Bella Brightwell's attempted candlestick theft turns a suspected sighting of Stella Brightwell into the exposure of a second woman, a concealed burglary, and a deliberate effort to implicate Stella. At Castle Rannoch, Georgiana Rannoch connects Belinda's account of a woman leaving an empty cottage with an overnight change to its window curtains. The pursuit that follows identifies the supposed Stella as Bella, whose resemblance to her sister has served both as disguise and as a source of resentment. Bella's confession explains the candlesticks' movement and reveals why Stella was made to look guilty, though it does not establish who killed Cy Goldman.

The Cottage and the False Sighting

Belinda reports seeing Stella come out of a cottage and move toward the trees. The sighting seems at first to complicate the case: Stella is supposed to be confined in a bedroom, while the sheriff is still investigating the robbery and murder. Georgiana notices that the cottage window now has drawn curtains, although she is sure there were none when the party arrived. Since the cottage had been unoccupied and Stella's belongings remained in the main house, the changed window becomes a clue that someone else had used the building overnight. Georgiana recognizes that the apparent sighting may be a mistaken identity rather than evidence that Stella escaped.

That inference leads Georgiana and Belinda into the grounds after a flash of a black jacket among the trees. The woman moves quickly through the wooded grounds, but a giraffe blocks her path and she turns back toward the two pursuers. They seize her and discover that, although her face resembles Stella's, her voice is not Stella's familiar film-star voice. The misidentification is thus resolved by more than appearance: the scene has made resemblance the very device that first conceals Bella and then exposes her.

Bella's Identity and Method

Georgiana identifies the captive as Stella's sister, Bella, formerly known as Flossie Oldham. Bella's wig matches Stella's hairstyle, completing a disguise that could pass in settings where people expected to encounter Stella. Georgiana explains that Bella had built a successful career as a jewel thief by appearing at wealthy house parties where Stella was a guest. Their resemblance made an encounter with the supposed Stella seem unremarkable, allowing Bella to move through those gatherings under cover of her sister's identity.

The disguise also grew out of an unequal history. Bella recalls that Stella went to America without her, believing Bella would hold her back. Bella waited for her sister to send for her, but no invitation came; when Bella nearly died of influenza in 1919 and wrote to Stella, Stella did not answer. After recovering enough to work, Bella performed in pantomimes and seaside shows, where other people repeatedly remarked on her resemblance to Stella. She turned that comparison to her advantage. Her thefts therefore depend on an identity imposed on her by others, but Bella has made the resemblance into a chosen criminal method—and into a way to act against the sister she believes abandoned her.

The Library and the Candlesticks

Bella admits that she came to Castle Rannoch to steal the gold candlesticks Cy Goldman had brought back. She describes going upstairs while the others were at dinner and waiting in Stella's room, which was directly above the library. There she heard that the men would have cigars and brandy in the library. She waited until the lights went out, climbed down the rough outer wall, and entered through a window. Her account places her arrival in the library after the gathering had moved there, but does not establish whether anyone else was concealed in the room.

The curtains across an alcove were closed. Bella says she first kicked one candlestick, picked it up, and noticed blood on her glove; she then saw Cy lying nearby with an injured head. She denies killing him and says she had never hurt anyone. Her account offers a reason for leaving quickly, but it remains Bella's own explanation, not proof of what happened before she entered. When the sheriff later asks whether she might have seen or heard the killer, Bella says the room was dark except for her small torch and that someone could have been hidden in another alcove or at the far end. The uncertainty matters: her confession solves the attempted theft and explains her presence, but it does not make her the established murderer.

A Frame-Up and an Escape Plan

Bella says she put the candlestick back where she had found it because carrying it away would make her look guilty. She then placed the other candlestick in Stella's bed, intending to divert suspicion and gain time to get away. The planted object transforms Bella's theft into a threat to her sister: Stella might be suspected not only of robbery but of Cy's death. Asked why she would implicate Stella, Bella answers with the history of being left behind. Her grievance makes the frame-up intelligible without making its consequences less serious; she knowingly uses Stella's vulnerability as cover for her own escape.

After hearing a crash and the sound of people running and shouting, Bella decided she could not leave the estate that night. She crossed to the other side of the house, climbed down onto the garage roof, and kept close enough to listen to what was happening. She then hid in the woods until she found an unoccupied cottage, where she spent the night. Belinda's later sighting of her leaving that cottage supplies the clue that draws Georgiana and Belinda after her. The cottage is not merely a hiding place: its changed curtains register Bella's presence before her identity can be confirmed.

Exposure and the Limits of the Confession

Georgiana and Belinda bring Bella into the foyer, where Sheriff Billings initially mistakes her for Stella and asks how she was released. Georgiana corrects him: Stella remains locked in a bedroom, while the woman in custody is her sister. Georgiana explains that she already knew from her mother that Stella had a sister and that the two had been in show business as children. Reports of Stella on the property could not fit Stella's confinement, so Georgiana reasoned that the sister must be present. Bella's history as a jewel thief supplied a likely purpose for her visit: the candlesticks.

Sheriff Billings responds as though Bella must be the killer, but Bella disputes the accusation and says the authorities will find no prints connecting her to the candlesticks. Her detailed account places her in the library, explains the blood on her glove, and identifies her as the person who moved one candlestick into Stella's bedroom. It does not resolve who struck Cy. The episode therefore closes one line of suspicion while preserving another distinction: Bella is exposed as the thief and the person who framed Stella, but her presence at the scene is not, by itself, proof that she committed the murder. The theft's decisive reversal is the separation of the two sisters' identities; the murder remains a separate question.