The Chocolate Cobweb, by Charlotte Armstrong
New York:
Coward-McCann, Inc., 1948
List of
main characters:
Kate
Garth
Amanda
(Mandy) Garth, Kate’s daughter, twenty-three years old
John
Garth, Kate’s husband, deceased
Tobias
(Toby) Garrison
Ione
Garrison, Tobias’s wife
Tobias
Thone Garrison, Tobias’s son
Gene
Noyes, chemist at Callahan, Amanda’s boyfriend
Fanny
Austin, actress
Belle
Thorne, Tobias’s first wife
Lieutenant
Ellis (El) Kelly, officer with the Pasadena Police
The
image on the right is the front and spine dust cover of The Chocolate Cobweb, by Charlotte Armstrong, from the 1952
hardcover edition published by Peter Davies, London. Quotations provided in
this blog post are from the 1948 edition published by Coward-McCann, Inc.
The Chocolate Cobweb reads more like a Nancy Drew novel in some ways. The
ending seems a bit saccharine, and it is certainly saccharine compared to the
film, Merci pour le chocolat, which is based on Charlotte Armstrong’s
novel. It’s a satisfying read, in spite of its ending, and it’s always great to
discover another source for noir that is written by a woman.
The Chocolate Cobweb opens in Los Angeles, with Amanda Garth and her mother Kate entertaining a
cousin, Edna Garfield, who is visiting from New York. On the morning of her
departure, the local newspaper has a feature on Tobias Garrison, a famous
painter who is showing some of his work in a local gallery. Edna lets it slip
in front of Amanda that there had been a mix-up at the hospital twenty-three
years ago, when Amanda Garth was born. It seems Tobias Garrison thought she was
his daughter when his wife had actually given birth to his son, Thone. Amanda is
immediately curious about this bit of family lore and decides to visit the Peck
Galleries, where she can find a showing of Tobias’s paintings.
At the
Peck Galleries, Amanda sees Tobias’s most famous painting “Belle in the
Doorway” and falls in love with it, so to speak. Mr. and Mrs. Garrison make a
surprise visit to the galleries while Amanda is there, and their son Thone
Garrison arrives soon after his parents. Amanda resolves to meet them all, but
not at the Peck Galleries. Instead, she finds their phone number and home
address and pays them a visit.
The novel
then switches perspective: to Ione Garrison. She makes hot chocolate, sleeping
pills in her left hand, and plots Thone’s “apparent suicide.” She tries to formulate
a logical motive for him to commit suicide—something about a letter from a
female friend or girlfriend. No one suspected Ione when she slipped pills into
Belle Garrison’s drink, and she doubts anyone will suspect her now. Tobias Garrison
uses chloral (its use as a sedative was more common in the late nineteenth
century) to help him sleep, and Ione does the same with barbiturates, so
everyone knows that the pills would be easy to come by.
Amanda
uses art as an excuse to introduce herself to the Garrisons and to meet Thone.
She paints and works as a designer, and she decides a little bit of artistic
license will suit her needs:
She rehearsed again her little speech. It wasn’t a
speech to be said over the telephone, nor could she make an appointment to say
it. No, she must just go, just barge in. . . . [ellipses in original]
Take her courage in her hand. Courage? Crust, thought
Amanda. Oh, well, blame it on Art. She wanted to paint, ergo, she was a little
bit crazy. (page 29)
Amanda’s
ruse works. And Tobias is curious about her when she reveals that they “met”
twenty-three years ago, that is, when she and Thone might have been mixed up at
birth:
. . . She said, “I am an art student, Mr. Garrison.
And I haven’t quite as much n-nerve as I thought I had. I came because we’ve
met before.”
“Is that so?” Tobias’ voice was
smoother than she would have expected it to be. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember
you. Perhaps you’ll remind me?”
Something touched the backs of
her legs. Thone had brought her an armless chair. Amanda sat down with quite
successful steadiness. She kept her back straight and leaned forward. “It was a
long time ago, sir.”
His head cocked politely.
She said. “Isn’t it true, Mr.
Garrison, that when your son was born, the nurse showed you the wrong child?”
He straightened, where he sat,
with shock. “That’s so,” he said. His eyes held hers now and she was aware of
nothing else.
“I am the wrong child,” said
Mandy. “So you see, we have met, although I don’t remember you, either.” (pages
31–32)
During
this same visit, Ione Garrison takes Amanda to Thone’s room to see another
portrait of Belle. Ione purposely knocks over a thermos of hot chocolate, the
one that readers know also contains the sleeping pills. Amanda helps clean up
the mess with an old handkerchief, and Ione demands to have it so that she can
clean it for Amanda. Amanda makes a switch and gives her a new, monogrammed
handkerchief because she is now suspicious of Ione Garrison’s motives. Another
possible intrigue in the making occurs on Amanda’s way out of the Garrisons’
house: Thone accompanies Amanda and requests that she talk to Tobias only of
art and painting, not of Belle. Amanda gives the soiled handkerchief to her
boyfriend Gene to test at a friend’s lab, and he discovers that the
handkerchief has what he calls “sleeping dope” on it. Amanda begins to wonder
if someone means harm to Thone, and she wants to warn Thone.
Thone
goes to the Garths to confront Amanda. She admits that she is trying to confuse
Ione about the circumstances of her birth because she’s upset about what she
thinks are Ione’s murderous intentions toward Thone. She and Thone argue
because he doesn’t believe Amanda. Amanda tells Thone that she will accept his
father’s and Ione’s invitation to return to their home and that she will prove
Ione wants to murder anyone having something to do with Belle. Amanda will
convince Ione that she thinks she is Belle’s daughter and thus tempt Ione to
murder her. Thone finally agrees to Amanda’s plan because he sees that she
cares about what happens to him.
From this
point on in the novel, the plot concentrates on Amanda’s attempts to solve what
she thinks is Ione Garrison’s murderous plot and to discover if it has any
connection to the death of Thone’s mother, Belle Garrison.
(This blog post about
the novel The Chocolate Cobweb contains spoilers.)
I first saw Merci
pour le chocolat, the 2000 French film based on The Chocolate Cobweb,
quite a while ago, and I decided that I had to read the book. I had already
read Mischief, also by Charlotte Armstrong, which I found to be dark (and
thoroughly noir) but almost demoralizing because the characters were so unpleasant.
In fact, I found Mischief mercifully short and the film based on it, Don’t
Bother to Knock, so much more enjoyable.
Click on
each title in the list below to see my blog post about each:
◊ Don’t Bother to Knock (film based on the novel Mischief)
◊ Mischief
◊ Merci pour le chocolat (film based on The Chocolate Cobweb)
So imagine my
surprise at the conclusion of The Chocolate Cobweb, which reads more
like a Nancy Drew novel in some ways. Amanda solves the mystery and escapes
harm, and the young lovers (I won’t give the names for this detail away) are engaged
to be married at the end. Quite the surprise! The Chocolate Cobweb was
published in 1948, three years before the publication of Mischief. Did
life experience darken Armstrong’s views of life and romance in the interim?
Her fiction was published during the McCarthy era, so maybe politics and political
corruption played a part.
From
everything that I have read about Charlotte Armstrong, most of it online, there
seems to be little known about her personal life. I did discover that many of
her stories were made into movies, both foreign and American. Here are some
links for those who want to find more information (click on each website
title):
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