MARY'S BIT or GAMES FOR THE BORED
After dinner was over, the dishes washed, homework done, and the table covered with the best tablecloth -- it was thick and red with an arabesque design and sported a long fringe -- my younger sister and I sometimes played games, particularly while staying up as shockingly late as 9 pm to hear The Goon Show or Journey Into Space on the wireless.
Sometimes we got out what some call the devil's picture book, a deck of cards. Since I whapped 'em down faster than my sister I won most rounds of Snap, though sometimes she would win the entire pile with a swifter shout of "Snap!" at the last slapdown. Then there was Twenty-One or Pontoon, which even a player averse to arithmetic like me could handle, though we never graduated to its bolder cousin, blackjack, or as some fancy players termed it vingt-et-un.
Sometimes we'd go in a few rounds of dominoes, that favourite played by patrons of the local working mens' clubs. Whoever drew the tile Timmy, our Heinz 57 mongrel, had chewed up -- it was the three/two spot if memory serves -- was at an instant disadvantage.
However, board games were my favourite time-passers. We'd long outgrown ludo, with its simple throw-the-die-and-move-that-number-of-spaces rules, as well as snakes and ladders with its retreats and advances for those moving round the board. It was, I now realise, a perfect template for life, with its unexpected ups and downs, though in life not all are beyond the control of the player, and this innocent game is recalled in John Ramsey Campbell's chilling Snakes and Ladders, which involves a man pursued by, well, beings we'd all prefer not to meet.
I had and indeed still have two favourite board games. The first is Monopoly. Like Eric, whose essay I just read, I inevitably spent all my money acquiring properties right, left, and in the Whitechapel and Old Kent Roads as well as upscale Mayfair and Park Lane and was therefore usually bankrupted due to rampant real estate speculation. This was exacerbated because we played a simplified version of our own invention whereby the person owning real estate charged the amount it cost to the player landing on the site, so it did not take long to burn through even the secret hoard of cash tucked under the board. Still, it was great fun and as close as we'll ever come to owning property in London or going to jail.
On the other hand, with Cluedo, I was quite good at guessing the culprit, the weapon used, and the location of the crime, though the latter part of the puzzle was hardest to pin down. But consider too that the creator of the game overlooked a vital component to any crime: the motive. Tut tut! What exciting scandals could be built up around and between Professor Plum, Mrs White, Miss Scarlett, Colonel Mustard, the Revd Green, and Mrs Peacock -- truly a colourful cast of characters, all of whom sound perfectly respectable but apparently have been guilty of multiple murders for decades!
Consider the murder weapon. A country mansion would certainly have at least one gun under its roof and a dagger could well feature in those collections of tulwars, sabres, krises, yataghans, and similar sharp-bladed instruments of destruction so commonly displayed on the walls of their entrance halls. It might even be kept on the study desk to do duty as a letter opener, while candlesticks are commonplace even in the best run households even unto this present time.
However, it's the presence of rope, a length of lead piping, and a spanner that leads me to speculate what on earth they could be doing in this elegant house. Admittedly the kitchen might be having its sink or plumbing replaced or repaired, explaining the lead piping, so we can eliminate that from our suspicions, but what of the spanner and rope?
As I see it, the master of the house would certainly employ a chauffeur, whose tool kit would doubtless include a spanner. Possibly the chauffeur absentmindedly left his spanner in the kitchen when he came in for a cuppa after tinkering with the motor engine. So a spanner would be fairly easy for anyone to obtain.
But the rope also intrigues. Is it a length cut from a skippy rope belonging to the children of servants living in estate housing? A washing line stolen from the back garden of the lodge? A towing rope carried in the boot of the family's limousine? All possibilities which again stress the criminal is someone familiar with the workings of the estate and one who also has access to the house.
I must say all in all things do look bad for the chauffeur!
I hasten to add this apparent familiarity with criminal enterprises and mayhem is due to reading as many Golden Age mysteries set in country houses as I could find as a youngster, a habit that ultimately led to my arrival in the mystery world and your reading this newsletter.
There's a moral in there somewhere.
AND FINALLY
Speaking of morals, Oscar Wilde was of the opinion books were neither moral nor immoral but rather were written well or badly. We make no claims for the quality of Orphan Scrivener scribblings, leaving it to subscribers to judge for themselves today and when the next issue wings into their in-boxes on June l5th.
See you then!
Mary R and Eric
who invite you to visit their home page, hanging out on the virtual washing line that is the web at http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/ There you'll discover the usual suspects, including more personal essays, lists of author freebies and mystery-related newsletters, Doom Cat (an interactive game written by Eric), a jigsaw featuring the handsome cover of Five For Silver, and our growing pages of links to free e-texts of classic and Golden Age mysteries, ghost stories, and tales of the supernatural. There's also an Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned! Intrepid subscribers may also wish to pop over to Eric's blog at http://www.journalscape.com/ericmayer/
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