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“What’s he doing at our meeting?”
I ignored Marcie’s finger pointing at Brian, who’d managed to arrive on time, after all, and met her gaze as calmly as I could muster.
“Detective Donovan’s a big Agatha Christie fan. He asked if he could join us tonight—as a private citizen and not in his professional capacity.”
Ruth tsk-tsked. “You really should have checked with us first, Lexie.”
“I meant to,” I said, going for heartfelt and sincere, “but I was so busy with my preparations for the party, it simply slipped my mind.” I glanced at Brian, just out of earshot. “Shall I ask him to leave?”
“Of course not!” Rosie said firmly. “We’re not inhospitable barbarians! Let Detective Donovan stay.” She gave Ruth a cool appraising look. “Unless you’re afraid you’ll let something slip during our discussion.”
“Don’t be silly.” Ruth laughed, but her eyes were cold with disapproval. “Detective Donovan is welcome to join us.”
The others arrived in twos and threes, chatting as they found seats in the living room. I waited while they delved into the snack dishes before I began.
“The convoluted plot of A Murder Is Announced is driven by events that occurred in the murderer’s past.”
Heads bobbed in agreement.
“The book opens with various Chipping Cleghorn residents reading a newspaper article announcing a murder will take place at a local manor house at a specific time and date.”
Another quick check of my audience’s interest level. Al winked. On the sofa, Ginger and Todd were too busy making goo-goo eyes at each other to take in one word I’d said. The others looked suitably engrossed, except for Brian, who gave me a wise-assed smirk. I suddenly knew the kind of student he’d been and was grateful I’d never had him in any of my classes.
I cleared my throat. “Convinced this is a performance of some sort, the neighbors show up at Little Paddocks. At the appointed time, all lights go out, shots ring out, and a young man is dead on the floor. From the angle of the shots, it is assumed that the murderer was after Letitia Blacklock, the owner of Little Paddocks. The police and Miss Marple, who is godmother to the vicar’s wife, investigate.
“It turns out the murdered man is Swiss and was hired to play act this role.”
Time for group participation. “Bunny, Letitia’s old school friend, lives with her. Who are the other people who also live in Little Paddocks?” I grinned. “A hint. They’re all young.”
Marcie waved her hand. “There’s the explosive foreign cook, and the widow working as a farm laborer. She turns out to be half of the mysterious Pip and Emma duo.”
“Very good. Ginger?”
“Patrick and Julia live there, too. They claim to be sibs and distant relations of Letitia Blacklock. But they’re really a couple.”
“To clarify,” Todd interrupted, “Patrick is who he claims to be, though Julia’s really Emma, the other half of ‘Pip and Emma’.”
“Who are?” I asked
Ruth explained. “Heirs to the fortune Letitia Blacklock is determined to hold on to.”
“Yes.” I went on to elaborate. “Pip and Emma are twins who weren’t raised together and therefore don’t know each other’s identity until just before the final scene. They inherit a fortune if Letitia Blacklock were to die.”
“The real Letitia is dead—of natural causes,” Ginger slipped in. “Her sister Charlotte took her place some years ago in order to inherit the manor house from Letitia’s boss.”
Todd put his hand over her mouth and continued. “When the boss’s sickly wife dies, which will be soon, Charlotte—who’s pretending to be Letitia—is to inherit a fortune, the fortune that Pip and Emma should inherit if both the wife and Letitia are dead.”
I grinned. “I’m glad you’re getting the details down pat. Now, where does the Swiss young man come in? Why does Charlotte stage his murder?”
Ruth raised her hand. “He recognized her as someone who had been at the Swiss spa where he’d worked years ago. Letitia had accompanied Charlotte to Switzerland so Charlotte could have surgery. Being a con man, he asks Charlotte for money. She gives him some. He asks for more. Charlotte thinks he knows her true identity and is blackmailing her, though this isn’t the case.”
Delighted by their comprehensive answers, I asked, “How does Charlotte make everyone believe she’s the intended victim?”
Paulette volunteered. “I’m not sure how she did it, but she arranged for a bullet to graze her ear.”
“Not a bullet,” Marcie corrected, ever the teacher. “She nicked herself. Miss Marple thought she did that with nail scissors.”
“A case of premeditated murder, if I ever saw one,” Brian murmured.
Heads turned to stare at him. His silence had lulled the others into forgetting his presence. Now they appeared apprehensive to discover he was still in the room.
I went on. “Charlotte planned the young man’s murder down to the very last detail.”
Sylvia’s death, on the other hand, wasn’t premeditated. Her murderer had lashed out, choosing the closest weapon at hand— poisonous water—which she poured into Sylvia’s iced tea. However, Anne’s murder was deliberate and premeditated.
I gave a start. Could Anne have been the intended victim all along? I shook my head in frustration. No, that wouldn’t explain why Gerda was killed. Or the incident at the gala.
“Lexie?”
I looked up, into Rosie’s concerned face.
“Sorry. To continue. What about the other two people Charlotte murders—Bunny, her old schoolmate, and a neighbor who’d been present when the young Swiss was shot?”
Rosie spoke up. “She kills them both to cover up her true identity so she can inherit her boss’s fortune. Charlotte kills poor Bunny, of whom she’s fond, because the woman’s growing senile. Bunny’s supposed to keep Charlotte’s secret, but she calls her Lotty instead of Letty. Lotty is Charlotte’s nickname.”
“And the neighbor?”
Ruth raised her hand. “Her housemate questions her until the woman realizes the only person who could have shot the young man was their hostess.”
“Only” Ginger cut in, “her housemate is called away before the woman reveals the murderer, and she’s murdered.”
“How did Charlotte manage to be Johnny-on-the-Spot?” Al asked with a wink. “Was she hiding in the bushes?”
I laughed. “We’ll call that literary license. As is the fact that Miss Marple just happens to be staying at the spa where the young Swiss worked.” I picked up my copy of A Murder Is Announced.
“Jane Marple appears in half as many novels as Hercule Poirot, but we remember her as well. Here’s how Dame Agatha describes her: ‘She was far more benignant than he had imagined and a good deal older. Indeed, she seemed very old. She had snow-white hair, a pink, crinkled face, very soft innocent blue eyes, and she was heavily enmeshed in fleecy wool. Wool round her shoulders in the form of a lacy cape and wool that she was knitting, and which turned out to be a baby’s shawl.’”
I looked up. “Quite the deceptive appearance because Jane Marple is as sharp as they come. She knows her fellow humans are capable of the most heinous crimes. She recognizes character types, often comparing the villains she encounters to residents of her village, St. Mary Mead. She’s an admitted snoop, extremely observant, and not above playing a trick to flush out a murderer.”
I smiled, making eye contact with every member of my attentive audience. “What trick does Miss Marple play on Charlotte?”
Several hands flew into the air. I called on Paulette.
“When everyone’s together, Miss Marple pretends to be Bunny’s ghost and says ‘Lotty, don’t do it,’ and scares her half to death.”
“Very good, I commended her. “While Jane Marple’s often ingratiating, sneaky, and downright nosy, both readers and Christie herself like her better than Hercule Poirot.”
We chatted a bit more, and then I called for a ten-minute break. Al made a beeline in my direction, but I held up my palm to indicate I couldn’t talk, and headed for the bathroom. Our discussion had set off alarms in my brain, and I needed to recap what I’d learned.
I ran through the old professorial “compare and contrast” between the novel we’d just discussed and the real-life murders. Like the first murder in the book, every suspect had been at Rosie’s house the night Sylvia was murdered: the book club members, Hal, Lowell, and even Adele had stopped by. However, there were huge differences. Unlike the carefully staged first murder in A Murder Is Announced, Sylvia had been poisoned with whatever was available. Charlotte goes on to kill two more people to protect her identity and a large fortune.
The Old Cadfield murderer killed three victims, too. But I had no idea what Sylvia, Gerda, and Anne had in common. As for motive, the police never did unearth one regarding Sylvia’s murder. Maybe she wasn’t the intended victim, as Brian once suggested. Was Gerda the intended victim? Could be, since she was killed next.
Then why was Anne murdered? I couldn’t find a pattern anywhere.
Powerful emotions drove people to murder. Which, whether I wanted to or not, forced me to reconsider Paulette. She must have been furious that Lowell had driven Anne, his former girlfriend, to the barbecue while forgetting to bring her the sweater.
Had Paulette known about the affair the night Sylvia was killed? Of course she did! According to Lowell, Paulette had gotten pregnant because of the affair. I grimaced. And Paulette was loopy enough to have set the poisoned iced tea in front of Sylvia instead of Anne.
There was Marcie to consider. She was an embittered soul with grievances against Anne dating back to their school days.
Maybe Marcie resented Anne for getting Lowell back.
Maybe she’d meant to make Anne sick, but the glasses of iced tea got mixed up on the table.
Maybe—
The bathroom door rattled. “Is anyone in there?”
“Be right out,” I called, my train of thought completely shot. Minutes later I was back in the living room, resuming my role as facilitator.
“In The A.B.C Murders, also known as The Alphabet Murders, a murderer kills four people and convinces an innocent man that he’s committed the murders in order to inherit his brother’s fortune.”
Ruth smiled. “Another convoluted plot, as unrealistic as they come, but I couldn’t put the book down.”
I smiled back as I wondered if Ruth had killed Sylvia. How badly had she wanted to co-chair this year’s gala event? I shook my head to eradicate the ugly possibility. Then I told myself to get real. Even a country mouse like Miss Marple knew that all sorts of people murdered for a variety of reasons. I felt a quiver of excitement as a new idea emerged! Maybe there were two murderers! One killed Sylvia and Gerda, and the other killed Anne.
“Who will give us a brief summary of the plot?” I asked.
“I will.” Marcie puffed out her chest and cleared her throat. “Poirot receives a letter announcing that a murder will take place on a specific day in a town beginning with the letter A. And it happens. Alice Ascher in Andover is killed before Poirot can save her life.”
Ruth giggled. “This reminds me of a game we used to play with a pink Spaulding ball when we were little: A, my name is Alice. My husband’s name is Al. I come from Alabama, and I sell Apples.”
“Mo-om, please.” Marcie frowned at Ruth. “If I may continue. A murder takes place in towns beginning with B, C, and D. Poirot receives a letter before each murder, but each time he arrives too late to stop the murderer. Then it seems that the wrong person is killed in the town beginning with D, and a quiet, unassuming man named Alexander Bonaparte Cust is arrested. We read excerpts written in his point of view, which lead us to believe he’s committed the crimes.”
“Only Hercule Poirot doesn’t believe Cust is guilty,” Ginger tossed in.
“Correct!” Marcie boomed in her teacher’s voice of approval. “Cust is surprised when Hercule Poirot visits him in jail. He’s never heard of the detective. That’s when we learn he’s an epileptic who loses consciousness after every convulsion. Since all the murdered people bought stockings from him, Cust assumes he’s killed them, though he can’t remember having done so.”
Paulette raised her hand. “Marcie, you forgot to add that Poirot forms a committee of the people connected to the A, B, and C murder victims. He uses his little gray cells.”
We all laughed, but Marcie wasn’t amused. Nostrils flaring, she finished her summary. “Poirot proves that Franklin Clarke, whose brother was among those killed, actually murdered all four people and managed to put the blame on poor A. B. Cust.”
“He killed the others to cover up his intended crime,” Todd said. “And had no compunction about blaming it on poor Cust,” Ginger added. “Christie’s murderers are heartless. They feel no guilt about killing and framing someone else for their crimes.”
I nodded. “Let’s talk for a minute about the methods Poirot employs to identify the murderer. Anyone?”
“For one thing,” Rosie said, “Poirot says he counts on his friend, Captain Hastings, to state the obvious.”
“Very good,” I said. “Sometimes the facts are before us, though we can’t see the forest for the trees. In fact, I think Poirot uses that expression. In this book, the various murders are the forest—to cover up for the one murder that’s intended.”
As I spoke, something about the real murders clicked into place. I caught Brian’s eye and he winked.
I continued. “By focusing on what he knows to be the murderer’s character and personality, Poirot manages to reveal his identity. One of the victims, Betty Barnard, was a flirt. Poirot figures the murderer had to be personable enough to lure her to her death, something Cust could never have done. Besides, Cust has an alibi for her murder.
“Which is how Poirot arrives at his conclusion that Franklin Clarke is the murderer.”
I glanced around the room. All eyes were on me, but no one offered to speak. “Clarke was the only one of the group who had something to gain from the death of any of the four victims. He was after his brother’s fortune, and to get it, he killed three other people.”
“Personality may give the murderer away,” Todd said, “but concrete evidence is required to convict him of his crimes.”
My heart sank as I considered that no evidence had been found in the three Old Cadfield murders. The police hadn’t found the vase from the lilies of the valley, fingerprints on the vase used to kill Gerda, or the damaged car that had sent Anne to her watery death. I forced myself to return to our discussion.
“As for evidence, Poirot finds the murder weapon Franklin Clarke used to kill two of his victims.”
Al laughed. “And after Clarke pulls out a gun, he discovers Poirot had someone remove the bullets.”
I nodded. “Dame Agatha’s sleuths think of everything when they expose a murderer.” Or murderers. My eyes nearly bugged out as everything concerning the Old Cadfield murders fell into place. What must have happened was suddenly as clear to me as a pane of glass.