Editing Strong Poison (section)

==Plot==
The novel opens with mystery author [[Harriet Vane]] on trial for the murder of her former lover, Phillip Boyes: a writer with strong views on atheism, anarchy, and [[free love]]. Publicly professing to disapprove of marriage, he had persuaded a reluctant Harriet to live with him, only to renounce his principles a year later and to propose. Harriet, outraged at being deceived, had broken off the relationship.

Following the separation, the former couple had met occasionally, and the evidence at trial pointed to Boyes suffering from repeated bouts of gastric illness at around the time that Harriet was buying poisons under assumed names, to demonstrate – so she said – a plot point of her novel then in progress.

Returning from a holiday in [[North Wales]] in better health, Boyes had dined with his cousin, the solicitor Norman Urquhart, before going to Harriet's flat to discuss reconciliation, where he had accepted a cup of coffee. That night he was taken fatally ill, apparently with gastritis. Foul play was eventually suspected, and a post-mortem revealed that Boyes had died from acute [[arsenic poisoning]]. Apart from Harriet's coffee and the evening meal with his cousin in which every item had been shared by two or more people, the victim appeared to have taken nothing else that evening.

The trial results in a [[hung jury]]. As a unanimous verdict is required, the judge orders a re-trial. [[Lord Peter Wimsey]] visits Harriet in prison, declares his conviction of her innocence and promises to catch the real murderer. Wimsey also announces that he wishes to marry her, a suggestion that Harriet politely but firmly declines.

Working against time before the new trial, Wimsey first explores the possibility that Boyes killed himself. Wimsey's friend, Detective Inspector [[Charles Parker (detective)|Charles Parker]], disproves that theory. 

The rich great-aunt of the cousins Urquhart and Boyes, Rosanna Wrayburn, is now quite old and close to death. Urquhart is acting as her family solicitor. He tells Wimsey that when she dies most of her fortune will pass to him, with nothing at all going to Boyes. Wimsey suspects that to be a lie, and sends his enquiry agent [[Miss Climpson]] to get hold of Rosanna's original will, which she does in a comic scene exposing the practices of fraudulent [[Mediumship|mediums]]. The will in fact names Boyes as principal beneficiary.

Wimsey plants a spy, Miss Joan Murchison, in Urquhart's office where she finds a hidden packet of arsenic. She also discovers that Urquhart had abused his position as Rosanna's solicitor, [[embezzlement|embezzled]] her investments, then lost the money on the [[stock market]]. Urquhart recognised that he would face inevitable exposure should Rosanna die and Boyes claim his inheritance. However, Boyes was unaware of the will's contents and Urquhart reasoned that if Boyes were to die first, nobody could challenge him as sole remaining beneficiary, and his fraud would not be revealed.

After perusing [[A.E. Housman]]'s ''[[A Shropshire Lad]]'', in which the poet likens the reading of serious poetry to [[Mithridates VI of Pontus|King Mithridates']] [[mithridatism|self-immunization]] against poisons, Wimsey suddenly understands what had happened. Urquhart had administered the arsenic in an [[omelette]] which Boyes himself had cooked. Although Boyes and Urquhart had shared the dish, the latter had been unaffected as he had carefully built up his own immunity beforehand by taking small doses of the poison over a long period. Wimsey tricks Urquhart into a confession before witnesses.

At Harriet's retrial, the prosecution presents no case and she is freed. Exhausted by her ordeal, she again rejects Wimsey's proposal of marriage. Wimsey persuades Parker to propose to his sister, Lady Mary, whom he has long admired. Freddy Arbuthnot, Wimsey's friend and stock market contact, marries Rachel Levy, the daughter of the murder victim in ''[[Whose Body?]]''