Poisoned Chocolates Case (11 page)

“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.”