2478. What is the most effective poison?

Charlene was bitterly disappointed. She had spent months researching poisons. She had gone to the library. She had scanned the internet. She even asked a professional autopsy expert what the best way was to poison a man. The professional autopsy expert was at first reluctant to impart knowledge, but in the end Charlene seemed a nice enough and pretty harmless person. She was given a list of almost impossible to detect fatal poisons that could be used.

Charlene’s husband was no help. He was an ignorant, lazy spouse. Charlene never asked him anything, and in this scenario she simply smiled despairingly. She wasn’t going to waste time with his witlessness.

In the end she narrowed it down to two poisons. To be doubly sure Charlene made an appointment to see an industrial chemist at the local woollen factory. These industrial professionals are experts at all sorts of things, and their experience in practical chemistry seems to extend their ability to explain things simply. “Which of these two poisons will be most effective and lest detectable?”

The industrial chemist was very nice. He pointed out, however, that neither of the poisons would result in death. He said that one of them if used would require the imbibing of several large containers of liquid and the other would need the equivalent of having to eat seventeen to twenty indigestible potatoes in twenty-four hours.

It was indeed a disappointment – and after all those hours and hours of research.

Charlene had had enough. She went home and threw her uncompleted novel in the trash.