The Poisoned Chocolates Case rs-5

by Anthony Berkeley

  "Not very much difference," pleaded Mr. Chitterwick.

  "Well, not very much difference certainly," agreed Sir Charles, frankly puzzled.

  "Then have I your word, Mr. President?" persisted Mr. Chitterwick, very mournfully.

  "If you put it like that," said Roger, rather coldly. The meeting then broke up, somewhat bewildered.

  CHAPTER XVII

  IT was quite evident that, as he had said, Mr. Chitterwick did not want to speak. He looked appealingly round the circle of faces the next evening when Roger asked him to do so, but the faces remained decidedly unsympathetic. Mr Chitterwick, expressed the faces plainly, was being a silly old woman.

  Mr. Chitterwick cleared his throat nervously two or three times and took the plunge. "Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, I quite realise what you must be thinking, and I must plead for leniency. I can only say in excuse of what you must consider my perversity, that convincing though Miss Dammers's clever exposition was and definite as her proofs appeared, we have listened to so many apparently convincing solutions of this mystery and been confronted with so many seemingly definite proofs, that I could not help feeling that perhaps even Miss Dammers's theory might not prove on reflection to be not quite so strong as one would at first think." Mr. Chitterwick, having surmounted this tall obstacle, blinked rapidly but was unable to recall the next sentence he had prepared so carefully.

  He jumped it, and went on a little. "As the one to whom has fallen the task, both a privilege and a responsibility, of speaking last, you may not consider it out of place if I take the liberty of summing up the various conclusions that have been reached here, so different in both their methods and results. Not to waste time however in going over old ground, I have prepared a little chart which may show more clearly the various contrasting theories, parallels, and suggested criminals. Perhaps members would care to pass it round."

  ---------------------------------- MR CHITTERWICK'S CHART --------------

  Solver - Motive - Angle of View - Salient Feature - Method of Proof - Parallel Case - Criminal

  Sir Charles Wildman - Gain - Cui bono - Notepaper - Inductive - Marie Lefarge - Lady Pennefather

  Mrs. Fielder-Flemming - Elimination - Cherchez la femme - Hidden Triangle - Intuitive and Inductive - Molineux - Sir Charles Wildman

  Bradley (1) - Experiment - Detective-novelist's - Nitro-benzene - Scientific deduction - Dr. Wilson - Bradley

  Bradley (2) - Jealousy - Character of Sir Eustace - Criminological knowledge of murderer - Deductive - Christina Edmunds - Woman unnamed

  Sheringham - Gain - Character of Mr. Bendix - Bet - Deductive and Inductive - Carlyle Harris - Bendix

  Miss Dammers - Elimination - Psychology of all participants - Criminal's character - Psychological deduction - Tawell - Sir Eustace Pennefather

  Police - Conviction, or lust of killing - General - Material clues - Routine - Horwood - Unknown fanatic or lunatic

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  With much hesitation Mr. Chitterwick produced the chart on which he had spent so much careful thought, and offered it to Mr. Bradley on his right. Mr. Bradley received it graciously, and even condescended to lay it on the table between himself and Miss Dammers and examine it. Mr. Chitterwick looked artlessly gratified.

  "You will see," said Mr. Chitterwick, with a shade more confidence, "that practically speaking no two members have agreed on any one single matter of importance. The divergence of opinion and method is really remarkable. And in spite of such variations each member has felt confident that his or her solution was the right one. This chart, more than any words of mine could, emphasises not only the extreme openness, as Mr. Bradley would say, of the case before us, but illustrates another of Mr. Bradley's observations too, that is how surprisingly easy it is to prove anything one may desire, by a process either of conscious or of unwitting selection.

  "Miss Dammers, I think," suggested Mr. Chitterwick, "may perhaps find that chart especially interesting. I am not myself a student of psychology, but even to me it was striking to notice how the solution of each member reflected, if I may say so, that particular member's own trend of thought and character. Sir Charles, for instance, whose training has naturally led him to realise the importance of the material, will not mind if I point out that the angle from which he viewed the problem was the very material one of cui bono, while the equally material evidence of the notepaper formed for him its salient feature. At the other end of the scale, Miss Dammers herself regards the case almost entirely from a psychological view - point and takes as its salient feature the character, as unconsciously revealed, of the criminal.

  "Between these two, other members have paid attention to psychological and material evidence in varying proportions. Then again, the methods of building up the case against a suspected person have been widely different. Some of us have relied almost entirely on inductive methods, some almost wholly on deductive; while some, like Mr. Sheringham, have blended the two. In short, the task our President set us has proved a most instructive lesson in comparative detection."

  Mr. Chitterwick cleared his throat, smiled nervously, and continued. "There is another chart which I might have made, and which I think would have been no less illuminating than this one. It is a chart of the singularly different deductions drawn by different members from the undisputed facts in the case. Mr. Bradley might have found particular interest in this possible chart, as a writer of detective - stories.

  "For I have often noticed," apologised Mr. Chitterwick to the writers of detective - stories en masse, "that in books of that kind it is frequently assumed that any given fact can admit of only one single deduction, and that invariably the right one. Nobody else is capable of drawing any deductions at all but the author's favourite detective, and the ones he draws (in the books where the detective is capable of drawing deductions at all which, alas, are only too few) are invariably right. Miss Dammers mentioned something of the kind one evening herself, with her illustration of the two bottles of ink.

  "As an example of what really happens therefore, I should like to cite the sheet of Mason's notepaper in this case. From that single piece of paper the following deductions have at one time or another been drawn:

  1. That the criminal was an employee or ex - employee of Mason & Sons.

  2. That the criminal was a customer of Mason & Sons.

  3. That the criminal was a printer, or had access to a printing - press.

  4. That the criminal was a lawyer, acting on behalf of Mason & Sons.

  5. That the criminal was a relative of an ex - employee of Mason & Sons.

  6. That the criminal was a would - be customer of Webster's, the printers.

  "There have been plenty of other deductions of course from that sheet of paper, such as that the chance possession of it suggested the whole method of the crime, but I am only calling attention to the ones which were to point directly to the criminal's identity. There are no less than six of them, you see, and all mutually contradictory."

  "I'll write a book for you, Mr. Chitterwick," promised Mr. Bradley, "in which the detective shall draw six contradictory deductions from each fact. He'll probably end up by arresting seventy - two different people for the murder and committing suicide because he finds afterwards that he must have done it himself. I'll dedicate the book to you."

  "Yes, do," beamed Mr. Chitterwick. "For really, it wouldn't be far from what we've had in this case. For example, I only called attention to the notepaper. Besides that there were the poison, the typewriter, the postmark, the exactness of the dose - oh, many more facts. And from each one of them not much less than half - a - dozen different deductions have been drawn. "In fact," Mr. Chitterwick summed up, "it was as much as anything the different deductions drawn by different members that proved their different cases."

  "On second thoughts," decided Mr. Bradley, "my detectives in future will be the kind that don't draw any deductions at all. Besides, that
will be so much easier for me."

  "So with these few remarks on the solutions we have already heard," continued Mr. Chitterwick, "which I hope members will pardon me, I will hurry on to my explanation of why I asked Mr. Sheringham so urgently last evening not to go to Scotland Yard at once."

  Five faces expressed silent agreement that it was about time Mr. Chitterwick was heard on that point. Mr. Chitterwick appeared to be conscious of the thoughts behind the faces, for his manner became a little flurried.

  "I must first deal very briefly with the case against Sir Eustace Pennefather, as Miss Dammers gave it us last night. Without belittling her presentation of it in any way at all, I must just point out that her two chief reasons for fixing the guilt upon him seemed to me to be firstly that he was the type of person whom she had already decided the criminal must be, and secondly that he had been conducting an intrigue with Mrs. Bendix and certainly would have seemed to have some cause for wishing her out of the way - if (but only if) Miss Dammers's own view of the progress of that intrigue was the correct one.

  "But the typewriter, Mr. Chitterwick!" cried Mrs. Fielder - Flemming, loyal to her sex.

  Mr. Chitterwick started. "Oh, yes; the typewriter. I'm coming to that. But before I reach it, I should like to mention two other points which Miss Dammers would have us believe are important material evidence against Sir Eustace, as opposed to the psychological. That he should be in the habit of buying Mason's liqueur chocolates for his - his female friends hardly seems to me even significant. If every one who is in the habit of buying Mason's liqueur chocolates is to be suspect, then London must be full of suspects. And surely even so unoriginal a murderer as Sir Eustace would seem to be, would have taken the elementary precaution of choosing some vehicle for the poison which is not generally associated with his name, instead of one that is. And if I may venture the opinion, Sir Eustace is not quite such a dunderhead as Miss Dammers would seem to think.

  "The second point is that the girl in Webster's should have recognised, and even identified, Sir Eustace from his photograph. That also doesn't appear to me, if Miss Dammers doesn't mind my saying so, nearly as significant as she would have us believe. I have ascertained," said Mr. Chitterwick, not without pride (here too was a piece of real detecting) "that Sir Eustace Pennefather buys his notepaper at Webster's, and has done so for years. He was in there about a month ago to order a fresh supply. It would be surprising, considering that he has a title, if the girl who served him had not remembered him; it cannot be considered significant," said Mr. Chitterwick quite firmly, "that she does.

  "Apart from the typewriter, then, and perhaps the copies of the criminological books, Miss Dammers's case has no real evidence to support it at all, for the matter of the broken alibi, I am afraid, must be held to be neither here nor there. I don't wish to be unfair," said Mr. Chitterwick carefully, "but I think I am justified in saying that Miss Dammers's case against Sir Eustace rests entirely and solely upon the evidence of the typewriter." He gazed round anxiously for possible objections.

  One came, promptly. "But you can't possibly get round that," exclaimed Mrs. Fielder - Flemming impatiently.

  Mr. Chitterwick looked a trifle distressed. "Is 'get round' quite the right expression? I'm not trying wilfully or maliciously to pick holes in Miss Dammers's case just for amusement. You must really believe that. Please think that I am actuated only by a desire to bring this crime home to its real perpetrator. And with that end alone in view, I can certainly suggest an explanation of the typewriter evidence which excludes the guilt of Sir Eustace."

  Mr. Chitterwick looked so unhappy at what he conceived to be Mrs. Fielder - Flemming's insinuation that he was merely wasting the Circle's time, that Roger spoke him kindly.

  "You can?" he said gently, as one encourages one's daughter on drawing a cow, which if not much like a cow is certainly unlike any other animal on earth. "That's very interesting, Mr. Chitterwick. How do you explain it then?"

  Mr. Chitterwick, responding to treatment, shone with pride. "Dear me! You can't see it really? Nobody sees it?" It seemed that nobody saw it.

  "And yet the possibility of such a thing has been before me right from the beginning of the case," crowed the now triumphant Mr. Chitterwick. " Well, well!" He arranged his glasses on his nose and beamed round the Circle, his round red face positively aglow.

  "Well, what is the explanation, Mr. Chitterwick? " queried Miss Dammers, when it seemed that Mr. Chitterwick was going to continue beaming in silence for ever.

  "Oh! Oh, yes; of course. Why, to put it one way, Miss Dammers, that you were wrong and Mr. Sheringham was right, in your respective estimates of the criminal's ability. That there was, in fact, an extremely able and ingenious mind behind this murder (Miss Dammers's attempts to prove the contrary were, I'm afraid another case of special pleading). And that one of the ways in which this ingenuity was shown, was to arrange the evidence in such a way that if any one were to be suspected it would be Sir Eustace. That the evidence of the typewriter, in a word, and of the criminological books was, as I believe the technical word is, 'rigged.'" Mr. Chitterwick resumed his beam.

  Everybody sat up with what might have been a concerted jerk. In a flash the tide of feeling towards Mr. Chitterwick had turned. The man had got something to say after all. There actually was an idea behind that untimely request of the previous evening.

  Mr. Bradley rose to the occasion, and he quite forgot to speak quite so patronisingly as usual. " I say - dam' good, Chitterwick! But can you substantiate that? "

  "Oh, yes. I think so," said Mr. Chitterwick, basking in the rays of appreciation that were being shone on him.

  "You'll be telling us next you know who did it," Roger smiled.

  Mr. Chitterwick smiled back. "Oh, I know that."

  "What!" exclaimed five voices in chorus.

  "I know that, of course," said Mr. Chitterwick modestly. "You've practically told me that yourselves. Coming last of all, you see, my task was comparatively simple. All I had to do was to sort out the true from the false in everybody else's statements, and - well, there was the truth."

  The rest of the Circle looked their surprise at having told Mr. Chitterwick the truth without knowing it themselves.

  Mr. Chitterwick's face took on a meditative aspect. "Perhaps I may confess now that when our President first propounded his idea to us, I was filled with dismay. I had had no practical experience of detecting, I was quite at a loss as to how to set about it, and I had no theory of the case at all. I could not even see a starting - point. The week flew by, so far as I was concerned, and left me exactly where I had been at its beginning. On the evening Sir Charles spoke he convinced me completely. The next evening, for a short time, Mrs. Fielder - Flemming convinced me too.

  "Mr. Bradley did not altogether convince me that he had committed the murder himself, but if he had named any one else then I should have been convinced; as it was, he convinced me that his - his discarded mistress theory," said Mr. Chitterwick bravely, "must be the correct one. That indeed was the only idea I had had at all, that the crime might be the work of one of Sir Eustace's - h'm! - discarded mistresses.

  "But the next evening Mr. Sheringham convinced me just as definitely that Mr. Bendix was the murderer. It was only last night, during Miss Dammers's exposition, that I at last began to realise the truth."

  "Then I was the only one who didn't convince you, Mr. Chitterwick?" Miss Dammers smiled.

  "I'm afraid," apologised Mr. Chitterwick, "that is so."

  He mused for a moment. "It is really remarkable, quite remarkable, how near in some way or other everybody got to the truth of this affair. Not a single person failed to bring out at least one important fact, or make at least one important deduction correctly. Fortunately, when I realised that the solutions were going to differ so widely, I made copious notes of the preceding ones and kept them up to date each evening as soon as I got home. I thus had a complete record of the productions of all these brains, so much superior to my ow
n."

  "No, no," murmured Mr. Bradley.

  "Last night I sat up very late, poring over these notes, separating the true from the false. It might perhaps interest members to hear my conclusions in this respect?" Mr. Chitterwick put forward the suggestion with the utmost diffidence.

  Everybody assured Mr. Chitterwick that they would be only too gratified to hear where they had stumbled inadvertently on the truth.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  MR. CHITTERWICK consulted a page of his notes. For a moment he looked a little distressed. "Sir Charles," he began. "Er - Sir Charles . . ." It was plain that Mr. Chitterwick was finding difficulty in discovering any point at all on which Sir Charles had been right, and he was a kindly man. He brightened. "Oh, yes, of course. Sir Charles was the first to point out the important fact that there had been an erasure on the piece of notepaper used for the forged letter. That was - er - very helpful.

  "Then he was right too when he put forward the suggestion that Sir Eustace's impending divorce was really the mainspring of the whole tragedy. Though I am afraid," Mr. Chitterwick felt compelled to add, "that the inference he drew was not the correct one. He was quite right in feeling that the criminal, in such a clever plot, would take steps to arrange an alibi, and that there was, in fact, an alibi in the case that would have to be circumvented. But then again it was not Lady Pennefather's.

  "Mrs. Fielder - Flemming," continued Mr. Chitterwick, "was quite right to insist that the murder was the work of somebody with a knowledge of criminology. That was a very clever inference, and I am glad," beamed Mr. Chitterwick, "to be able to assure her that it was perfectly correct. She contributed another important piece of information too, just as vital to the real story underlying this tragedy as to her own case, namely that Sir Eustace was not in love with Miss Wildman at all but was hoping to marry her simply for her money. Had that not been the case," said Mr. Chitterwick, shaking his head, "I fear, I very much fear, that it would have been Miss Wildman who met her death instead of Mrs. Bendix."