Monday, June 9, 2025

"They Put Arsenic in His Meat and Stared Aghast To Watch Him Eat"

DOROTHY SAYERS had several series characters, but today's protagonist is a one-off, an ordinary guy who's gripped by an overwhelming . . .

"Suspicion."
By Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; and the IMDb HERE).
First appearance: Mystery League, October 1933.
Reprints page (ISFDb HERE), of which there were many.
Short story (9 pages).
Online at SFFAudio (HERE) and Archive.org (HERE; faded text).

   "But there had been the cocoa. Mr. Dimthorpe. Marsh's test. Five grains of arsenic."

IT'S all too easy to overlook something that could be dangerous. In Mr. Mummery's case, it's right under his nose . . .

Principal characters:
~ Mr. Mummery ("It had all been a mad mistake then"), Mr. Brookes ("Those arsenic-maniacs. They're too damned careful of their own skins. Cunning as weasels, that's what they are"), Mrs. Andrews ("She looks harmless enough"), Mrs. Sutton ("She's a good cook, and a sweet, motherly old thing, too"), Ethel ("was lying snuggled under the eiderdown and looked very small and fragile in the big double-bed"), Dr. Griffiths ("Pigs and oranges together are extraordinarily bad for the liver"), Mrs. Welbeck ("chose to prattle about the Lincoln Poisoning Case"), and Mr. Dimthorpe ("There must be four or five grains of pure arsenic in that bottle").

Typo: "March's test".

References:
- "tucked up in a corner of the chesterfield" (HERE) and (HERE).
- "I used Marsh's test" (HERE).

Resources:
- The title of today's post is from "Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff" by A. E. Housman (HERE).
- Alfred Hitchcock might have been fond of today's title word since he used it in a movie adaptation instead of the original source material (WARNING! SPOILERS! Wikipedia HERE).
- Our latest meeting with Dorothy L. Sayers was her Montague Egg adventure, "Murder in the Morning" (HERE).

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.
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