The Poisoned Tea

Trouble was brewing among some art dealers. A man of rather lowly means named Griffin McDrift had recently stumbled upon a Rembrandt painting while searching for a missing six-pack of Pepsi in his basement. Legally, the painting was his. But morally — the art dealers were convinced— it most certainly wasn’t. It belonged at best to them, and at worst to a gallery — but certainly not to the scruffy McDrift. He would not be able to appreciate it, they felt sure.

But McDrift was a stubborn man, not at all eager to part with the richly shadowed bible scene which he had allowed the dealers to glimpse briefly. To taunt them, he mentioned a plan to take the painting to a skate board park and set it up next to a heavily graffitied mural. This sent the dealers into spasms of evil intent.

Gradually it came about that the art dealers would have McDrift over for tea at their club, under the guise of chatting about art. McDrift had not been sitting in his velvet armchair for long before he keeled over one padded arm rest, unconscious.

Someone, a doctor was able to ascertain later, had slipped poison into McDrift’s Earl Grey tea, Though there had obviously been an attempt on McDrift’s life, he had not slurped his tea down swiftly enough and had passed out before he had ingested enough poison to die.

The Suspects were:

1. Rory Thrump
2. Elspeth Glove-Harding
3. Archibald Thurgood
4. Chadwick Groves-Wilson
5. Millicent Mappin
6. Sebastian and Lisette Fermat
7. Constance Pi

Clues:

1. The suspect with the fox terriers was the poisoner.
2. The poisoner was a twin.
3. The poisoner’s age was a perfect cube.
4. Elspeth Glove-Harding was the fox terriers’ psychiatrist, a profession she took very seriously, applying all the psychiatric rules used with humans.
5. Rory’s brother Story was a gem dealer.
6. Archibald, at 80, was the oldest dealer.
7. Chadwick’s only sibling had gone away to the University of Chicago when Chadwick was a baby.
8. Lisette poured the tea for everyone while her husband Sebastian looked anxiously out the window to see if the fox terriers were bothering Pascal, the Fermat’s little chihuahua. The Fermats hated any social engagements which involved the fox terriers.
9. No two suspects were the same age.
10. Sebastian was twice as old as Lisette who was four times as old as Pascal who was eight.
11. Constance had been Sebastian’s math teacher when he was in high school.
12. Rory was Elspeth’s older cousin. Elspeth and Lisette had taken ninth grade algebra together and tied for the math award that year.
13. No suspects were children.

Who poisoned Griffin McDrift?