Jones is surprised to learn that Anna-Luise is the daughter of Dr Fischer, who has become rich after inventing a perfumed toothpaste and whose dinner parties are famous (or infamous) around Geneva.
Her mother had developed a friendship with an employee of Mr Kips, one of the Toads, based on their mutual love of Mozart.
When Fischer found out, he paid Kips’ firm fifty thousand francs to fire the man, and then hounded his wife until she "willed herself" to die.
Fischer is surprised, and asks Jones to attend his next dinner party with the Toads, which he promises will be the last.
The party is held outside sometime around New Year's Day, where enormous bonfires keep the guests warm around Fischer's lawn.
Kips says that gambling is immoral and refuses to take part, leaving the party instead, and leaving Jones to consider that it is only Kips and himself who take the Doctor's threat of a bomb in the last cracker seriously; the other Toads seem to be disbelieving, especially Mrs Montgomery, who passes off Fischer's bomb threat as playful, untrue banter.
The other Toads begin to take the crackers; a hack actor named Deane immediately goes into a role from one of his movies as a soldier volunteering for a dangerous mission, rambling dialogue to himself while he stands near the bucket.
Two other Toads, the widow Montgomery and the accountant Belmont, rush up and draw their crackers, realising that the odds favour the earlier selectors.
Deane finally snaps out of his delusion long enough to draw a cracker, and when he finds a cheque inside, he passes out from either shock or inebriation.
A few moments later, Jones and Steiner hear a crack, and rush off to find Fischer, who has shot himself with a revolver.
The novel ends with Jones saying that he is no longer considering suicide and has even struck up a small friendship with Steiner where the two meet for coffee and mourn their lost loves.
[3] Among the changes made to Greene's novel was the ending (in the film Fischer does not commit suicide);[3] also, Jones's age is reduced to his late 40s.