Joshua knew it would be a fool’s errand to attempt an escape from a Chamberlain house crawling with cops and detectives, so instead he just stood there as he waited to be handcuffed and hauled away, relatives gawking in disbelief.

Joshua would later confess to the crime:

“Yes, I killed him. Can you blame me? He only married his first wife for love. The rest he married for money, or in my mother’s case, political influence. My mother was decades younger than him, but after Anne and I were born, he divorced my mother. I was six years old. I hardly remember her, and poor Anne only knows what I told her.

“I had to do it. Not because of something he did to me—in fact, I had a nice, luxurious life in Chamberlain house—but because of what he did to all of his wives and his children, and because of what he would do if he was still alive.

“It was easy to slip the poison into his glass of red wine as I visited. The old fool likes his wine red and old, so I didn’t have to worry about him seeing or smelling it. It took an hour or two, but he eventually died in the Billiard Room.

“Anyway, it had to be done. Lock me up if you want. I stand by my decision.”

Meanwhile, the guests congratulated the detective Trigon on his discovery. Each time someone did so, he would politely thank them, but deflect the blame. “Half the work was done by my sidekick, pokes. I was just double-checking.”