‘All right, Mother, you needn’t go.’
‘No,’ agreed Mrs Swettenham.
There was a pause.
‘Do you really want that last piece of toast, Edmund?’
‘I should have thought my being properly nourished mattered more than letting that old hag clear the table.’
‘Sh, dear, she’ll hear you … Edmund, what happens at a Murder Game?’
‘I don’t know, exactly … They pin pieces of paper upon you, or something … No, I think you draw them out of a hat. And somebody’s the victim and somebody else is a detective—and then they turn the lights out and somebody taps you on the shoulder and then you scream and lie down and sham dead.’
‘It sounds quite exciting.’
‘Probably a beastly bore. I’m not going.’
‘Nonsense, Edmund,’ said Mrs Swettenham resolutely. ‘I’m going and you’re coming with me. That’s settled!’
‘Archie,’ said Mrs Easterbrook to her husband, ‘listen to this.’
Colonel Easterbrook paid no attention, because he was already snorting with impatience over an article in The Times.
‘Trouble with these fellows is,’ he said, ‘that none of them knows the first thing about India! Not the first thing!’
‘I know, dear, I know.’
‘If they did, they wouldn’t write such piffle.’
‘Yes, I know. Archie, do listen.
‘A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th (that’s today), at Little Paddocks at 6.30 p.m. Friends please accept this, the only intimation.’
She paused triumphantly. Colonel Easterbrook looked at her indulgently but without much interest.
‘Murder Game,’ he said.
‘Oh.’
‘That’s all it is. Mind you,’ he unbent a little, ‘it can be very good fun if it’s well done. But it needs good organizing by someone who knows the ropes. You draw lots. One person’s the murderer, nobody knows who. Lights out. Murderer chooses his victim. The victim has to count twenty before he screams. Then the person who’s chosen to be the detective takes charge. Questions everybody. Where they were, what they were doing, tries to trip the real fellow up. Yes, it’s a good game—if the detective—er—knows something about police work.’
‘Like you, Archie. You had all those interesting cases to try in your district.’
Colonel Easterbrook smiled indulgently and gave his moustache a complacent twirl.
‘Yes, Laura,’ he said. ‘I dare say I could give them a hint or two.’
And he straightened his shoulders.
‘Miss Blacklock ought to have asked you to help her in getting the thing up.’
The Colonel snorted.
‘Oh, well, she’s got that young cub staying with her. Expect this is his idea. Nephew or something. Funny idea, though, sticking it in the paper.’
‘It was in the Personal Column. We might never have seen it. I suppose it is an invitation, Archie?’
‘Funny kind of invitation. I can tell you one thing. They can count me out.’
‘Oh, Archie,’ Mrs Easterbrook’s voice rose in a shrill wail.
‘Short notice. For all they know I might be busy.’
‘But you’re not, are you, darling?’ Mrs Easterbrook lowered her voice persuasively. ‘And I do think, Archie, that you really ought to go—just to help poor Miss Blacklock out. I’m sure she’s counting on you to make the thing a success. I mean, you know so much about police work and procedure. The whole thing will fall flat if you don’t go and help to make it a success. After all, one must be neighbourly.’
Mrs Easterbrook put her synthetic blonde head on one side and opened her blue eyes very wide.
‘Of course, if you put it like that, Laura …’ Colonel Easterbrook twirled his grey moustache again, importantly, and looked with indulgence on his fluffy little wife. Mrs Easterbrook was at least thirty years younger than her husband.
‘If you put it like that, Laura,’ he said.
‘I really do think it’s your duty, Archie,’ said Mrs Easterbrook solemnly.
The Chipping Cleghorn Gazette had also been delivered at Boulders, the picturesque three cottages knocked into one inhabited by Miss Hinchcliffe and Miss Murgatroyd.
‘Hinch?’
‘What is it, Murgatroyd?’
‘Where are you?’
‘Henhouse.’
‘Oh.’
Padding gingerly through the long wet grass, Miss Amy Murgatroyd approached her friend. The latter, attired in corduroy slacks and battledress tunic, was conscientiously stirring in handfuls of balancer meal to a repellently steaming basin full of cooked potato peelings and cabbage stumps.
She turned her head with its short man-like crop and weather-beaten countenance toward her friend.
Miss Murgatroyd, who was fat and amiable, wore a checked tweed skirt and a shapeless pullover of brilliant royal blue. Her curly bird’s nest of grey hair was in a good deal of disorder and she was slightly out of breath.
‘In the Gazette,’ she panted. ‘Just listen—what can it mean?
‘A murder is announced … and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30 p.m. Friends please accept this, the only intimation.’
She paused, breathless, as she finished reading, and awaited some authoritative pronouncement.
‘Daft,’ said Miss Hinchcliffe.
‘Yes, but what do you think it means?’
‘Means a drink, anyway,’ said Miss Hinchcliffe.
‘You think it’s a sort of invitation?’
‘We’ll find out what it means when we get there,’ said Miss Hinchcliffe. ‘Bad sherry, I expect. You’d better get off the grass, Murgatroyd. You’ve got your bedroom slippers on still. They’re soaked.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Miss Murgatroyd looked down ruefully at her feet. ‘How many eggs today?’
‘Seven. That damned hen’s still broody. I must get her into the coop.’
‘It’s a funny way of putting it, don’t you think?’ Amy Murgatroyd asked, reverting to the notice in the Gazette. Her voice was slightly wistful.
But her friend was made of sterner and more single-minded stuff. She was intent on dealing with recalcitrant poultry and no announcement in a paper, however enigmatic, could deflect her.
She squelched heavily through the mud and pounced upon a speckled hen. There was a loud and indignant squawking.
‘Give me ducks every time,’ said Miss Hinchcliffe. ‘Far less trouble …’
‘Oo, scrumptious!’ said Mrs Harmon across the breakfast table to her husband, the Rev. Julian Harmon, ‘there’s going to be a murder at Miss Blacklock’s.’
‘A murder?’ said her husband, slightly surprised. ‘When?’
‘This afternoon … at least, this evening. 6.30. Oh, bad luck, darling, you’ve got your preparations