Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 14, No. 71, October 1949

The Lakdoo Dinner by Bechhofer Roberts

Bechhofer Roberts — his full name is Carl Eric Bechhofer Roberts — was educated at St. Paul’s School, London and Berlin Universities, and then, at Gray’s Inn. Like so many authors, both British and American, Bechhofer Roberts studied to be an attorney-at-law, but drifted into other fields, and eventually became a writer. His widespread career has resulted in a remarkably versatile series of books, both under his real name and under the pseudonym of “Ephesian.” After serving as a foreign correspondent in Russia and the Middle East, and as private secretary to Lord Birkenhead, Bechhofer Roberts wrote books on travel, literary criticism, spiritualism, criminology, and biographies of Winston Churchill, Lord Birkenhead, and Stanley Baldwin. Oh, yes, we omitted one classification. He also invented the character of A. B. C. Hawkes, and wrote at least three books of detective stories about him.

We say “at least three books of detective stories” because we know of only three titles; there are probably more. For a long time we thought the only book of A. B. C. short stories was one titled A. B. C. INVESTIGATES. For years we tried to find a copy of this volume, scouring all the secondhand book markets we ever heard of and employing bookscouts all over the British Ethpire — but we have yet to locate a copy of the book. In the course of the search, however, as so often happens, another volume of A. B. C. shorts came to light, and from this “unknown” book we now bring you “The Lakdoo Dinner.”

“It’s my opinion, Johnstone, that young Dr. Badling is preparing to murder his uncle! But what his plans are, and how we are to frustrate them, if at all, I have no idea whatever.”

Thus did A.B.C. Hawkes address me one morning at breakfast in our Sussex cottage; and very much surprised I was by his remarks.

Of all our neighbors, I think he liked Colonel Badling best. The old gentleman used to call on us nearly every morning when we were down there and, after an enthusiastic if inexpert inspection of A.B.C.’s garden, he would sink into an armchair and chat pleasantly for half an hour. I believe he had had a fine Army career in his younger days and had twice been recommended for a Victoria Cross; moreover, he had shown real administrative ability in one of those military or semi-military governorships which abound on the fringes of the British Empire. But there was little of the ex-soldier about him except perhaps his upright bearing and strict sense of honor, for he had mellowed into a benevolent old gentleman with a definite distaste for everything pertaining to militarism. It amused me to hear him and A.B.C. engaged in one of their frequent arguments on the future of war.

The Colonel declared that armaments and armies were no longer necessary, and that peace could easily be secured, and order maintained, by the friendly cooperation of intelligent men of all nationalities. To which A.B.C. would reply teasingly that the proportion of intelligent men is so small in any country that it would be foolish to rely upon their influence in such matters: possibly, he suggested, a better way to prevent war might be to spread the knowledge of scientific warfare — poison gases, chemical bombs, disease carriers, and atom bombs — so widely that even the stupidest warmongers would hesitate before exposing themselves and their families to such perils.

The argument never ended, for the Colonel’s sweet idealism and A.B.C.’s practical cynicism could not come to an agreement. I don’t think either of them really wanted it to end, for it provided them for a long time with a constant excuse for conversation. But we began to see less of Colonel Badling after his nephew came to live with him.

Young Clive Badling was no favorite of ours, and he seemed to resent his uncle’s friendship with us. The orphan son of the Colonel’s younger brother, he was about twenty-five years old and had already a rather disreputable past.

So far as I gathered, he had been educated on his uncle’s bounty and, after qualifying as a doctor, had been set up by the old gentleman in a London practice; but, instead of working hard, he had allowed his patients to drift away from him and, after being involved in an unsavory police-court case, had abandoned his practice and come down to Sussex as his good-natured uncle’s guest.

His expression was furtive: he could look nobody in the face. He never seemed clean or tidy, and he utterly lacked his uncle’s good nature. Everyone disliked him — the villagers, the snobs, the nobs, and even such nondescript residents as ourselves. If it had not been for the Colonel’s popularity, the young doctor would probably have been boycotted. As it was, he was reluctantly accepted by us all and as reluctantly acknowledged our acquaintanceship. Even the Colonel realized the young man’s unpopularity.

“I’m a lonely old man, Mr. Hawkes,” he said one day to A.B.C., “but I hope I can help to give my nephew a little assistance in life. I don’t want to give him any more money, because he only throws it away. But living down here with me will surely balance him a little, so that he’ll become a better type of young fellow. Then, when I die, he’ll have learned to make good use of what I leave him in my will. Meanwhile, it suits me to have a doctor about the house: I’m not so young as I used to be, and there are a good many running repairs needed for my old carcass. If you can help him to settle down, Mr. Hawkes, you’ll be doing both him and me a great service.”

But with the best will in the world, neither A.B.C. nor I could make Clive Badling popular or persuade him to relax his surly attitude towards his neighbors.

Then the old gentleman began to fail. I had a clue to his trouble one morning when, dozing in a hammock outside the window of A.B.C.’s study, I was awakened by angry voices.

“You ask me, doctor, why I want to see you?” my friend was saying.

“Yes, I do,” replied a rasping voice, which I recognized as Clive Badling’s. “I don’t want to see you, and I don’t want you interfering in my affairs.”

“I’m sure you don’t,” A.B.C. retorted, “and that’s exactly why I think it my duty to warn you. You may be interested to know that I’ve made some inquiries about your — shall I say, misadventure when in practice in London. In my view you were lucky to get off with only a wigging; if the coroner had been as clear-sighted as he was garrulous, something worse might have befallen you.”

“Don’t be a fool!” snapped the young man.

“I rarely am, my friend. So I warn you without further ado that, should any harm befall your uncle while you remain with him, I shall make it my business to demand a post-mortem.”

“Do you think I’m a murderer?” Clive Badling sneered.

“Potentially, yes,” said A.B.C. “I’m sure you are. No, don’t dream of using violence on me; despite my seniority in years, I’m probably still a much better boxer than you’ll ever he. So do be careful of your uncle’s health, won’t you? Or, by Paracelsus, I’ll make you wish you’d never been born. Good day.”

A door slammed and Clive Badling passed me to the gate, cursing finder his breath.

It may have been a coincidence, but I noted that the Colonel’s health quickly improved from that day, until he was as hale as ever.

Gradually the incident faded from my memory, and I began to think that my friend had been needlessly suspicious, for Clive Badling seemed to become more friendly and often accompanied his uncle when the old gentleman paid us a call. Still, there were rumors round the village that he was running into debt with bookmakers and moneylenders.

“That nephew of mine’s a good doctor, Mr. Hawkes,” the Colonel announced one morning, when he visited us alone. “He’s discovered at last what my trouble is; it’s my liver! He’s put me on a diet. Look at me! I haven’t been so fit for a dozen years. I tell you, Mr. Hawkes, if ever you’ve anything the matter with you, you might do worse than consult Clive.”

“What is the diet?” A.B.C. asked, disregarding the end of our guest’s remarks.

“Oh, it’s ridiculously simple. I’m not to eat anything fried or made with eggs, and I mustn’t drink any wine or spirits. That’s all — but it’s a bit of a strain, I don’t mind telling you.” The old gentleman smiled. “You see, if there’s one thing I like better than another, it’s a jolly good omelette and a glass of port to follow; but, by Jove, Mr. Hawkes, it’s worth losing them to feel as well as I do now!”

“Is that the whole treatment, Colonel!” I asked.

“Well, Clive’s giving me some injections, too,” the old gentleman replied. “Strychnine, I suppose. They’ve certainly bucked me up wonderfully.”

I threw a glance at A.B.C., but he ignored me. “I’ve often wondered,” my friend remarked, “why more Englishmen don’t give up port and drink strychnine instead — in safe doses, of course. It’s so much healthier and, to my mind, the flavor isn’t much inferior. After all, no Englishman likes a sweet wine, and yet he swills port, which is the sweetest of all.”

The Colonel laughed. “One either is or isn’t a port drinker, Mr. Hawkes. If you are — and I expect you are, despite what you say — you’ll agree with me that port’s infinite variety is the secret of its charm. One champagne is very like another, or they differ within narrow limits, but the varieties and vintages of port are a world in themselves. In my case, too, I’ve another reason for feeling well disposed towards port. Have I ever told you about our Lakdoo dinner?”

“Your what dinner?” I asked.

“Lakdoo, Mr. Johnstone, is a village on the borders of Tibet. I’m not surprised that you’ve never heard of it, for very few people have. But I’m never likely to forget it. You see, I was nearly wiped out there thirty years ago.”

“Be reminiscent, my dear Colonel,” A.B.C. cried. “Tell us how you cheated death.”

The old gentleman settled down in his easy chair and told us the whole story.

“Lakdoo is a village of twenty houses, and two hundred smells, all nasty,” the Colonel began, “and it’s up a valley not very far past Gilgit, full of the nastiest rocks and the coldest snow-streams I’ve ever come across. In the daytime it’s almost too hot to breathe, with the sun streaming down on you from directly overhead, while at nightfall the temperature drops well below freezing and there’s a wind that cuts like a scythe. An unpleasant climate, but not so unpleasant as were the local inhabitants! And they were not so bad as their neighbors in the next valleys, but we weren’t to know that.

“You see, two other subalterns and I happened to land up in Lakdoo on leave, looking for bear, and the very first night we were there, all our carriers and shikaris cleared out — they must have had a warning — and we found that a party of tribesmen had taken cover on a hill overlooking the village and were only waiting for us to come out to pick us off.

“We were lodged in a stone fort a little away from the rest of Lakdoo, and every time we opened the gate, they took pot-shots at us. The worst of it was that we only had a couple of cans of water and there was a four hundreds yards’ climb down to the river to get any more. So things looked damnably unhealthy for us. We couldn’t get out, and the tribesmen didn’t care to try to come in; they just sat down and waited for us to run out of water.

“We did our best, but the two cans couldn’t last long in that heat. To cut a long story short, we found ourselves one fine day with empty cans and only a bottle of port among us, and dying of thirst. We’d brought the port with us, intending to celebrate our first bear with it. But now that we were hunted instead of hunting, we decided to drink it right away and die fighting. It tasted pretty good, I can tell you, and, when it was finished, we shook hands and got ready to clear out as soon as darkness came. We hoped to fight our way back to Gilgit — not that there was much hope!

“Well, gentlemen, the fact that I’m sitting here proves that something unexpected happened. As a matter of fact, somebody back in Gilgit must have got wind of our trouble, for, just as we were opening the gate to make our sortie, there was a terrific shindy on the hillside and another tribe wandered along and carved up our besiegers, rescuing us. The other two subalterns and I swore that, ever afterwards so long as we lived, we’d try to dine together on the anniversary of that last evening and drink a bottle of that identical port. We’ve been lucky. We’re still alive and fairly fit; one of us is a General, another is in the Cabinet, and I’m here. But you realize what it’ll mean to me if I can’t have my share of the port at our next Lakdoo dinner.”

A.B.C. smiled at Colonel Badling’s conclusion. “A terrible predicament,” he said.

“It is indeed,” said our visitor, gloomily shaking his head.

We did not see him again for a few days, but during that time our housekeeper reminded us of his new diet.

Apologizing at breakfast for serving us sausages instead of eggs with our bacon, she said, “It’s that young Dr. Badling. He come round to my husband this morning, he did, and bought up all the eggs we got, and my husband never knowed that I hadn’t any in the house here for you. He’s been buying a terr’ble lot of eggs lately, has Dr. Badling.”

I looked at A.B.C. “Why on earth do the Badlings want so many eggs, if the Colonel isn’t allowed to eat them?” I asked him. He shrugged his shoulders without answering.

A day or two later our housekeeper brought up the subject again. “That young Dr. Badling, sir,” she told my friend, “is fair ruining my hens, he is. He’s been throwing ever so many eggshells into our hen-run, and, of course, that’ll ruin my hens.”

“I thought eggshells were good for hens,” I said. “Makes them lay eggs with good, hard shells, doesn’t it?”

“A little shell, well broken up, don’t do them no harm, sir,” replied the woman, “but if they gets big lumps of shells to eat, same as Dr. Badling’s thrown into my run, why, it encourages ’em to eat their own eggs. And that’s what they will do. I told young Dr. Badling so. ‘If you wants to buy all them eggs from me,’ I says, ‘I shan’t be able to let you have them if you makes my hens cat their own eggs.’ ”

Next time the Colonel called on us A.B.C. asked him if he had changed his diet.

“No, Mr. Hawkes, I haven’t,” he replied, “and I may tell you that I’m feeling better and better every day. Don’t you think I’m looking well? I haven’t tasted egg in any form for the past month, nor eaten anything fried or drunk anything worth drinking. But it’s worth it, isn’t it? Look at me! Fit as a fiddle!”

Then he sprang a surprise on us. His nephew, he said, needed a change and was going oft on a West Indies cruise, which would last a month. Rather than stay alone in their house, the Colonel asked us if we would allow him to be our guest during Dr. Badling’s absence.

“But what about your treatment, Colonel, your injections?” A.B.C. asked.

“Oh, Clive’s practically finished with them now,” the old gentleman explained. “He says I shan’t need any more while he’s away. So long as I stick to my diet, he says, I shall be all right.”

So it was arranged that the Colonel should stay with us during his nephew’s journey. The day before he arrived, our housekeeper brought us some information which, though we were careful not to let her suspect this, caused us considerable uneasiness. She said that young Badling had promised several people in the neighborhood — including a bookmaker at Coppsmere with whom he had run up a very large bill — to pay them in full the moment he returned from his cruise. Then it was that A.B.C. made the observation which I have already quoted.

“It’s my opinion, Johnstone,” he said, as soon as the housekeeper had left the room, “that young Dr. Badling is preparing to murder his uncle!”

He pointed out how convenient it would be for the nephew if the death occurred during his absence on the cruise and, even more, if the Colonel were our guest at the time.

“What can he be intending?” I asked. “If he’s given his uncle some slow poison, a post-mortem, with which you’ve threatened young Badling, will undoubtedly reveal it. And he can’t have hired anybody to bump off the Colonel, as if we were living in Mexico or Seattle. And I presume that, apart from eggs, fried food, and strong drink, our guest will eat and drink the same things as ourselves.”

A.B.C. grimly agreed. “And yet I’m as certain as I can be of anything that there’s dirty work on hand. Well, it’s up to us to frustrate it, and the first thing we can do is to make certain that the young doctor does sail. That, at least, ought to relieve us from the necessity of watching for direct attacks on our guest’s life.”

A message from Southampton a day or two later proved that Clive Badling had really left on the cruise and, while A.B.C. took the precaution of instructing the purser to let him know if the youth broke his journey at any port from which he might return secretly to England, I felt sure that there was no chance of this happening.

Clive Badling was playing a deeper game — if he was playing one at all.

A fortnight passed without any incident suggesting that the Colonel’s life was threatened. He fitted easily in our daily round and when A.B.C. had to go up to London, I always stayed behind to guard the old gentleman. But I had no idea what I was guarding him against; nor, I am certain, had A.B.C. There were moments when we thought that our suspicions of the nephew must be groundless; still, we decided not to leave any opening for foul play.

When, at the end of this fortnight, the annual Lakdoo dinner fell due, at which the Colonel and the two other survivors of the affair at the fort were to celebrate their escape,

A.B.C and I cajoled him into allowing us to relieve him of the duty of ordering the menu — a duty which devolved on him every three years.

“We can thus make certain, Johnstone,” A.B.C. said to me, “that there’s no monkeying with his food. Moreover, since the dinner is to take place, as usual, at the Café Napoleon, I’ll make it my business to instruct my friend the manager to detail his best cook and most trustworthy waiters to prepare and serve the meal. I will thus insure that the food shall be of such a nature that no harm can possibly befall Colonel Badling. It is true that he insists on sharing the bottle of port which is the main feature of this annual reunion; but there again I’ll make sure that the excellent cellars of the Café Napoleon are secure against any attempt to tamper with the wine.”

“But do you suppose that the dinner provides any opportunity for Dr. Badling to harm his uncle?” I asked.

“Eggs, my boy! Eggs! That’s where the danger might lie,” was A.B.C.’s answer.

I begged him to explain.

“It’s mere conjecture on my part,” he went on, “but, frankly, I can see no other possibility. Let us suppose that Dr. Badling has used all those dozens of eggs which he bought from our housekeeper to produce a solution with which he had injected his uncle. We know that no eggs have been eaten in that house since the Colonel went on his diet; yet his nephew bought them in large quantities and has certainly made some use of them. Suppose that he’s used them for the injections.”

“What then?” I asked.

“You’re probably aware, my friend, that certain people are naturally sensitive to various foodstuffs, such as crab, and, if they eat these, they immediately come out with nettlerash or some such complaint. This abnormal sensitiveness is a well-known medical phenomenon.”

“Yes, my brother-in-law gets ill if he eats strawberries,” I said.

“Exactly,” A.B.C. commented. “Of course, it’s possible to render such people insensitive to the effects by giving them a course of suitable doses of an extract of the noxious substance. If, for example, you normally get nettlerash from eating crab, doses of crab-extract will make you immune.”

“That’s all very well,” I said, “but I find it difficult to imagine that Dr. Badling has been trying to make his uncle immune from the bad effects of eating eggs by giving him doses of egg-extract. I thought we were agreed that, if possible, he wished to take his uncle’s life, not to preserve it.”

“One thing at a time,” Hawkes said. “The treatment works both ways. Not only can you render a sufferer immune by doses of the extract, but you can also do the opposite. You can give a number of very minute doses of any substance to a normal person and thus render him so sensitive that, if he exposes himself to the smallest trace of that substance, lie’ll have a very severe and possibly a fatal reaction.”

I stared at him. “You mean that this young man has injected his uncle with minute doses of egg so that, if the Colonel eats an egg, he’ll die?”

“No need to eat a whole egg; it would be enough for the Colonel, if our suspicion is correct, to swallow even the smallest fragment of an egg or anything prepared with eggs.”

“But in that case,” I argued, “why should Dr. Badling have warned him so urgently against eating eggs or anything prepared with eggs? It doesn’t make sense, A.B.C., does it? Suppose, for example, the Colonel does eat an egg, and dies — well, we shouldn’t have much difficulty in proving that his nephew murdered him, should we?”

“That’s the difficulty,” A.B.C. agreed. “I’ve never before met a prospective murderer who warned his victim and his victim’s friends of the means he intended to adopt. Still, I sense danger. You may be quite certain that I’ll insist that no eggs shall appear in any shape or form on the menu of this Lakdoo dinner. And, to make assurance doubly sure, I’ve persuaded the Colonel to let the dinner take place in one of the public rooms of the restaurant, where I shall book an adjoining table for yourself. Unfortunately, I have to lecture that evening to the Royal Society.”

“You don’t think that the port is the danger?” I asked. “Perhaps it’s unwise for the Colonel to drink it after he’s been teetotal so long.”

“So long?” sneered A.B.C. “Do you call a couple of months long? No, if the port isn’t tampered with, its alcoholic qualities ought to be quite harmless to so seasoned a drinker as our friend.”

“Possibly young Badling’s arranged with one of the others to do the old man in,” I suggested. “Or he’s got hold of a waiter.”

“Goodness only knows!” Hawkes struck his forehead with his hand. “Where does the danger lie? I can’t see it, yet my instinct tells me that it exists!”

Naturally we said nothing to Colonel Badling about our fears. When the day of the Lakdoo dinner came, we drove him up to town and, after Hawkes went off to the Royal Society to give his lecture, I accepted the old gentleman’s invitation to meet his friends. The Cabinet Minister turned out to be a tall, thin individual with a bald head, an abnormally high forehead and collar, and the most pompous possible flow of speech. He talked to us almost without ceasing for half an hour, telling us his personal views about the foreign situation and the difficulty of persuading his colleagues in the Cabinet to take his advice. I felt certain that this man at least was not to be suspected of a share in any attempt on the Colonel’s life; he was far too self-centered to be a willing participant in murder, while nobody but a lunatic would dream of trying to use him as an unconscious confederate — he would certainly want to talk at the moment when he ought to do the job!

The other Lakdoo survivor, a pleasant red-faced General, was much too slow on the uptake to be of any assistance, conscious or unconscious, to a murderer.

As it turned out, I had known the waiters for years; they were all above suspicion. What is more, the manager beckoned me aside and whispered to me that he had personally made sure that A.B.C.’s instructions not to use any egg in any form in cooking the meal had been carried out.

At last the three old gentlemen sat down to dine, and I took my seat at a neighboring table. The annual Lakdoo dinner began. I am bound to say that, sitting there and watching them, with the horrible feeling that murder was lurking somewhere near, I had no appetite to eat my own meal.

A.B.C. had ordered them an excellent dinner, and they evidently were enjoying it. Try as I might, I could not see any loophole for an attempt on Colonel Badling’s life. The melon, the borscht, the sole, the woodcock, the ice, and the ripe Stilton cheese — they suggested indigestion possibly, but not poison. Then the great moment of the anniversary arrived, and the manager himself brought in a decanter of port, the same vintage as that bottle which these three men had drunk so many years before in the little Tibetan fort, while they waited for death.

The Colonel happened to catch my eye as the waiter served him, and he raised his glass in greeting to me. The three old gentlemen solemnly shook hands and, with enormous solemnity, held their glasses to the light, admired the color of the old port, and prepared to take the first ceremonious sip.

At this moment the dreadful thing happened for which I had been waiting. The moment the Colonel swallowed the first drop of port, he seemed to catch his breath and the glass dropped from his hand, splashing his shirt-front and the tablecloth. His face grew livid; he gave an inarticulate cry and slumped over in his seat, unconscious.

I jumped to my feet, careless of the damage I did to the plates and glasses on my table, and rushed towards him.

Quick as I was, somebody was before me and I saw A.B.C., his coattails still flying in the breeze of his hurried entry into the room, bending over the prostrate man. In my friend’s hand was a syringe, and I saw him place it against the Colonel’s arm and press it.

Soon, to my enormous relief, the Colonel seemed to come out of his swoon. His breathing became normal and before very long he was able to sit up. With the assistance of his friends and the waiters we led him to a small room on an upper floor of the restaurant and, watched by A.B.C. and by a doctor who happened to be dining in the place, he came round completely.

When at last he was himself again, A.B.C. laid a friendly hand on his arm and addressed him softly, but not so softly that we others could not hear what he said. “My dear Colonel,” he began, “I have to make a rather distressing statement to you. I fear that your nephew, to whom you have been so kind in so many ways, has tried to murder you.”

The poor old gentleman protested, but A.B.C. continued inexorably, “I know that you’re reluctant to hear an ill report of anybody, least of all of Dr. Badling, but I am perfectly certain of what I say. I must also tell you that I warned your nephew some time ago that, should any accident befall you, I should make it my business to investigate the circumstances and, if suspicion pointed to him, to see that he was brought to book. I’ve no doubt whatever that what I said frightened him: you may recall that you recovered rather quickly from the illness from which you were then suffering. But, assuming — as I did and do — that he has designs on your life, it seemed clear to me that he would still endeavor to find some means of killing you without the danger of being detected. I have now discovered his method.

“He is at present, as we know, many thousands of miles away. And he has been gone a fortnight; consequently, he must have laid his plans before he left. I’ll tell you quite simply, Colonel, what I think he did; he injected a solution of egg into your veins, in order that the mere contact with egg in any shape or form would be sufficient to poison you.”

“But I’ve eaten no eggs since he went,” the Colonel protested.

“Naturally,” said A.B.C. “Had you died after eating an egg or anything prepared with eggs, it wouldn’t have been very difficult to guess what had happened. He was subtler than that.

“He knew that you would drink your usual glasses of port at this annual Lakdoo dinner. I knew it too, but I confess that the significance of the fact escaped me until I was in the middle of a discourse to the Royal Society this evening. My subject being the future development of television, I can’t quite see why I should have hit on the solution of the puzzle during my speech: my subconscious mind, however, did so and that’s why I disconcerted my learned brethren by dashing from the rostrum and driving here at full speed.”

“But the syringe, A.B.C.?” I said.

“Oh, I’ve had that by me for weeks now, ever since the Colonel came to stay with us. It’s filled with adrenalin, which acts as a specific against all forms of anaphylactic shock, which, Colonel, is the technical name given to the results of contact with a substance to which one may be, or may be made, sensitive — in your case, eggs.”

“I’ve eaten no eggs, no eggs in any form,” the Colonel repeated.

“That’s where my subconscious mind came in so handy,” said A.B.C. “It suddenly reminded me — while, I repeat, I was addressing the Royal Society on a very different subject — that most shippers of port clarify that beverage with eggshells! This remote contact was sufficient to have killed you, thanks to your charming nephew’s previous injections into you of a solution of egg.”