Arsenic And Old Cake

[sonetka]

While taking a breather from the sixteenth century (my God, the Anne Boleyn books NEVER END, I really had no idea what I was taking on there) I wrote this post -- the story of a Pennsylvania accountant poisoned by an anonymously-sent slice of arsenical wedding cake. This happened in 1922, and what with the ironclad alibis, all-too-talkative

Comments

[matril]

Wow, that does sound like something straight out of a cosy mystery, except for the failure to ever solve the murder. Maybe the only really outlandish part of Agatha Christie's storytelling was the existence of all-knowing, never-wrong detectives.

[sonetka]

I know -- and they're usually the best part, too! I've wondered sometimes if Agatha Christie did see a small item about it in the news at some point and filed it away for future reference, but the fact that she didn't use the "poisoned wedding cake sent through the mail" gimmick until thirty years later makes me think she came up with it on her own while casting about for yet another way of getting arsenic into someone