The Poisoned Chocolates Case

by Anthony Berkeley

  “Well, Mr. Sheringham,” said Chief Inspector Moresby, “to tell you the truth, I don’t mind what it is, so long as it lets me put my hands on the right man.”

  “Moresby,” laughed Roger, “you’re hopeless.”

  CHAPTER V

  SIR CHARLES WILDMAN, as he has 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 prosecution 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 Penne-father’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 person 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 postmark. 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 wo
uld 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.

  “In other words,” Roger murmured with a smile to Alicia Dammers, turning a hundred words into six, “‘I decided to employ inductive methods.’” But he spoke so softly that nobody but Miss Dammers heard him.

  She smiled back appreciatively. The art of the written word is not that of the spoken one.

  “I formed my theory,” announced Sir Charles, with surprising simplicity. Perhaps he was still a little short of breath.

  “I formed my theory. Of necessity much of it was guesswork. Let me give an example. The possession by the criminal of a sheet of Mason & Sons’ notepaper had puzzled me more than anything. It was not an article which the individual I had in mind might be expected to possess, still less to be able to acquire. I could not conceive any method by which, the plot already decided upon and the sheet of paper required for its accomplishment, such a thing could be deliberately acquired by the individual in question without suspicion being raised afterwards.

  “I therefore formed the conclusion that it was the actual ability to obtain a piece of Mason’s note-paper in a totally unsuspicious way, which was the reason of the notepaper of that particular firm being employed at all.” Sir Charles looked triumphantly round as if awaiting something.

  Roger supplied it; no less readily for all that the point must have occurred to every one as being almost too obvious to need any comment. “That’s a very interesting point indeed, Sir Charles. Most ingenious.”

  Sir Charles nodded his agreement. “Sheer guesswork, I admit. Nothing but guesswork. But guesswork that was justified in the result.” Sir Charles was becoming so lost in admiration of his own perspicacity that he had forgotten all his love of long, winding sentences and smooth-rolling subordinate clauses. His massive head positively jerked on his shoulders.

  “I considered how such a thing might come into one’s possession, and whether the possession could be verified afterwards. It occurred to me at last that many firms insert a piece of notepaper with a receipted bill, with the words ‘With Compliments’ or some such phrase typed on it. That gave me three questions. Was this practice employed at Mason’s? Had the individual in question an account at Mason’s, or more particularly, to explain the yellowed edge of the paper, had there been such an account in the past? Were there any indications on the paper of such a phrase having been carefully erased?

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed Sir Charles, puce with excitement, “you will see that the odds against those three questions being answered in the affirmative were enormous. Overwhelming. Before I posed them I knew that, should it prove to be the case, no mere chance could be held responsible.” Sir Charles dropped his voice. “I knew,” he said slowly, “that if those three questions of mine were answered in the affirmative, the individual I had in mind must be as guilty as if I had actually watched the poison being injected into those chocolates.”

  He paused and looked impressively round him, riveting all eyes on his face.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, those three questions were answered in the affirmative.”

  Oratory is a powerful art. Roger knew perfectly well that Sir Charles, out of sheer force of habit, was employing on them all the usual and hackneyed forensic tricks. It was with difficulty, Roger felt that he refrained from adding “of the jury” to his “Ladies and gentlemen.” But really this was only what might have been expected. Sir Charles had a good story to tell, and a story in which he obviously sincerely believed, and he was simply telling it in the way which, after all these years of practice, came most naturally to him. That was not what was annoying Roger.

  What did annoy him was that he himself had been plodding on the scent of quite a different hare and, convinced as he had been that his must be the right one, had at first been only mildly amused as Sir Charles flirted round the skirts of his own quarry. Now he had allowed himself to be influenced by mere rhetoric, cheap though he knew it to be, into wondering.

  But was it only rhetoric that had made him begin to doubt? Sir Charles seemed to have some substantial facts to weave into the airy web of his oratory. And pompous old fellow though he might be, he was certainly no fool. Roger began to feel distinctly uneasy. For his own hare, he had to admit, was a very elusive one.

  As Sir Charles proceeded to develop his thesis, Roger’s uneasiness began to turn into downright unhappiness.

  “There can be no doubt about it. I ascertained through an agent that Mason’s, an old-fashioned firm, invariably paid such private customers as had an account with them (nine-tenths of their business of course is wholesale) the courtesy of including a statement of thanks, just two or three words typed in the middle of a sheet of notepaper. I ascertained that this individual had had an account with the firm, which was apparently closed five months ago; that is to say, a cheque was sent then in settlement and no goods have been ordered since.

  “Moreover I found time to pay a special visit myself to Scotland Yard in order to examine that letter again. By looking at the back I could make out quite distinct though indecipherable traces of former typewritten words in the middle of the page. These latter cut halfway down one of the lines of the letter and so prove that they could not have been an erasure from that; they correspond in length to the statement I expected; and they show signs of the most careful attempts, by rubbing, rolling and re-roughening the smoothed paper, to eradicate not only the typewriter-ink but even the actual indentations caused by the metal letter-arms.

  “This I held to be conclusive proof that my theory was correct, and at once I set about clearing up such other doubtful points as had occurred to me. Time was short, and I had recourse to no less than four firms of trustworthy inquiry-agents among whom I divided the task of providing the data I was seeking. This not only saved me considerable time, but had the advantage of not putting the sum-total of the information obtained into any hands but my own. Indeed I did my best so to split up my queries as to prevent any of the firms from even guessing what object I had in mind; and in this I am of the opinion that I have been successful.

  “My next care was the post-mark. It was necessary for my case that I should prove that my suspect had actually been in the neighbourhood of the Strand at the time in question. You will say,” suggested Sir Charles, searching the interested faces round him, and apparently picking upon Mr. Morton Harrogate Bradley as the raiser of this futile objection. “You will say,” said Sir Charles sternly to Mr. Bradley, “that this was not necessary. The parcel might have been posted quite innocently by an unwitting accomplice to whom it had been entrusted, so that the actual criminal had an unshakable alibi for that period; the more so as the individual to whom I refer was actually not in this country, so that it would be all the easier to request a friend who might be travelling to England to undertake the task of posting the parcel in this country and so saving the cost of the foreign postage, which on parcels is not i
nconsiderable.

  “I do not agree,” said Sir Charles to Mr. Bradley, still more severely. “I have considered that point, and I do not think the individual I have in mind would undertake such a very grave risk. For the friend would almost certainly remember the incident when she read of the affair in the papers, as would be almost inevitable.

  “No,” concluded Sir Charles, finally crushing Mr. Bradley once and for all, “I am convinced that the individual I am thinking of would realise that nobody else must handle that parcel till it had passed into the keeping of the post-office.”

  “Of course,” said Mr. Bradley academically, “Lady Pennefather may have had not an innocent accomplice but a guilty one. You’ve considered that, of course?” Mr. Bradley managed to convey that the matter was of no real interest, but as Sir Charles had been addressing these remarks directly to him it was only courteous to comment on them.

  Sir Charles purpled visibly. He had been priding himself on the skilful way in which he had been withholding his suspect’s name, to bring it out with a lovely plump right at the end after proving his case, just like a real detective story. And now this wretched scribbler of the things had spoilt it all.

  “Sir,” he intoned, in proper Johnsonian manner, “I must call your attention to the fact that I have mentioned no names at all. To do such a thing is most imprudent. Do I need to remind you that there is such a thing as a law of libel?”

  Morton Harrogate smiled his maddeningly superior smile (he really was a most insufferable young man). “Really, Sir Charles!” he mocked, stroking his little sleek object he wore on his upper lip. “I’m not going to write a story about Lady Pennefather trying to murder her husband, if that’s what you’re warning me against. Or could it possibly be that you were referring to the law of slander?”