The poisoned chocolates case

Through the haze of cigarette-smoke eager voices reached his ears from all directions, prattling joyfully upon this and that connected with murder, poisons and sudden death. For this was his own, his very own Crimes Circle, founded, organised, collected, and now run by himself alone; and when at the first meeting five months ago he had been unanimously elected its president, he had been as full of proud delight as on that never-to-be-forgotten day in the dim past when a cherub disguised as a publisher had accepted his first novel.

He turned to Chief Inspector Moresby of Scotland Yard who, as the guest of the evening, was sitting on his right, engaged, a little uneasily, with a positively enormous cigar.

“Honestly, Moresby, without any disrespect to your own institution, I do believe that there’s more solid criminological genius in this room (intuitive genius, I mean; not capacity for taking pains) than anywhere in the world outside the Sûreté in Paris.”

“Do you, Mr. Sheringham?” said Chief Inspector Moresby tolerantly. Moresby was always kind to the strange opinions of others. “Well, well.” And he applied himself again to the lighted end of his cigar, which was so very far from the other that Moresby could never tell by mere suction at the latter whether the former were still alight or not.

Roger had some grounds for his assertion beyond mere parental pride. Entry into the charmed Crimes Circle’s dinners was not to be gained by all and hungry. It was not enough for a would-be member to profess an adoration for murder and let it go at that; he or she had got to prove that they were capable of worthily wearing their criminological spurs.

Not only must the interest be intense in all branches of the science, in the detection side, for instance, just as much as the side of criminal psychology, with the history of all cases of the least importance at the applicant’s finger-tips, but there must be constructive ability too; the candidate must have a brain and be able to use it. To this end, a paper had to be written, from a choice of subjects suggested by members, and submitted to the president, who passed on such as he considered worthy to the members in conclave, who thereupon voted for or against the suppliant’s election; and a single adverse vote meant rejection.

It was the intention of the club to acquire eventually thirteen members, but so far only six had succeeded in passing their tests, and these were all present on the evening when this chronicle opens. There was a famous lawyer, a scarcely less famous woman dramatist, a brilliant novelist who ought to have been more famous than she was, the most intelligent (if not the most amiable) of living detective-story writers, Roger Sheringham himself, and Mr. Ambrose Chitterwick, who was not famous at all, a mild little man of no particular appearance who had been even more surprised at being admitted to this company of personages than they had been at finding him amongst them.

With the exception of Mr. Chitterwick, then, it was an assembly of which any organiser might have been proud. Roger this evening was not only proud but excited too, because he was going to startle them; and it is always exciting to startle personages. He rose to do so.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he proclaimed, after the welcome of glasses and cigarette-cases drummed on the table had died away. “Ladies and gentlemen, in virtue of the powers conferred by you the president of our Circle is permitted to alter at his discretion the arrangements made for any meeting. You all know what arrangements were made for this evening. Chief Inspector Moresby, whom we are so glad to welcome as the first representative of Scotland Yard to visit us”—more drumming on the table—“Chief Inspector Moresby was to be lulled by rich food and sound wine into being so indiscreet as to tell us about such of his experiences as could hardly be given to a body of pressmen.” More and longer drumming.

Roger refreshed himself with a sip of brandy and continued. “Now I think I know Chief Inspector Moresby pretty well, ladies and gentlemen, and the occasions are not a few on which I too have tried, and tried very hard, to lure him similarly into the paths of indiscretion; but never once have I succeeded. I have therefore little hope that this Circle, lure it never so cooingly, will succeed in getting from the Chief Inspector any more interesting stories than he would mind being published in The Daily Courier to-morrow. Chief Inspector Moresby, I am afraid, ladies and gentlemen, is unlurable.