Death of Anthony Marston

As the guests discuss their predicament, Anthony James Marston, the young and reckless playboy, pours himself a drink from the sideboard. He chokes suddenly, turns purple, and collapses dead. Dr. Armstrong examines him and determines he was poisoned with potassium cyanide, which acted almost instantly. The others are shocked, as Marston seemed the least likely to commit suicide. The poison must have been in his glass, but the whiskey and soda are untouched. The death appears to be murder, but no one can explain how it was done. The first death fulfills the first line of the nursery rhyme: 'One choked his little self and then there were nine.'