Explore "The Poisoned Chocolates Case" by Anthony Berkeley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"I have always thought," resumed Mr. Bradley, restored, "I have always thought that murders may be divided into two classes, closed or open. By a closed murder I mean one committed in a certain closed circle of persons, such as a house-party, in which it is known that the murderer is limited to membership of that actual group. This is by far the commoner form in fiction. An open murder I call one in which the criminal is not limited to any particular group but might be almost anyone in the whole world. This, of course, is almost invariably what happens in real life.
"The case with which we're dealing has this peculiarity, that one can't place it quite definitely in either category. The police say that it's an open murder; both our previous speakers here seem to regard it as a closed one.