The Poisoned Chocolates Case

Roger Sheringham took a sip of the old brandy in front of him and leaned back in his chair at the head of the table.

Through the haze of cigarette-smoke eager voices reached his ears from all directions, prattling joyfully upon this and that connected with murder, poisons and sudden death. For this was his own, his very own Crimes Circle, founded, organised, collected, and now run by himself alone; and when at the first meeting five months ago he had been unanimously elected its president, he had been as full of proud delight as on that never-to-be-forgotten day in the dim past when a cherub disguised as a publisher had accepted his first novel.

He turned to Chief Inspector Moresby of Scotland Yard who, as the guest of the evening, was sitting on his right, engaged, a little uneasily, with a positively enormous cigar.

“Honestly, Moresby, without any disrespect to your own institution, I do believe that there’s more solid criminological genius in this room (intuitive genius, I mean; not capacity for taking pains) than anywhere in the world outside the Sûreté in Paris.”

“Do you, Mr. Sheringham?” said Chief Inspector Moresby tolerantly. Moresby was always kind to the strange opinions of others. “Well, well.” And he applied himself again to the lighted end of his cigar, which was so very far from the other that Moresby could never tell by mere suction at the latter whether the former were still alight or not.

On Friday morning, the fifteenth of November, Graham Bendix strolled into his club, the Rainbow, in Piccadilly, at about ten-thirty and asked if there were any letters for him. The porter handed him a letter and a couple of circulars, and he walked over to the fireplace in the hall to read them.

While he was doing so another member entered the club. This was a middle-aged baronet, Sir Eustace Pennefather, who had rooms just round the corner, in Berkeley Street, but spent most of his time at the Rainbow. The porter glanced up at the clock, as he did every morning when Sir Eustace came in, and, as always, it was exactly half-past ten. The time was thus definitely fixed by the porter beyond any doubt.

There were three letters and a small parcel for Sir Eustace, and he, too, took them over to the fireplace to open, nodding to Bendix as he joined him there. The two men knew each other only very slightly and had probably never exchanged more than half-a-dozen words in all. There were no other members in the hall just then.

Having glanced through his letters, Sir Eustace opened the parcel and snorted with disgust. Bendix looked at him enquiringly, and with a grunt Sir Eustace thrust out the letter which had been enclosed in the parcel, adding an uncomplimentary remark upon modern trade methods. Concealing a smile (Sir Eustace’s habits and opinions were a matter of some amusement to his fellow-members), Bendix read the letter.

“Well, you’ve got to have one of these, as a penance for not buying me a proper box. Catch!” She threw him one. As he caught it she made a wry face. “Oh! I was wrong. These are different. They’re twenty times as strong.”

“Well, they can bear at least that,” Bendix smiled, thinking of the usual anaemic sweetmeat sold under the name of chocolate-liqueur.

He put the one she had given him in his mouth and bit it up; a burning taste, not intolerable but far too pronounced to be pleasant, followed the release of the liquid. “By Jove,” he exclaimed, “I should think they are strong. I believe they’ve filled them with neat alcohol.”

“Oh, they wouldn’t do that, surely,” said his wife, unwrapping another. “But they are very strong. It must be the new mixture. Really, they almost burn. I’m not sure whether I like them or not. And that Kirsch one tasted far too strongly of almonds. This may be better. You try a Maraschino too.”

To humour her he swallowed another, and disliked it still more. “Funny,” he remarked, touching the roof of his mouth with the tip of his tongue. “My tongue feels quite numb.”

“So did mine at first,” she agreed. “Now it’s tingling rather. Well, I don’t notice any difference between the Kirsch and the Maraschino. And they do burn! I can’t make up my mind whether I like them or not.”

“I don’t,” Bendix said with decision. “I think there’s something wrong with them. I shouldn’t eat any more if I were you.”

“Well, they’re only an experiment, I suppose,” said his wife.

And then Mrs. Fielder-Flemming became regrettably dramatic. Rising slowly to her feet like a tragedy queen (except that tragedy queens do not wear their hats tremblingly on the very backs of their heads, and if their faces are apt to go brilliant purple with emotion disguise the tint with appropriate grease paints), heedless of the chair overturning behind her with a dull, doom-like thud, her quivering finger pointing across the table, she confronted Sir Charles with every inch of her five-foot nothing.

“Thou!” shrilled Mrs. Fielder-Flemming. “Thou art the man!” Her outstretched finger shook like a ribbon on an electric fan. “The brand of Cain is on your forehead! Murderer!”

In the silence of ecstatic horror that followed Mr. Bradley clung deliriously to the arm of Mr. Chitterwick.

Sir Charles succeeded in finding his voice, temporarily mislaid. “The woman’s mad,” he gasped.

Finding that she had not been shot on the spot, or even blasted by blue lightning from Sir Charles’s eyes, either of which possibilities it seemed that she had been dreading, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming proceeded rather less hysterically to amplify her charge.

“No, I am not mad, Sir Charles; I am very, very sane. You loved your daughter, and with the twofold love that a man who has lost his wife feels for the only feminine thing left to him. You considered that any lengths were justified to prevent her from falling into the hands of Sir Eustace Pennefather⁠—from having her youth, her innocence, her trust exploited by such a scoundrel.

“Out of your own mouth I convict you. Already you’ve told us that it was not necessary to mention everything that took place at your interview with Sir Eustace.

“Sir Charles?”

“I agree,” said Sir Charles, in stern tones, equally disproving Mr. Bradley’s frivolity.

“Chitterwick?”

“I agree too.” Was it Roger’s fancy, or did Mr. Chitterwick hesitate just a moment before he spoke, as if troubled by some mental reservation which he did not care to put into words? Roger decided that it was his fancy.

“And Miss Dammers?” concluded Mr. Bradley.

Miss Dammers looked calmly round the table. “I don’t agree at all. I think Mr. Sheringham’s exposition was exceedingly ingenious, and altogether worthy of his reputation; at the same time I think it quite wrong. Tomorrow I hope to be able to prove to you who really committed this crime.”

The Circle gaped at her respectfully.

Roger, wondering whether his ears had not really been playing tricks with him, found that his tongue too utterly refused to work. An inarticulate sound oozed from him.

Mr. Bradley was the first to recover himself. “Carried, non-unanimously. Mr. President, I think this is a precedent. Does anybody know what happens when a resolution is not carried unanimously?”

In the temporary disability of the President, Miss Dammers took it upon herself to decide. “The meeting stands adjourned, I think,” she said.

And adjourned the meeting found itself.