The Cocktail Conundrum

Written by Stefanina Hill, Published on 12/16/2008

The exclusive cocktail party, hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Fairbank, had prematurely ended with the untimely demise of one of the guests, not to mention Mrs. Fairbank’s social reputation. The victim, Mrs. Maisy Rhys, tested positive for cyanide poisoning. Her death must have been instantaneous, which left no doubt that she had been poisoned at the party.

There was nothing to indicate a suicide. On the contrary, Mrs. Rhys had been excited about an upcoming holiday to Africa where she was planning to begin charitable work. No, Inspector Simmons was sure this was not a suicide. The dead woman had also left a will naming each of the other guests as a beneficiary, a strong motive for murder in the inspector’s opinion.

Inspector Simmons stepped lightly across the plush carpet and surveyed the room. There were only three suspects waiting to be interviewed, while his report had stated that he was to expect four. A tall, blonde woman walked briskly over and shook the inspector by the hand.

“Good evening, I’m Mrs. Fairbank, I do hope we can resolve this quickly, having police here will look terribly bad.”

“We seem to be one person short,” the inspector said as he looked briefly around the fashionable living room.

“Oh, my husband is unconscious in his chair,” Mrs. Fairbank replied with an indifferent tone.

As he looked over the arm of a recliner, Inspector Simmons noticed a corpulent, middle-aged man sleeping soundly, apparently unaware of the grave events that had taken place in his home.

“Could you wake your husband up for me please, madam?”

“Must I? He’s such a dreadful nuisance unless he’s asleep,” Mrs Fairbank said.

“Regrettably madam, it will be necessary,” the inspector replied.

Mrs. Fairbank gave her husband an unceremonious kick. After a series of grunts and some mumbled complaints about a headache, the man managed to focus on the inspector.

“Heavy night was it, Mr. Fairbank?”

“Cocktail party,” Fairbank grumbled.

“It might interest you to know that one of your guests is dead.”

“Can’t you get my wife to sort it out?”

“I’d like you to answer a couple of questions for me, Mr. Fairbank. How many people were here this evening?”

“Me, my wife, our son, Mr. Rhys and Mrs. Rhys. Can I go back to sleep now?”

“Sir, there’s been a murder!” The inspector cried in exasperation.

“Well I’d best let you get on with it then,” Mr Fairbank said as he promptly dropped back off to sleep.

Inspector Simmons was tempted to wake Mr. Fairbank up to charge him with aggravating a detective, but his attention came to rest upon a collection of bottles gathered on the central, glass living table.

“Were the contents of these bottles all that was consumed at the party?” Simmons asked.

“That’s correct,” Mrs. Fairbank replied, “I prepared food as well, but my husband managed to demolish all of that before the guests even arrived.”

“Who opened these bottles in preparation for the guests arriving?”

“My husband did. He was supposed to be in charge of dispensing the drinks but he just opened all the bottles, helped himself to a drink from each one and then fell asleep.”

“Who poured drinks during the party?”

“We all helped ourselves before we sat down, no one here is a heavy drinker and we were only on our first round when the tragedy occurred.”

“I see,” said the inspector.

Inspector Simmons looked around the living room, there were two cocktail glasses side by side on the central table, one on a small table next to a leather armchair and one balanced on the window sill next to an ornate wicker chair. All of the glasses contained a green liquid residue, except for the one by the leather armchair, which had a small amount of creamy white mixture in the bottom.

“Who drank from this glass?” Simmons asked as he pointed to the odd one out.

“That was mine,” Mr. Rhys said shakily, “the others drank grasshoppers, but I prefer White Russians.”

“Ah, so Mr. and Mrs. Fairbank and the victim were all drinking grasshoppers?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Mr. Rhys replied, as he looked around the room.

Inspector Simmons looked at the two glasses that stood next to each other on the central table. One glass was nearly empty and the other was very nearly full.

“Two people must have sat next to each other on the sofa.”

“That was me and Maisy,” Ian Fairbank explained.

“Which was your glass?” Inspector Simmons asked.

“This one,” Ian said as he pointed to the glass that was very nearly empty.

The Inspector looked over to the glass that was placed on the window ledge and noted that it was filled almost to the brim. Tucked behind the glass was a small ashtray. “So Mrs. Fairbank, you sat in the wicker chair?” the inspector asked. Mrs. Fairbank nodded briskly in answer.

“Quite an ashtray this one is,” the inspector commented as he walked briskly to the central table and scooped up a large metal receptacle that had been sitting just in front of Maisy’s glass. In the ornate ashtray were six cigarette butts.

“Yes, I like unusual ornaments,” Mrs. Fairbank said.

“Let me see, six cigarette ends are in here. Five Camels and one Marlboro.”

“The Camels were Maisy’s,” Ian said, “she was trying to quit, quite ironic really if you think about it.”

“Whose is the Marlboro?” Inspector Simmons asked.

“That was me, I like the occasional smoke,” Mrs. Fairbank said.

“You should try and give up if you can, it’s very bad for you,” Inspector Simmons said with a smile.