A Drama in a Dining-Room by Edgar Saltus

Name: A Drama in a Dining-Room
Author: Edgar Saltus

At a Paris dinner given by the Duchess de Malakoff, the narrator sits beside his old friend Sally and observes across the table a strikingly handsome young man, the Marquis de Parabole, seated next to his wife, a beautiful young vision, while a small redheaded woman with a diamond set in a front tooth sits beside the narrator. From her accent and appearance he takes her for Brazilian, and he notices her shoot a look of pure hatred across the table at De Parabole and the young wife. He later learns from Sally that the redheaded woman is in fact also connected to De Parabole, though the two women are strikingly different in age. The narrator, in Paris to work on a history of the young empresses of Rome, spends his mornings at the Bibliothèque Nationale, where he unexpectedly encounters De Parabole absorbed in manuscripts. They later share a table at the Café Anglais, where De Parabole reveals he is studying alchemy, specifically the work of the bookseller Flamel, and expounds at length on the lost secret of transmuting metals, citing the vanished wealth of ancient kings like Assurbanipal and the researches of Geber, Roger Bacon, and Paracelsus, who spoke of a quintessence called the alcahest. De Parabole shows the narrator an envelope, addressed to himself at a club and scented with orris, on which he has jotted a chemical formula, and mentions almost in passing that human flesh and blood are the best components, though prejudice makes this impractical. He invites the narrator to see his experiments at a maisonnette he keeps in the Rue de la Pompe, separate from his home in the Avenue Marceau, but the narrator declines, preferring his research, and they part. Weeks later, at Étretat, the narrator reads in the Figaro that De Parabole has been arrested for murder. Mrs. Nicholas Manhattan, Sally's aunt, gleefully tells him it is his wife De Parabole killed, accusing him of taking her fortune and then her life, boiling her body in a cauldron. The narrator, defending the general principle that a man worn down by a wife's conduct might snap, is sharply rebuked by Mrs. Manhattan. At the trial in Paris, which the narrator attends as a journalist, the president lays out the prosecution's case: De Parabole married a rich Brazilian widow, dissipated her fortune, then devised the alchemy scheme to explain the laboratory in the Rue de la Pompe. On the night of July 12th his wife arrived at the house, was never seen again, a scream was heard, and later a glow of flame was noticed; a cauldron was found containing bone fragments and a caustic residue capable of dissolving a body, along with a diamond-filled tooth matching the missing marquise's distinctive feature. De Parabole claims the residue came from a gorilla obtained from the Jardin d'Acclimatation, which the prosecution allows he did acquire, but argues this was merely a prepared alibi. Witnesses, including the coachman who drove the marquise to the house that night, and various agents and experts, corroborate the prosecution's account, and the avocat général asks the jury for justice. De Parabole's advocate, Maître Dupin, opens by citing Gaboriau's Affaire Lerouge and prepares to argue that no true motive has been shown and that the diamond tooth is the one troubling piece of evidence he cannot fully explain — when he interrupts himself to announce that the Marquise de Parabole is not dead at all, but died two days earlier in Rio de Janeiro, producing a cablegram to the Brazilian consul, Dr. Rosa e Silva, as proof, and asking for an adjournment. The courtroom erupts, and the narrator leaves amid the tumult. Months later, back at the Malakoffs' dining room, the narrator again sits by Sally, with De Parabole and the young vision across the table and Mrs. Manhattan beside him. Mrs. Manhattan reveals that De Parabole is now engaged to the young woman, and that it was this attachment which drove the redheaded Brazilian ("the Hottentot," as Mrs. Manhattan calls her) to plant her own diamond tooth in the ooze and vanish, hoping to have De Parabole guillotined for her murder, only to die of her own accord before the scheme could succeed. The narrator remarks that he would have taken her life himself had she not conveniently died first, then muses to Mrs. Manhattan about asking De Parabole whether he still seeks the alcahest, which he defines as a synonym for happiness, found, he suggests, in the kiss of one girl — a thought that goes unnoticed as Sally rises and the party moves on to other rooms.

By Edgar Saltus · First published 1921 · Genre: Crime/Mystery Fiction, Suspense/Thriller, Psychological Drama · 5,422 words

First lines

In the multiple brilliancies of the dining-room I found myself at the left of the Duchess Sally. Ever since her girlhood I had known her. At Narragansett Pier, in the good old nights before the Casino was dreamed of, I had sat with her on verandas that were vibrant with osculations. That was some time ago. Her subsequent transatlantic triumphs and spectacular marriage to the Duc de Malakoff are now ancient and familiar history -- so ancient even that I am dispensed from noting that Sally is no chicken. But though her youth had gone, her heart is young. Hence, no doubt, in disregard of every canon of precedence, my place beside her. But then, as I have intimated, she never was ceremonious.

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A Drama in a Dining-Room is listed on Textopian as a short story by Edgar Saltus, dated 1921 CE.

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Work type: Short story
Author: Edgar Saltus
Date: 1921 CE
Language: English
Genres: Crime/Mystery Fiction, Suspense/Thriller, Psychological Drama, Literary Fiction, Social Commentary/Satire
Length: 5,422 words
Structure: 1 section, 78 paragraphs
Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)

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Genres

Crime/Mystery Fiction — The narrative centers entirely on a murder mystery involving the arrest and trial of the Marquis de Parabole for his wife's alleged murder, with the plot driven by investigation and dramatic courtroom proceedings that form the work's core structure.
Suspense/Thriller — The trial sequence builds mounting tension through accumulating evidence and witness testimony, culminating in a shocking courtroom revelation that dramatically overturns the case and creates the work's central dramatic reversal.
Psychological Drama — The work extensively explores human psychology, obsession, jealousy, and hidden motivations through the narrator's introspective observations of character behavior, inner emotional states, and the complex psychology driving the alleged crime.
Literary Fiction — The work demonstrates sophisticated narrative structure, ornate descriptive prose, complex thematic development, and an unreliable narrator perspective with ironic tone characteristic of high literary fiction.