was the only light, she says she could not be certain she was alone. The gap between what she knows and what she can establish keeps her discovery separate from proof of the murder.

Resentment and Betrayal

After finding Goldman, Bella says she returned the bloodied candlestick to the place where she had found it. She then left the other candlestick in Stella’s room to confuse the investigation and give herself time to escape. When confronted about implicating her sister, Bella answers from a history of perceived abandonment: Stella left for America when Bella was a child, saying that Bella would hold her back, and did not send for her afterward. Bella says she waited for Stella to call for her and later wrote after contracting influenza in 1919, when she nearly died, but received no reply.

That history supplies the grievance behind Bella’s choice, not a justification that neutralizes it. She deliberately directs suspicion toward the sister whose success has long stood beside her own exclusion. Even when Georgiana points out that Stella might face a murder charge—or at least accusation of the theft—Bella asks what Stella has ever done for her. She insists that she has no reason to kill Goldman and could present herself as a visitor hoping to glimpse a long-lost sister. Her defense depends on the same resemblance that enabled the deception: she can pass as Stella while disavowing responsibility for the consequences of that likeness.

Rescue and Narrative Role

Bella’s conduct changes decisively during the fire at Goldman’s estate. With smoke coming from the open front door and the group gathered by the pool, Stella appears at an upper window and calls for help because her door is locked. Bella immediately leaves the pool, runs around the side of the house, climbs the rough stone wall, and edges along a ledge to reach Stella’s window. She urges Stella to trust her and follow, although Stella is afraid of falling.

The rescue does not cancel Bella’s earlier attempt to frame Stella; rather, it puts the sisters’ relationship into a new and more complicated light. Bella has treated Stella’s identity as a resource and Stella herself as a target for misdirection, yet when Stella is in immediate danger Bella acts without hesitation. The repeated rough wall connects the two episodes: Bella first uses the exterior of the house to enter the library unseen, then climbs it again to reach her sister. In the first instance, the route serves concealment and escape; in the second, it brings Bella back toward the person she had betrayed. The evidence establishes the attempt to reach Stella, without specifying the rescue’s final outcome.