“Quite, Mr. Whittlesby. There was the poisoned cocktail bitters, obviously meant for you. And then there was the cut brake lines on the motorcar you drive every day. Clearly, you have been the intended victim all along.” Phyllida was aware that everyone in the room had settled into a rapt silence as the tone of her voice changed. “Or have you?”

“What on earth—”

Phyllida spoke over Mr. Whittlesby, gaining steam with her narrative. “It was clearly the intention to poison Father Tooley with the cake—a cake that was spread with strawberry jam liberally laced with arsenic. But we will get to that in a moment. First, shall we discuss the cocktail party?”

Phyllida wasn’t asking a question meant to be answered, so she went on without pause. “At the cocktail party, two drinks were made with your special bitters, Mr. Whittlesby. One for you and one for Father Tooley. He was the only one who drank his, and he died—but whether it was from arsenic or nicotine poisoning, we don’t know. Either or both of them would have killed him.

“But was he the intended victim of the nicotine-laced bitters? Perhaps. But since Father Tooley was not known to imbibe spirits, no one could have expected he would have one of your special drinks, could they, Mr. Whittlesby? And so someone else had to have been the original, actual target for the poisoned Vieux Carré cocktail.”

“Of course there was—me!” cried Mr. Whittlesby, banging his fist on the table next to him. “No one else drinks anything with those bitters in it except for me.” His eyes bulged with fury, and it seemed that only the grip of his wife’s hand kept him from surging out of his chair. “Someone tried to kill me! And they killed Father Tooley, too, so they could change the contest results!”

“But Mrs. Whittlesby had your drink in her hand that night,” Phyllida said in a carrying voice. “She would have tasted it if Father Tooley’s death hadn’t distracted all of us. After all, it was clear to everyone present that Mrs. Whittlesby—er—enjoyed her spirits. It would have been an accident, correct?”

“It would have been ghastly!” cried Mrs. Rollingbroke. “Imagine if it had been me, Rolly!”

“But what if it hadn’t been an accident?” Phyllida went on smoothly. “When you told the footman not to serve your wife any more drinks, you had two motives for doing so, didn’t you, Mr. Whittlesby? One, to keep her from becoming even more intoxicated and embarrassing you in front of your colleagues . . . and two . . . so that she, desperate for another drink, would taste your cocktail. The cocktail that you knew was poisoned.”

Gasps rippled around the room and Mrs. Whittlesby yanked her hand from where it had curled around her husband’s arm. She stared at him in shock. “Is this true, Allie?”