There was a silence.
"No," said Bennett, answering the unspoken question. "Not death or near death. He hadn't swallowed a sufficient quantity. They pulled him through; but none of us felt pleasant about our little experiment: The thing was: what was to be done? None of us wanted to call in the police, except Emery, and that wasn't on account of himself. He kept babbling that it was the finest publicity of the age, and ought to be in all the papers: he was talking like that this morning. It was Rainger who shut him up. Rainger pointed out at least he didn't crow over us — that, if the police were called in there'd be an investigation and they might not get Tait back to the States in the three weeks' grace allowed by the studio. They're both fanatically set on that."
"And Tait?"
"Didn't turn a hair. In fact," replied Bennett uneasily, remembering the faint smile on the small full lips and the veiled dark eyes under heavy lids, "she seemed rather pleased. But she nearly made good old sentimental hard-boiled Emery weep by the way she fluttered over him. Incidentally, Bohun seems the most flustered of the lot. There was another council of war this morning over too many cocktails. There was an effort to make it flippant, but everybody realized that someone-maybe someone present had…" He made a significant gesture.
"H'm, yes. Now wait a bit. D'you have those chocolates analyzed?"
`Bohun did. Two of them on the top layer, including the one Emery ate, were poisoned. Both together contained just a little less than enough strychnine to mean certain death. One was squashed a bit along one side, we noticed afterwards, as though the person hadn't known how to do his job quite well. Also, they were set so far apart that one person, except by an unholy coincidence of bad luck, wouldn't be likely to eat both. In other words, sir, it must have been what Willard suggested: a warning of some kind. "
H. M.'s swivel-chair creaked. One hand shaded his eyes, and his big glasses gleamed inscrutably from its shadow. He was silent a long time.
"Uh-huh. I see. What was decided at the council of war?"
"Maurice Bohun was to be in London this afternoon to take Marcia down to the White Priory, and incidentally go over the script. Willard was to go with them-by train. John is driving down late tonight in his car; he's got a business appointment in town, and won't get home until late. They wanted me to go down with the party, but I can't get away until late myself; another of those duty receptions."
"You goin' down tonight?"