LITMIR.BIZ

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Or the next time I have a garden party for the local school … maybe I could work in the Battery and the Boathouse … although the Boathouse could seem slightly sinister … especially if you were there on your own …

      She is now gazing unseeingly over the river and imagining her surroundings in a more ominous light …

      If the lawn was a scene of light-hearted enjoyment … a family event … no, it would need more people than that … a garden party … a fund-raiser? For the Scouts or the Guides – they were always in need of funds … yes, possibilities there … There could be stalls on the lawn and teas in a tent, perhaps by the magnolia … people in and out of the house … a fortune-teller and a bottle stall … and confusion about where everyone was … And elsewhere in the grounds a darker force at work … unrecognised … unsuspected … What about here in the Battery? No – too open and … too … too … unmenacing, and you couldn’t really hide a body here; but the Boathouse … now, that has possibilities – far enough away to be lonely, down those rickety steps, and yet perfectly accessible to anyone. And you can lock the door … and it can be reached from the river …

      What about Mrs Oliver? … perfect for planning a treasure hunt … and it could go wrong for some reason and somebody dies. Let’s see … how about a murder hunt instead of a treasure hunt … like Cluedo except around a real house and grounds instead of a board. Now, Poirot or Marple … Marple or Poirot … can’t see Miss M walking around Greenway, bad enough for Poirot but not really credible that she would … and she doesn’t know Mrs Oliver anyway, and I have to use her … So … Mrs O would have to bring in Poirot for some reason … perhaps she could call him down to the house on some pretext … she needs his help with some of the clues? … or could he know the Chief Constable … but I’ve used that a few times already … how about handing out the prize for the winner of the hunt …

      She reaches into her bag and extracts a large red notebook …

       Not really suitable for carrying around but to use the Scouts’ own motto – be prepared. Now, I’m sure there’s a pen here somewhere … Best to get this down while it is still fresh – it can be changed later but I think the basic idea has distinct possibilities.

      She opens the notebook, finds an empty page and starts to write.

      Basic ideas usable

      Mrs Oliver summons Poirot

      She is at Greenway – professional job – arranging a Treasure Hunt or a Murder Hunt for the Conservative Fete, which is to be held there –

      She is totally absorbed, covering the pages with characteristically large, sprawling handwriting, getting ideas down on paper even if they are to be discarded at a later stage. The real Greenway has disappeared as she peoples it with the children of her imagination: foreign students, girl guides, boy scouts, murder hunt solvers, policemen – and Hercule Poirot.

      Some ideas

      Hiker (girl?) from hostel Next door – really Lady Bannerman

       Yes, the youth hostel next door could be put to some good use … foreign students … possibilities of disguising one of them as … who? They’re always coming and going and nobody knows who they are – they could be anyone, really. A girl is easier to disguise than a man … perhaps she could double as the lady of the house. Mmmmm, that would mean nobody really knowing her well … perhaps she could be ill … an invalid … always in her room … or stupid and nobody pays attention to her … or recently married and new to everyone. But then someone from her past arrives … her real husband, maybe … or a lover … or a relative … and she has to get rid of them …

      Young wife recognised by someone who knows she is married already – blackmail?

       I can adapt one of the treasure hunts I’ve done for Mathew and work in the Boathouse somehow … and invent Mrs Oliver’s hunt … I could use the Cluedo idea of weapons and suspects … but with a real body instead of a pretend one …

      Mrs Oliver’s plan

      The Weapons

      Revolver – Knife – Clothes Line

      Who will I murder? The foreign student … no, she has to be part of the plan … someone very unexpected then … how about the lord of the manor? … no, too clichéd … needs to have impact … what about a stranger? … but who … and that brings a lot of problems … I’ll leave that for next year maybe … How about a child? … needs to be handled carefully but I could make it a not-very-nice child … perhaps the pretend body, could be one of the scouts, turns out to be really dead … or, better again, a girl guide … she could be nosy and have seen something she shouldn’t … Don’t think I’ve had a child victim before …

      Points to be decided – Who first chosen for victim?

      (?a) ‘Body’ to be Boy Scout in boat house – key of which has to be found by ‘clues’

      She gazes abstractedly into the distance, blind to the panoramic view of the river and the wooded hillside opposite. She is Poirot, taking afternoon tea in the drawing room, carefully exiting through the French windows and wandering down through the garden. She is Hattie, intent on preserving her position and money at all costs. She is Mrs Oliver, distractedly plotting, discarding, amending, changing …

      Next bits – P at house – wandering up to Folly – Finds?

      Hattie goes in as herself – she changes her clothes and emerges (from boathouse? Folly? fortune teller’s tent?) as student from Hostel

      Now, I have to provide a few family members … how about an elderly mother … she could live in the Gate Lodge. If I make her mysterious, readers will think she is ‘it’ … little old ladies are always good as suspects. Could she know something from years earlier? … perhaps she knew Hattie from somewhere … or thinks she does … or make Poirot think she does, which is almost as good … Let’s see …

      Mrs Folliat? suspicious character – really covering up for something she saw. Or an old crime – a wife who ‘ran away’

      She stops writing and listens as a voice approaches the Battery calling ‘Nima, Nima.’

      ‘Here, Mathew,’ she calls and a tousled 11-year-old runs down the steps.

      ‘I found the treasure, I found the treasure,’ he chants excitedly, clutching a half-crown.

      ‘Well done. I hope it wasn’t too difficult?’

      ‘Not really. The clue in the tennis court took me a while but then I spotted the ball at the base of the net.’

      ‘I thought that one would puzzle you,’ she smiles.

      She closes the notebook and puts it away in her bag. Hercule Poirot’s questioning of Mrs Folliat and the identity of a possible second victim will have to wait.

      ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Let’s see if there is anything nice to eat in the house.’

      Agatha Christie, Queen of Crime, is finished for the day and Agatha Christie, grandmother, climbs the steps from the Battery in search of ice-cream for her grandson.

      And the Christie for Christmas 1956 was Dead Man’s Folly.

       1

       The Beginning of a Career

      That

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