The Poisoned Chocolates Case

The Circle sat on for some time after Moresby had gone. There was a lot to discuss, and everybody had views to put forward, suggestions to make, and theories to advance.

One thing emerged with singular unanimity: the police had been working on the wrong lines. Their theory must be mistaken. This was not a casual murder by a chance lunatic. Somebody very definite had gone methodically about the business of helping Sir Eustace out of the world, and that somebody had behind him an equally definite motive. Like almost all murders, in fact, it was a matter of cherchez le motif.

On the exposition and discussion of theories Roger kept a firmly quelling hand. The whole object of the experiment, as he pointed out more than once, was that everybody should work independently, without bias from any other brain, form his or her own theory, and set about proving it in his or her own way.

“But oughtn’t we to pool our facts, Sheringham?” boomed Sir Charles. “I should suggest that though we pursue our investigations independently, any new facts we discover should be placed at once at the disposal of all. The exercise should be a mental one, not a competition in routine-detection.”

“There’s a lot to be said for that view, Sir Charles,” Roger agreed. “In fact, I’ve thought it over very carefully. But on the whole I think it will be better if we keep any new facts to ourselves after this evening. You see, we’re already in possession of all the facts that the police have discovered, and anything else we may come across isn’t likely to be so much a definite pointer to the murderer as some little thing, quite insignificant in itself, to support a particular theory.”

Sir Charles grunted, obviously unconvinced.

“I’m quite willing to have it put to the vote,” Roger said handsomely.

A vote was taken. Sir Charles and Mrs. Fielder-Flemming voted for all facts being disclosed: Mr. Bradley, Alicia Dammers, Mr. Chitterwick (the last after considerable hesitation) and Roger voted against.

“We retain our own facts,” Roger said, and made a mental note of who had voted for each. He was inclined to guess that the voting indicated pretty correctly who was going to be content with general theorising, and who was ready to enter so far into the spirit of the game as to go out and work for it. Or it might simply show who already had a theory and who had not.

Sir Charles accepted the result with resignation.

“We start equal as from now, then,” he announced.

“As from the moment we leave this room,” amended Morton Harrogate Bradley, rearranging the set of his tie. “But I agree so far with Sir Charles’s proposition as to think that any one who can at this moment add anything to the Chief Inspector’s statement should do so.”

“But can any one?” asked Mrs. Fielder-Flemming.

“Sir Charles knows Mr. and Mrs. Bendix,” Alicia Dammers pointed out impartially. “And Sir Eustace. And I know Sir Eustace too, of course.”

Roger smiled. This statement was a characteristic meiosis on the part of Miss Dammers. Everybody knew that Miss Dammers had been the only woman (so far as rumour recorded) who had ever turned the tables on Sir Eustace Pennefather. Sir Eustace had taken it into his head to add the scalp of an intellectual woman to those other rather unintellectual ones which already dangled at his belt. Alicia Dammers, with her good looks, her tall, slim figure, and her irreproachable sartorial taste, had satisfied his very fastidious requirements so far as feminine appearance was concerned. He had laid himself out to fascinate.

The results had been watched by the large circle of Miss Dammers’s friends with considerable joy. Miss Dammers had apparently been only too ready to be fascinated. It seemed that she was living entirely on the point of succumbing to Sir Eustace’s blandishments. They had dined, visited, lunched and made excursions together without respite. Sir Eustace, stimulated by the daily prospect of surrender on the following one, had exercised his ardour with every art he knew.

Miss Dammers had then retired serenely, and the next autumn published a book in which Sir Eustace Pennefather, dissected to the last ligament, was given to the world in all the naked unpleasingness of his psychological anatomy.

Miss Dammers never talked about her “art,” because she was a really brilliant writer and not just pretending to be one, but she certainly held that everything had to be sacrificed (including the feelings of the Sir Eustace Pennefathers of this world) to whatever god she worshipped privately in place of it.

“Mr. and Mrs. Bendix are quite incidental to the crime, of course, from the murderer’s point of view,” Mr. Bradley now pointed out to her, in the gentle tones of one instructing a child that the letter A is followed in the alphabet by the letter B. “So far as we know, their only connection with Sir Eustace is that he and Bendix both belonged to the Rainbow.”

“I needn’t give you my opinion of Sir Eustace,” remarked Miss Dammers. “Those of you who have read Flesh and the Devil know how I saw him, and I have no reason to suppose that he has changed since I was studying him. But I claim no infallibility. It would be interesting to hear whether Sir Charles’s opinion coincides with mine or not.”

Sir Charles, who had not read Flesh and the Devil, looked a little embarrassed. “Well, I don’t see that I can add much to the impression the Chief Inspector gave of him. I don’t know the man well, and certainly have no wish to do so.”

Everybody looked extremely innocent. It was common gossip that there had been the possibility of an engagement between Sir Eustace and Sir Charles’s only daughter, and that Sir Charles had not viewed the prospect with any perceptible joy. It was further known that the engagement had even been prematurely announced, and promptly denied the next day.

Sir Charles tried to look as innocent as everybody else. “As the Chief Inspector hinted, he is something of a bad lot. Some people might go so far as to call him a blackguard. Women,” explained Sir Charles bluntly. “And he drinks too much,” he added. It was plain that Sir Charles Wildman did not approve of Sir Eustace Pennefather.

“I can add one small point, of purely psychological value,” amplified Alicia Dammers. “But it shows the dullness of his reactions. Even in the short time since the tragedy rumour has joined the name of Sir Eustace to that of a fresh woman. I was somewhat surprised to hear that,” added Miss Dammers drily. “I should have been inclined to give him credit for being a little more upset by the terrible mistake, and its fortunate consequences to himself, even though Mrs. Bendix was a total stranger to him.”

“Yes, by the way, I should have corrected that impression earlier,” observed Sir Charles. “Mrs. Bendix was not a total stranger to Sir Eustace, though he may probably have forgotten ever meeting her. But he did. I was talking to Mrs. Bendix one evening at a first night (I forget the play) and Sir Eustace came up to me. I introduced them, mentioning something about Bendix being a member of the Rainbow. I’d almost forgotten.”

“Then I’m afraid I was completely wrong about him,” said Miss Dammers, chagrined. “I was far too kind.” To be too kind in the dissecting-room was evidently, in Miss Dammers’s opinion, a far greater crime than being too unkind.

“As for Bendix,” said Sir Charles rather vaguely, “I don’t know that I can add anything to your knowledge of him. Quite a decent, steady fellow. Head not turned by his money in the least, rich as he is. His wife too, charming woman. A little serious perhaps. Sort of woman who likes sitting on committees. Not that that’s anything against her though.”

“Rather the reverse, I should have said,” observed Miss Dammers, who liked sitting on committees herself.

“Quite, quite,” said Sir Charles hastily, remembering Miss Dammers’s curious predilections. “And she wasn’t too serious to make a bet, evidently, although it was a trifling one.”

“She had another bet, that she knew nothing about,” chanted in solemn tones Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, who was already pondering the dramatic possibilities of the situation. “Not a trifling one: a grim one. It was with Death, and she lost it.” Mrs. Fielder-Flemming was regrettably inclined to carry her dramatic sense into her ordinary life. It did not go at all well with her culinary aspect.

She eyed Alicia Dammers covertly, wondering whether she could get in with a play before that lady cut the ground away from under her with a book.