"Woman's weapon," my ass.

[amanuensis1]

I read an interesting fic this morning, and it made me think: if you're going to serve someone poisoned food--the kind that needs cooking and assembling--how can you tell if the food's cooked to palatability before you serve it? You can't very well taste it and see. So you'd have to put the poison in at the end. But then you'd have this pot sitting on the stove and what if someone came in and said, "Oh, stew!" and sampled some? So it'd be safer to put it in the individual bowl it was going to be served in. But then you'd have to mix it around in the bowl to mix in the poison. And be careful not to lick the spoon after. And what if it got sloshed around the edges of the bowl and didn't look pristine for serving; then you'd have to put it in another bowl. And wash the first one real quick, before you took the poisoned one out for serving. And what gets out poison residue from dishware? Do you just use regular liquid detergent? Maybe you should throw away the bowl. But what if someone finds it in the garbage; then that's evidence. And what if it's the kind of poison that needs to be cooked into the food a little so the victim doesn't taste it? Then we're back to the pot on the stove. Damn, this is tricky.

Yes, I think about this kind of stuff.

Comments

[ellid.livejournal.com]

One of Dorothy Sayers' mysteries dealt with exactly this, and the solution turned out to be old (but effective): the murderer had gradually built up a tolerance to arsenic, which is medicinal in extremely small quantities. He then poisoned his victim in public, by adding arsenic to *both* their meals (a omelet made at the table in a chafing dish). The victim died, the murderer was fine, and it took some very fancy work by Lord Peter and Miss Climpson to figure it all out....

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Right right right! And hooray for Iocane powder, too. ^_^

[djin7.livejournal.com]

There are two classic blunders in history, the first, obviously, is never start a land war in Asia...

[lazy-neutrino.livejournal.com]

Another devious poisoning story I've read involved a victim with a sensitivity to the poison in question, which was one of those things that can be harvested from plants. Pigeons and rabbits grazed freely on the plant and then were killed and sent round for the dinner table by the 'friendly' neighbour - who of course had no idea that the toxic plants were on his land...

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Aww, poor widdle bunnies!

[lazy-neutrino.livejournal.com]

Definitely 'plot bunnies', one might say!

[maelwaedd.livejournal.com]

Whereas nobody would have figured that out in the Princess Bride... :)

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

*gets into a landwar in Asia*