The Poisoned Chocolates Case

Sir Charles Wildman, as he had said, cared more for honest facts than for psychological fiddle-faddle.

Facts were very dear to Sir Charles. More, they were meat and drink to him. His income of roughly thirty thousand pounds a year was derived entirely from the masterful way in which he was able to handle facts. There was no one at the bar who could so convincingly distort an honest but awkward fact into carrying an entirely different interpretation from that which any ordinary person (counsel for the prosecution, for instance) would have put upon it. He could take that fact, look it boldly in the face, twist it round, read a message from the back of its neck, turn it inside out and detect auguries in its entrails, dance triumphantly on its corpse, pulverise it completely, re-mould it if necessary into an utterly different shape, and finally, if the fact still had the temerity to retain any vestige of its primary aspect, bellow at it in the most terrifying manner. If that failed he was quite prepared to weep at it in open court.

No wonder that Sir Charles Wildman, K.C., was paid that amount of money every year to transform facts of menacing appearance to his clients into so many sucking-doves, each cooing those very clients’ tender innocence. If the reader is interested in statistics it might be added that the number of murderers whom Sir Charles in the course of his career had saved from the gallows, if placed one on top of the other, would have reached to a very great height indeed.

Sir Charles Wildman had rarely appeared for the prosecution. It is not considered etiquette for prosecuting counsel to bellow, and there is scant need for their tears. His bellowing and his public tears were Sir Charles Wildman’s long suit. He was one of the old school, one of its very last representatives; and he found that the old school paid him handsomely.

When therefore he looked impressively round the Crimes Circle on its next meeting, one week after Roger had put forward his proposal, and adjusted the gold-rimmed pince-nez on his somewhat massive nose, the other members could feel no doubt as to the quality of the entertainment in store for them. After all, they were going to enjoy for nothing what amounted to a thousand-guinea brief for the prosecution.

Sir Charles glanced at the note-pad in his hand and cleared his throat. No barrister could clear his throat quite so ominously as Sir Charles.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, in weighty tones, “it is not unnatural that I should have been more interested in this murder than perhaps any one else, for personal reasons which will no doubt have occurred to you already. Sir Eustace Pennefather’s name, as you must know, has been mentioned in connection with that of my daughter; and though the report of their engagement was not merely premature, but utterly without foundation, it is inevitable that I should feel some personal connection, however slight, with this attempt to assassinate a man who has been mentioned as a possible son-in-law to myself.

“I do not wish to stress this personal aspect of the case, which otherwise I have tried to view as impersonally as any other with which I have been connected; but I put it forward more as an excuse than anything. For it has enabled me to approach the problem set us by our President with a more intimate knowledge of the persons concerned than the rest of you could have, and with, too, I fear, information at my disposal which goes a long way towards indicating the truth of this mystery.

“I know that I should have placed this information at the disposal of my fellow-members last week, and I apologise to them wholeheartedly for not having done so; but the truth is that I did not realise then that this knowledge of mine was in any way germane to the solution, or even remotely helpful, and it is only since I began to ponder over the case with a view to clearing up the tragic tangle, that the vital import of this information has impressed itself upon me.” Sir Charles paused and allowed his resounding periods to echo round the room.

“Now, with its help,” he pronounced, looking severely from face to face, “I am of opinion that I have read this riddle.”

A twitter of excitement, no less genuine because obviously awaited, ran round the faithful Circle.

Sir Charles whisked off his pince-nez and swung them, in a characteristic gesture, on their broad ribbon. “Yes, I think, in fact I am sure, that I am about to elucidate this dark business to you. And for this reason I regret that the lot has fallen upon me to speak first. It would have been more interesting perhaps had we been permitted to examine some other theories first, and demonstrate their falsity, before we probed to the truth. That is, assuming that there are other theories to examine.

“It would not surprise me, however, to learn that you had all leapt to the conclusion to which I have been driven. Not in the least. I claim no extraordinary powers in allowing the facts to speak to me for themselves; I pride myself on no superhuman insight in having been able to see further into this dark business than our official solvers of mysteries and readers of strange riddles, the trained detective force. Very much the reverse. I am only an ordinary human being, endowed with no more powers than any of my fellow-creatures. It would not astonish me for an instant to be apprised that I am only following in the footsteps of others of you in fixing the guilt on the individual who did, as I submit I am about to prove to you beyond any possibility of doubt, commit this foul crime.”

Having thus provided for the improbable contingency of some other member of the Circle having been so clever as himself, Sir Charles cut some of the cackle and got down to business.

“I set about this matter with one question in my mind and one only—the question to which the right answer has proved a sure guide to the criminal in almost every murder that has ever been committed, the question which hardly any criminal can avoid leaving behind him, damning though he knows the answer must be: the question—cui bono?” Sir Charles allowed a pregnant moment of silence. “Who,” he translated obligingly, “was the gainer? Who,” he paraphrased, for the benefit of any possible half-wits in his audience, “would, to put it bluntly, score by the death of Sir Eustace Pennefather?” He darted looks of enquiry from under his tufted eyebrows, but his hearers dutifully played the game; nobody undertook to enlighten him prematurely.

Sir Charles was far too practised a rhetorician to enlighten them prematurely himself. Leaving the question as an immense query-mark in their minds, he veered off on another track.

“Now there were, as I saw it, only three definite clues in this crime,” he continued, in almost conversational tones. “I refer of course to the forged letter, the wrapper, and the chocolates themselves. Of these the wrapper could only be helpful so far as its post-mark. The hand-printed address I dismissed as useless. It could have been done by any one, at any time. It led, I felt, nowhere. And I could not see that the chocolates or the box that contained them were of the least use as evidence. I may be wrong, but I could not see it. They were specimens of a well-known brand, on sale at hundreds of shops; it would be fruitless to attempt to trace their purchaser. Moreover any possibilities in that direction would quite certainly have been explored already by the police. I was left, in short, with only two pieces of material evidence, the forged letter and the post-mark on the wrapper, on which the whole structure of proof must be erected.”

Sir Charles paused again, to let the magnitude of this task sink into the minds of the others; apparently he had overlooked the fact that his problem must have been common to all. Roger, who with difficulty had remained silent so long, interposed a gentle question.

“Had you already made up your mind as to the criminal, Sir Charles?”

“I had already answered to my own satisfaction the question I had posed to myself, to which I made reference a few minutes ago,” replied Sir Charles, with dignity but without explicitness.

“I see. You had made up your mind,” Roger pinned him down. “It would be interesting to know, so that we can follow better your way of approaching the proof. You used inductive methods then?”

“Possibly, possibly,” said Sir Charles testily. Sir Charles strongly disliked being pinned down.

He glowered for a moment in silence, to recover from this indignity.

“The task, I saw at once,” he resumed, in a sterner voice, “was not going to be an easy one. The period at my disposal was extremely limited, far-reaching enquiries were obviously necessary, my own time was far too closely engaged to permit me to make, in person, any investigations I might find advisable. I thought the matter over and decided that the only possible way in which I could arrive at a conclusion was to consider the facts of the case for a sufficient length of time till I was enabled to formulate a theory which would stand every test I could apply to it out of such knowledge as was already at my disposal, and then make a careful list of further points which were outside my own knowledge but which must be facts if my theory were correct; these points could then be investigated by persons acting on my behalf and, if they were substantiated, my theory would be conclusively proved.” Sir Charles drew a breath.