“And when he didn’t die, the murderer decided to poison him again, but with a faster-working poison,” said Mr. Berkeley, gesturing with his cigarette. “That’s quite, quite clever. An excellent plot twist, I must admit.”

“I think not,” Phyllida said, not the least bit concerned about correcting the man in front of his peers. “Whoever poisoned the cocktail had to have planned it in advance in order to have procured the bitters.”

“And why would someone want to kill a priest?” asked Mr. Chesterton. He had removed his pince-nez once again and fixed on her with his steady dark eyes. He was an intimidating figure, but Phyllida was not intimidated. “One would have to be very evil to want to off a man of the cloth.”

“I don’t have the answer to that yet,” she said. “Father Tooley was calculating the results of the Murder Fête Short Story Contest, was he not? Unless he presented them to one of you before he died, whatever the results were we shan’t know. For they are missing, and so are the score sheets.” She looked around at them, but each shook his or her head. “As I suspected. The only other place remaining to look is on Father Tooley’s person, to see whether he had them in his possession last night at the party.”

“I suppose we’d best discuss and pool our scoring of the stories, then,” said Mr. Chesterton. “So that we can determine who the winner is to be.”

“But that’s quite impossible, for Hugh and Freeman mailed their choices to me at Mallowan Hall,” Agatha said. “I didn’t open their envelopes, of course, but I gave them to Father Tooley.”

“You should telephone to them and find out what they wrote,” said Mr. Max, settling a gentle hand on her arm.

“Yes, of course. I can do that,” replied Agatha in a relieved tone. “That would be simple to do.”

Phyllida was about to speak when she noticed a flurry of agitated movement just outside the door. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” she said, rising from her chair. “It appears I’m needed.”

She walked briskly out of the room and found Molly, Elton, Stanley, and Rita clustered in the corridor, clearly upset about something and arguing with one another as to whether or not they should interrupt her.

“Oh, Mrs. Bright!” cried Molly at a volume that required Phyllida to shush her whilst prodding her out of sight and hearing from those inside the sitting room.

“What is it?” Phyllida said when they were at a distance.

“It’s Mr. Dobble—he’s, well, he’s quite . . . not himself. I—I think you ought to talk to him,” Molly said in a slightly less agitated voice.

“Has something happened?” Phyllida asked.