The Poisoned Chocolates Case

CHAPTER VIII

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.

"I have now," said Mrs. Fielder - Flemming, "established an overwhelming motive for the man who is in my mind to eliminate Sir Eustace. In fact it must have seemed to him the only possible way out of an intolerable situation. Let me now go on to connect him with the few facts allowed us by the anonymous murderer.

"When the Chief Inspector the other evening permitted us to examine the forged letter from Mason and Sons I examined it closely, because I know something about typewriters. That letter was typed on a Hamilton machine. The man I have in mind has a Hamilton typewriter at his place of business. You may say that might be only a coincidence, the Hamilton being so generally used. So it might; but if you get enough coincidences lumped together, they cease to become coincidences at all and become certainties.

" In the same way we have the further coincidence of Mason's notepaper. This man has a definite connection with Mason's. Three years ago, as you may remember. Mason's were involved in a big lawsuit. I forget the details, but I think they brought an action against one of their rivals. You may remember, Sir Charles?"

Sir Charles nodded reluctantly, as if unwilling to help his antagonist even with this unimportant information. "I ought to," he said shortly. "It was against the Fearnley Chocolate Company for infringement of copyright in an advertisement figure. I led for Mason's."

"Thank you. Yes, I thought it was something like that. Very well, then. This man was connected with that very case. He was helping Mason's, on the legal side. He must have been in and out of their office. His opportunities for possessing himself of a piece of their notepaper would have been legion. The chances by which he might have found himself three years later in possession of a piece would be innumerable. The paper had yellowed edges; it must have been quite three years old. It had an erasure. That erasure, I suggest, is the remains of a brief note on the case jotted down one day in Mason's office. The thing is obvious. Everything fits.

"Then there is the matter of the post - mark. I agree with Sir Charles that we may take it for granted that the murderer, cunning though he is, and anxious though he might be to establish an alibi, would not entrust the posting of the fatal parcel to any one else. Apart from a confederate, which I am sure we may rule out of the question, it would be far too dangerous; the name of Sir Eustace Pennefather could hardly escape being seen, and the connection later established. The murderer, secure in his conviction that suspicion will never fall on himself of all people (just like all murderers that have ever been), gambles a possible alibi against a certain risk and posts the thing himself. It is therefore advisable, just to clinch the case against him, to connect the man with the neighbourhood of the Strand between the hours of eight - thirty and nine - thirty on that particular evening.

"Surprisingly enough I found this task, which I had expected to be the most difficult, the easiest of all. The man of whom I am thinking actually attended a public dinner that night at the Hotel Cecil, a re - union dinner to be exact of his old school. The Hotel Cecil, I need not remind you, is almost opposite Southampton Street. The Southampton Street post - office is the nearest one to the Hotel. What could be easier for him than to slip out of his seat for the five minutes which is all that would be required, and be back again almost before his neighbours had noticed his action?"

"What indeed?" murmured the rapt Mr. Bradley.

"I have two final points to make. You remember that in pointing out the resemblance of this case to the Molineux affair, I remarked that this similarity was more than surprising, it was significant. I will explain what I meant by that. What I meant was that the parallel was far too close for it to be just a coincidence. This case is a deliberate copy of that one. And if it is, there is only one inference. This murder is the work of a man steeped in criminal history - of a criminologist. And the man I have in mind is a criminologist.

"My last point concerns the denial in the newspaper of the rumoured engagement between Sir Eustace Pennefather and Miss Wildman. I learnt from his valet that Sir Eustace did not send that denial himself. Nor did Miss Wildman. Sir Eustace was furiously angry about it. It was sent, on his own initiative without consulting either of them, by the man whom I am accusing of having committed this crime."

Mr. Bradley stopped hugging himself for a moment. "And the nitrobenzene? Were you able to connect him with that too?"

That is one of the very few points on which I agree with Sir Charles. I don't think it in the least necessary, or possible, to connect him with such a common commodity, which can be bought anywhere without the slightest difficulty or remark."

Mrs. Fielder - Flemming was holding herself in with a visible effort. Her words, so calm and judicial to read, had hitherto been spoken too with a strenuous attempt towards calm and judicial delivery. But with each sentence the attempt was obviously becoming more difficult. Mrs. Fielder - Flemming was clearly getting so excited that a few more such sentences seemed likely to choke her, though to the others such intensity of feeling seemed a little unnecessary. She was approaching her climax, of course, but even that seemed hardly an excuse for such a very purple face and a hat that had now managed somehow to ride to the very back of her head where it trembled agitatedly in sympathy with its mistress.

"That is all," she concluded jerkily. "I submit that I have proved my case. This man is the murderer."

There was complete silence. "Well?" said Alicia Dammers impatiently. "Who is he, then?"

Sir Charles, who had been regarding the orator with a frown that grew more and more lowering every minute, thumped quite menacingly on the table in front of him. "Precisely," he growled. "Let us get out in the open. Against whom are these ridiculous insinuations of yours directed, madam?" One gathered that Sir Charles did not find himself in agreement with the lady's conclusions, even before knowing what they were.

"Accusations, Sir Charles," Mrs. Fielder - Flemming squeaked correction. "You - you pretend you don't know? "

"Really, madam," retorted Sir Charles, with massive dignity, "I'm afraid I have no idea."

And then Mrs. Fielder - Flemming became regrettably dramatic. Rising slowly to her feet like a tragedy queen (except that tragedy queens do not wear their hats tremblingly on the very backs of their heads, and if their faces are apt to go brilliant purple with emotion disguise the tint with appropriate grease paints), heedless of the chair overturning behind her with a dull, doom - like thud, her quivering finger pointing across the table, she confronted Sir Charles with every inch of her five - foot nothing.

"Thou!" shrilled Mrs. Fielder - Flemming. "Thou art the man!" Her outstretched finger shook like a ribbon on an electric fan. "The brand of Cain is on your forehead! Murderer!"

In the silence of ecstatic horror that followed Mr. Bradley clung deliriously to the arm of Mr. Chitterwick.

Sir Charles succeeded in finding his voice, temporarily mislaid. "The woman's mad," he gasped.

Finding that she had not been shot on the spot, or even blasted by blue lightning from Sir Charles's eyes, either of which possibilities it seemed that she had been dreading, Mrs. Fielder - Flemming proceeded rather less hysterically to amplify her charge.

"No, I am not mad, Sir Charles; I am very, very sane. You loved your daughter, and with the twofold love that a man who has lost his wife feels for the only feminine thing left to him. You considered that any lengths were justified to prevent her from tailing into the hands of Sir Eustace Pennefather - from having her youth, her innocence, her trust exploited by such a scoundrel.

"Out of your own mouth I convict you. Already you've told us that it was not necessary to mention everything that took place at your interview with Sir Eustace. No; for then you would have had to give away the fact that you informed him you would rather kill him with your own hands than see your daughter married to him. And when matters reached such a pass, what with the poor girl's infatuation and obstinacy and Sir Eustace's determination to take advantage of them, that no means short of that very thing was left to you to prevent the catastrophe, you did not shrink from employing them. Sir Charles Wildman, may God be your judge, for I cannot." Breathing heavily, Mrs, Fielder - Flemming retrieved her inverted chair and sat down on it.

"Well, Sir Charles," remarked Mr. Bradley, whose swelling bosom was threatening to burst his waistcoat. "Well, I wouldn't have thought it of you. Murder, indeed. Very naughty; very, very naughty."

For once Sir Charles took no notice of his faithful gadfly. It is doubtful whether he even heard him. Now that it had penetrated into his consciousness that Mrs. Fielder - Flemming really intended her accusation in all seriousness and was not the victim of a temporary attack of insanity, his bosom was swelling just as tumultuously as Mr. Bradley's. His face, adopting the purple tinge that Mrs. Fielder - Flemming's was relinquishing, took on the aspect of the frog in the fable who failed to realise his own bursting - point. Roger, whose emotions on hearing Mrs Fielder - Flemming's outburst had been so mixed to be almost scrambled, began to feel quite alarmed for him.

But Sir Charles found the safety - valve of speech just in time. "Mr. President," he exploded through it "if I am not right in assuming this to be a jest on this lady's part, even though a jest in the worst possible taste, am I to be expected to take this preposterous nonsense seriously?"

Roger glanced at Mrs. Fielder - Flemming's face, now set in flinty masses, and gulped. However, preposterous though Sir Charles might term it, his antagonist had certainly made out a case, and not a flimsy, unsupported case either. "I think," he said, as carefully as he could, "that if it had been any one but yourself in question. Sir Charles, you would agree that a charge of this kind, when there is real evidence to support it, does at least require to be taken seriously so far as to need refuting."

Sir Charles snorted and Mrs. Fielder - Flemming nodded her head several times with vehemence.

"If refuting is possible," observed Mr. Bradley. "But I must admit that, personally, I am impressed. Mrs. Fielder - Flemming seems to me to have made out her case. Would you like me to go and telephone for the police, Mr. President?" He spoke with an air of earnest endeavour to do his duty as a citizen, however distasteful it might be.

Sir Charles glared, but once more seemed bereft of words.

"Not yet, I think," Roger said gently. "We haven't heard yet what Sir Charles has to answer."

"Well, I suppose we may as well hear him," conceded Mr. Bradley.

Five pairs of eyes glued themselves on Sir Charles, five pairs of ears were strained. But Sir Charles, struggling mightily with himself, was silent.

"As I expected," murmured Mr. Bradley. "There is no defence. Even Sir Charles, who has snatched so many murderers from the rope, can find nothing to say in such a glaring case. It's very sad."

From the look he flashed at his tormentor it was to be deduced that Sir Charles might have found plenty to say had the two of them been alone together. As it was, he could only rumble.

"Mr. President," said Alicia Dammers, with her usual brisk efficiency, "I have a proposal to make. Sir Charles appears to be admitting his guilt by default, and Mr. Bradley, as a good citizen, wishes to hand him over to the police."

"Hear, hear!" observed the good citizen.

"Personally I should be sorry to do that. I think there is a good deal to be said for Sir Charles. Murder, we are taught, is invariably anti - social. But is it? I am of the opinion that Sir Charles's intention, that of ridding the world (and incidentally his own daughter) of Sir Eustace Pennefather, was quite in the world's best interests. That his intention miscarried and an innocent victim was killed is quite beside the point. Even Mrs. Fielder - Flemming seemed to be doubtful whether Sir Charles ought to be condemned, as a jury would certainly condemn him, though she added in conclusion that she did not feel competent to judge him.

"I differ from her. Being a person of, I hope, reasonable intelligence, I feel perfectly competent to judge him. And I consider further that all five of us are competent to judge him. I therefore suggest that we do in fact judge him ourselves. Mrs. Fielder - Flemming could act as prosecutor; somebody (I propose Mr. Bradley) could defend him; and all five of us constitute a jury, the finding to be by majority in favour or against. We would bind ourselves to abide by the result, and if it is against him we send for the police; if it is in his favour we agree never to breathe a word of his guilt outside this room. May this be put to the meeting?"

Roger smiled at her reprovingly. He knew quite well that Miss Dammers no more believed in Sir Charles's guilt than he, Roger, did himself, and he knew that she was only pulling that eminent counsel's leg; a little cruelly, but no doubt she thought it was good for him. Miss Dammers professed herself a strong believer in seeing the other side, and held that it would be a very good thing for the cat occasionally to find itself chased by the mouse; certainly therefore it was most salutary for a man who had prosecuted other men for their lives to find himself for once in the dock on just such a terrifying charge. Mr. Bradley, on the other hand, though he, too, obviously did not believe that Sir Charles was the murderer, mocked not out of conviction but because only so could he get a little of his own back against Sir Charles for having made more of a success of his life than Mr. Bradley was likely to do.

Nor, Roger thought, had Mr. Chitterwick any serious doubts as to the possibility of Sir Charles being guilty, though he was still looking so alarmed at Mrs. Fielder - Flemming's temerity in suggesting such a thing that it was not altogether possible to say what he did think. Indeed Roger was quite sure that nobody entertained the least suspicion of Sir Charles's innocence except Mrs. Fielder - Flemming - and perhaps, from the look of him. Sir Charles himself. As that outraged gentleman had pointed out, such an idea, looked at in sober reflection, was plainly the most preposterous nonsense. Sir Charles could not be guilty because - well, because he was Sir Charles, and because such things don't happen, and because he obviously couldn't be.

On the other hand Mrs. Fielder - Flemming had very neatly proved that he was. And Sir Charles had not even attempted yet to prove that he wasn't.

Not for the first time Roger wished, very sincerely, that anybody were sitting in the presidential chair but himself.

"I think," he now repeated, "that before we take any steps at all we ought to hear what Sir Charles has to say. I am sure," added the President kindly, remembering the right phrase, "that he will have a complete answer to all charges." He looked expectantly towards the criminal.

Sir Charles appeared to jerk himself out of the haze of his wrath. "I am really expected to defend myself against this - this hysteria?" he barked. "Very well. I admit I am a criminologist, which Mrs. Fielder - Flemming appears to think so damning. I admit that I attended a dinner at the Hotel Cecil on that night, which it seems is enough to put the rope round my neck. I admit, since it appears that my private affairs are to be dragged into public, regardless of taste or decency, that I would rather have strangled Sir Eustace with my own hands than see him married to my daughter."

He paused, and passed his hand rather wearily over his high forehead. He was no longer formidable but only a rather bewildered old man. Roger felt intensely sorry for him. But Mrs. Fielder - Flemming had stated her case too well for it to be possible to spare him.

"I admit all this, but none of it is evidence that would have very much weight in a court of law. If you want me to prove that I did not actually send those chocolates, what am I to say? I could bring my two neighbours at the dinner, who would swear that I never left my seat till - well, it must have been after ten o'clock. I can prove by means of other witnesses that my daughter finally consented, on my representations, to give up the idea of marriage with Sir Eustace and has gone voluntarily to stay with relations of ours in Devonshire for a considerable time. But there again I have to admit that this has happened since the date of posting the chocolates.

"In short, Mrs. Fielder - Flemming has managed, with considerable skill, to put together a prima facie case against me, though it was based on a mistaken assumption (I would point out to her that counsel is never constantly in and out of his client's premises, but meets him usually only in the presence of his solicitor, either at the former's place of business or in his own chambers), and I am quite ready, if this meeting thinks it advisable, for the matter to be investigated officially. More, I welcome such investigation in view of the slur that has been cast upon my name. Mr. President, I ask you, as representing the members as a whole, to take such action as you think fit."

Roger steered a wary course. "Speaking for myself, Sir Charles, I am quite sure that Mrs. Fielder - Flemming's reasoning, exceedingly clever though it was, has been based as you say upon an error, and really, as a matter of mere probability, I cannot see a father sending poisoned chocolates to the would - be fiance of his own daughter. A moment's thought would show him the practical inevitability of the chocolates reaching eventually the daughter herself. I have my own opinion about this crime, but even apart from that I feel quite certain in my own mind that the case against Sir Charles has not really been proved."

"Mr. President," cut in Mrs. Fielder - Flemming, not without heat, "you may say what you like, but in the interests of - - "

"I agree, Mr. President," Miss Dammers interrupted incisively. "It is unthinkable that Sir Charles could have sent those chocolates."

"Humph!" said Mr. Bradley, unwilling to have his sport spoiled quite so soon.

"Hear, hear!" Mr. Chitterwick, with surprising decision.

"On the other hand," Roger pursued, "I quite see that Mrs. Fielder - Flemming is entitled to the official investigation which Sir Charles asks for, no less than is Sir Charles himself on behalf of his good name. And I agree with Sir Charles that she has certainly made out a prima facie case for investigation. But what I should like to stress is that so far only two members out of six have spoken, and it is not outside possibility that such startling developments may have been traced out by the time we have all had our turn, that the one we are discussing now may (I do not say that it will, but it may) have faded into insignificance."

"Oho!" murmured Mr. Bradley. "What has our worthy President got up his sleeve?"

"I therefore propose, as a formal motion," Roger concluded, disregarding the somewhat sour looks cast on him by Mrs. Fielder - Flemming, "that we shelve the question regarding Sir Charles entirely, for discussion or report either inside or outside this room, for one week from today, when any member who wishes may bring it up again for decision, failing which it passes into oblivion for good and all. Shall we vote on that? Those in favour?"

The motion was carried unanimously. Mrs. Fielder - Flemming would have liked to vote against it, but she had never yet belonged to any committee where all motions were not carried unanimously and habit was too strong for her.

The meeting then adjourned, rather oppressed.