"Suspicion" is one of the most reprinted short stories by author and scholar Dorothy L. Sayers, who was perhaps best known for the Lor Peter Wimsey mysteries. It was first published in the premiere issue of Mystery League magazine (October 1933), edited by Ellery Queen and an ill-fated precursor to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and was reprinted in Sayers' 1939 collection In the Teeth of Evidence. Since then, it has been reprinted at least thirty times, including in anthologies edited by the likes of Queen, Will Cuppy, Herbert A. Wise & Phyllis Fraser, Bennett Cerf, Raymond T. Bond, Lee Wright, John Welcome, Mary Danby, and Marcia Muller & Bill Pronzini -- more than any other story penned by Sayers. The story has been adapted at least four time for television, and aired twice on the Suspense, first in 1949 featuring Charles Ruggles, and again on April 3, 1948 with Sam Jaffee in the lead role; in 1949 the story also transitioned to the Suspense television program as the second ever offering in that series.
Real estate agent Harold Mummery (Ruggles) fears for his ailing wife as police are searching for a cook suspected of poisoning several of her employers. It happened that, as the suspected poisoner disappear, Mummery had hired a new cook...and now Mummery himself has been suffering from stomach problems and begins to suspect their cook of plotting to do them in. He then discovered that someone has been tampering with a bottle of arsenic-based weed killer in his shed. He managed to get a sample of some hot chocolate the cook had prepared and brought it to be analyzed. When the results came back that the sample contained arsenic, he hurried home in a panic...
A tale of misdirection with a not-so-ambiguous ending as the poisoner appears to be revealed.
Enjoy this tale calculated to keep you in...SUSPENSE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXNUqfEf5vI
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