The Poisoned Chocolates Case

Sir Charles took the usual advantage of the first interval to rise from his seat. Like so many of us in these days by the time of the first interval (when it is not a play of Mrs. Fielder-Flemming’s that is in question) he felt almost physically unable to contain himself longer.

“Mr. President,” he boomed, “let us get this clear. Is Mrs. Fielder-Flemming making the preposterous accusation that some friend of my daughter’s is responsible for this crime, or is she not?”

The President looked somewhat helplessly up at the bulk towering wrathfully above him and wished he were anything but the President. “I really don’t know, Sir Charles,” he professed, which was not only feeble but untrue.

Mrs. Fielder-Flemming however was by now quite able to speak up for herself. “I have not yet specifically accused any one of the crime, Sir Charles,” she said, with a cold dignity that was only marred by the fact that her hat, which had apparently been sharing its mistress’s emotions, was now perched rakishly over her left ear. “So far I have been simply developing a thesis.”

To Mr. Bradley Sir Charles would have replied, with Johnsonian scorn of evasion: “Sir, damn your thesis.” Hampered now by the puerilities of civilised convention regarding polite intercourse between the sexes, he could only summon up once more the blue glare.

With the unfairness of her sex Mrs. Fielder-Flemming promptly took advantage of his handicap. “And,” she added pointedly, “I have not yet finished doing so.”

Sir Charles sat down, the perfect allegory. But he grunted very naughtily to himself as he did so.

Mr. Bradley restrained an impulse to clap Mr. Chitterwick on the back and then chuck him under the chin.

Her serenity so natural as to be patently artificial, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming proceeded to call the interval closed and ring up the curtain on her second act.

“Having given you my processes towards arriving at the identity of the third member of the triangle I postulated, in other words towards that of the murderer, I will go on to the actual evidence and show how that supports my conclusions. Did I say ‘supports’? I meant, confirms them beyond all doubt.”

“But what are your conclusions, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming?” Bradley asked, with an air of bland interest. “You haven’t defined them yet. You only hinted that the murderer was a rival of Sir Eustace’s for the hand of Miss Wildman.”

“Exactly,” agreed Alicia Dammers. “Even if you don’t want to tell us the man’s name yet, Mabel, can’t you narrow it down a little more for us?” Miss Dammers disliked vagueness. It savoured to her of the slipshod, which above all things in this world she detested. Moreover she really was extremely interested to know upon whom Mrs. Fielder-Flemming’s choice had alighted. Mabel, she knew, might look like one sort of fool, talk like another sort, and behave like a third; and yet really she was not a fool at all.

But Mabel was determined to be coy. “Not yet, I’m afraid. For certain reasons I want to prove my case first. You’ll understand later, I think.”

“Very well,” sighed Miss Dammers. “But do let’s keep away from the detective-story atmosphere. All we want to do is to solve this difficult case, not mystify each other.”

“I have my reasons, Alicia,” frowned Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, and rather obviously proceeded to collect her thoughts. “Where was I? Oh yes, the evidence. Now this is very interesting. I have succeeded in obtaining two pieces of quite vital evidence which I have never heard brought forward before.

“The first is that Sir Eustace was not in love with—” Mrs. Fielder-Flemming hesitated; then, as the plunge had already been taken for her, followed the intrepid Mr. Bradley into the deeps of complete candour “—with Miss Wildman at all. He intended to marry her simply for her money—or rather, for what he hoped to get of her father’s money. I hope, Sir Charles,” added Mrs. Fielder-Flemming frostily, “that you will not consider me slanderous if I allude to the fact that you are an exceedingly rich man. It has a most important bearing on my case.”

Sir Charles inclined his massive, handsome head. “It is hardly a matter of slander, madam. Simply one of taste, which is outside my professional orbit. I fear it would be a waste of time for me to attempt to advise you on it.”

“That is very interesting, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming,” Roger hastily interposed on this exchange of pleasantries. “How did you discover it?”

“From Sir Eustace’s man, Mr. Sheringham,” replied Mrs. Fielder-Flemming not without pride. “I interrogated him. Sir Eustace had made no secret of it. He seems to confide most freely in his man. He expected, apparently, to be able to pay off his debts, buy a racehorse or two, provide for the present Lady Pennefather, and generally make a fresh and no doubt discreditable start. He had actually promised Barker (that is his man’s name) a present of a hundred pounds on the day he ‘led the little filly to the altar,’ as he phrased it. I am sorry to hurt your feelings, Sir Charles, but I have to deal with facts, and feelings must go down before them. A present of ten pounds bought me all the information I wanted. Quite remarkable information, as it turned out.” She looked round triumphantly.

“You don’t think, perhaps,” ventured Mr. Chitterwick with an apologetic smile, “that information from such a tainted source might not be entirely reliable? The source seems so very tainted. Why, I don’t think my own man would sell me for a ten-pound note.”

“Like master like man,” returned Mrs. Fielder-Flemming shortly. “His information was perfectly reliable. I was able to check nearly everything he told me, so that I think I am entitled to accept the small residue as correct too.

“I should like to quote another of Sir Eustace’s confidences. It is not pretty, but it is very, very illuminating. He had made an attempt to seduce Miss Wildman in a private room at the Pug-Dog Restaurant (that, for instance, I checked later), apparently with the object of ensuring the certainty of the marriage he desired. (I am sorry again, Sir Charles, but these facts must be brought out.) I had better say at once that the attempt was unsuccessful. That night Sir Eustace remarked (and to his valet of all people, remember); ‘You can take a filly to the altar, but you can’t make her drunk.’ That, I think, will show you better than any words of mine just what manner of man Sir Eustace Pennefather is. And it will also show you how overwhelmingly strong was the incentive of the man who really loved her to put her for ever out of the reach of such a brute.

“And that brings me to the second piece of my evidence. This is really the foundation stone of the whole structure, the basis on which the necessity for murder (as the murderer saw it) rested, and the basis at the same time of my own reconstruction of the crime. Miss Wildman was hopelessly, unreasonably, irrevocably infatuated with Sir Eustace Pennefather.”

As an artist in dramatic effect, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming was silent for a moment to allow the significance of this information to sink into the minds of her audience. But Sir Charles was far too personally preoccupied to be interested in significances.

“And may one ask how you found that out, madam?” he demanded, swelling with sarcasm. “From my daughter’s maid?”

“From your daughter’s maid,” responded Mrs. Fielder-Flemming sweetly. “Detecting, I discover, is an expensive hobby, but one mustn’t regret money spent in a good cause.”

Roger sighed. It was plain that, once this ill-fortuned child of his invention had died a painful death, the Circle (if it had not been completely squared by then) would be found to be without either Mrs. Fielder-Flemming or Sir Charles Wildman; and he knew which of the two it would be. It was a pity. Sir Charles, besides being such an asset from the professional point of view, was the only leavening apart from Mr. Ambrose Chitterwick of the literary element; and Roger, who had attended a few literary parties in his earlier days, was quite sure he would not be able to face a gathering that consisted of nothing but people who made their livings by their typewriters.

Besides, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming really was being a little hard on the old man. After all, it was his daughter who was in question.