The Poisoned Chocolates Case

I

Roger Sheringham took a sip of the old brandy in front of him and leaned back in his chair at the head of the table.

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.