MYSTERY SOLVED
As instructed, all of the suspects have been gathered in the drawing room. You enter, your face an efficient blank.
‘Good evening,’ you begin. ‘You may all rest assured that I have solved the murder, but indulge me for a moment and allow me to reveal how I came to my conclusion. First, Lady Biveridge, you were not in fact skiing in Aspen, Colorado when the murder took place. You were in Prague, Czechoslovakia disguised as a streetcar conductor and having simultaneous affairs with a board game manufacturer and the zoo’s snake handler. Therefore, of course you couldn’t have committed the crime. Lord Biveridge, please control yourself and resume your seat. Your Lordship proved to be no more truthful about your whereabouts than Her Ladyship. You said you were examining potsherds in the Egyptian desert when, to be accurate, you were in Perth, Australia having a three sided affair with an acrobat, a dance instructor, and a Nepalese eye doctor. Thus, you, too, are eliminated as a candidate for murder. That leaves only you, Chiffers.’
‘Balderdash,’ says Chiffers, the butler.
‘Balderdash, is it?’ you smirk. ‘Let me just ask you then, Chiffers, how would you like it if I opened that door next to the bookcase there?’
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ says Chiffers.
‘Oh, wouldn’t you?’ you say, a satisfied smile of superiority dancing on your lips.
You approach the door. You open it.
There she is. You die.
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