The Case of the Ten Red Herrings
has just become a thing,
it wasn’t there before,
in fact, there wasn’t anything;
but, now, into existence sprung,
the case of the Ten Red Herrings,
is an idea
whose calling bell has rung.
The crime scene was set,
the usual suspects had all RSVPd,
upon the dining table the petit fours were gathered in pairs,
at a side table the pears were floating in a strangely
poisonous concoction that defies description,
all else was as normal as a white elephant
stalling the Black London Cab that they had recently stolen.
Add in some detail.
Give everyone a motive – and an alibi.
Draw the chalk outline in expectation of the victim’s fall – similar to ‘pin-the-tail-upon-the-donkey’ and cut the telephone wires.
Sack the butler – it gives him more of a possibility of having done ‘it’.
Cable distant relatives, mentioning the huge inheritance, and the missing will.
Provide Cluedo ‘Detective Sheets’ for the guests, making sure that there is already a body in the library and sparkling cyanide on tap.
Sit back.
Enjoy.
“Betty Botter bought some butter but, said she, the butter’s bitter.
If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter.
But a bit of better butter will make my bitter batter better.
So she bought some better butter, better than the bitter butter,
put it in her bitter batter, made her bitter batter better.
So it was better Betty Botter bought some better butter”
“And that is Mrs. Botter’s defence, is it?”
“Yes, m’Lud.”
“And is there anybody who can confirm the veracity of Mrs. Botter’s… tale?”
“Well… we do have a lady that sells seashells on the seashore… she saw something.”
“Something?”
“Yes. She swears she saw several sea-urchins sauntering southwards, sometime soon after six-seventeen, Sunday the Sixteenth.”
“Around the time that Roger Rusk, retired Landlord of the Rugged Rock ran those ragged rascals out of Rockpool Town?”
“Indeed, m’Lud.”
“Then the case is solved.”
“It is?”
“Indeed, it is; my unlearned gentleman of the persecution. Mrs. Betty Botter – formerly of Quick Brown Fox Incorporated – is a notorious felon with a long history of telling tales and demeaning all kinds of foodstuffs – I do believe her to be the sole perpetrator of the crimes heretofore listed against her.
I pronounce her very guilty of rhymes against the saying of.
Therefore, I sentence Mrs. Betty Batter to a long and lonely life, living and languishing, longing for a little largesse, lofty latitudes, lengthy literal lunches, lasting levity and late lolly-gagging laughter. Let that be a lesson to her.”
“Lunch?”
The Body in the Library
(Yet another poem that tries to fit the title of an Agatha Christie novel in to it)
The Bodleian Library,
in Oxford,
has quite a few books
in crannies
and nooks;
when
I
went there
I was
the
Odd body in the library.
If you can’t do the time…
If you can’t do the time…
then don’t do the rhyme.
Making up words
won’t, generally, win you awards;
but working towards,
half-rhymes, partial rhymes,
incomplete effete rhymes;
rhymes with attitude;
rhymes with a pun;
seriously straight rhymes,
rhymes for fun;
rhymes that don’t,
rhymes that won’t,
rhymes that are visual
but, as is their wont,
when spoken do not,
is an admirable past time—
and, now, I think that I can hear the person on the timer, cough;
so I think that maybe that’s been enoff.
James Pond walked into the Ritz Hotel’s lobby with barely a glance at the Prussian spy sitting to the left of the entrance, supposedly engrossed within the American newspaper that he was holding.
Pond approached the desk and smoothly claimed the electronic key to his penthouse suite, and a small envelope which contained a coded missive from ‘N’.
Pond took the lift to floor 14, exited, and ascended three flights of stairs in the silent running manner that he had employed to his advantage upon so many occasions.
Checking the micro-filament that he had placed across the door frame was still intact, Pond inserted his card and entered – his concentration heightened even more so – it pays to turn up the surveillance when there is nothing to see.
Keeping clear of the full-wall window (even though it was bullet-proof, a missile would make a severe dent in Pond’s aquiline features) Pond observed the small red light blinking on the answer-phone machine (such a relic in this day and age) and the absence of any signs of his apartment having been searched – they were, indeed, very professional.
However, the safeguards that ‘R’ had installed showed air-flow and heat variations in the area – things that were nigh on impossible to avoid – the security cameras had been frozen and showed nothing at all – and definitely didn’t show the deliberately unsynchronised clock that hung on the opposite wall – set to flick back and forth every forty-second second.
Pond relaxed. He saw all the signs and realised that he was not today’s target – they were seeking a lead to his current assignment – they may have found the red herrings, they may ignore them; but, sowing the seeds of doubt and subtly indoctrinating their minds with double-bluffs was all a part of the game.
Pond popped the kettle on.
Coffee, not shaken, stirred, after adding one Sucralose sweetener – actually an anti-poison capsule, and, even if the coffee beans had been contaminated with a powerfully lethal drug, Pond’s immune system would flush any chemicals harmlessly away.
Two Garibaldi biscuits to accompany the coffee, and Pond then dropped smoothly into his comfy recliner in order to read the missive from ‘N’.
TBC
Colonel Mustard
wasn’t flustered
when I accused him of… Murder!
He said:
“I was in the Kitchen
with Mrs. White –
she’ll give me an alibi, alright!”
But, Mrs. White, speaking all polite:
“No. Colonel Mustard wasn’t there, and nor was I –
I was in the Conservatory,
making a pie.”
This didn’t tally,
and I was up a blind alley
with no paddle.
“But, you did kill Doctor Black
with a Candlestick,
didn’t you Colonel?”
“Seeing as it’s Professor Plum,
who has dead become,
I cannot admit to Killing Black –
of his corpse we have a lack.”
I checked my notes;
Professor Plum, was dead and incredibly dumb – when asked, he said nothing.
Miss Scarlet, a veritable harlot,
going by the name of Charlotte,
confessed to being at the scene of the crime
another time
but not this one.
The Reverent Green
was seen
also upon this scene,
eating a tangerine.
But, his alibi, of him writing a sermon
at the time of the murder…
left him in the lurch
when he was asked to swear in church
upon the Good Book –
one look at his guilty expression
was all it took.
So, it was the Reverent Green
who killed Professor Plum
with a Candlestick
in the Library.
This time.
Case closed.
PS Mrs.Peacock was ruled out having been holidaying in the Algarve – lucky lady.
Agatha Christiemas?
What shall we find with the new Poirot?
Shall it be ABC 5*
Parts 1,2 and 3?
Or will it be a Hickory Dickory Shock
to the system?
Shall I have to get the 3:10 from Paddington to Bear it?
Who knows whether John Suchet
can be bettered
or equaled…
it is, perhaps,
just a previous reincarnation
sequelled?
The mirror crack’d from side to side
And there is always a steam train
Agatha liked steam
It does seem that way
they say she wrote some of her stories whilst aboard;
or wrote whilst afloat
travelling to Egypt, Mesopotamia or the like.
I don’t know if she ever travelled by bike;
working on a riddle
while balancing upon a saddle.
This was the point where it was decided (by fate) that June Marble should be brought in. An elderly lady, of many, many years experience, June’s name was synonymous with crime detection – and also a certain month of the year.
June had lived in the tiny hamlet-village of St. Merrymeet and had had a hand in solving various murders; in the vicarage, library, at the local train station, and in a dozen stately homes within a radius of thirty miles – some of which were nautical miles. Her exploits were so famous that they had often been written into books – The June Marble Mysteries.
June arrived early – the 27th Of May, to be exact – and soon was up to speed with all the known details of ‘the second, more recent murder’ and the circumstances that may, or may not, have led to it.
A list was made by June, of all the people present at the story-telling meeting, and she started upon a series of interviews with them – choosing the order alphabetically.
Algernon Arbuthnot Andrews, unsurprisingly, was first to be seated nervously in front of June in the Interview Room at the library.
Algernon described in excessive detail to June the recent events and then recounted the events of the original meeting of nearly two years gone. June took a few notes, doodled the picture of a cat in the margin – not entirely irrelevant, she was later to explain.
Algernon referred to a series of notes that he had meticulously taken at both events. The notes were written in shorthand – one of Algernon’s talents;sadly, his deciphering of the shorthand notes was long and laborious. However, many details were given and June jotted down verbatim, and word for word, all that Algernon had to say.
We shall see what conclusions June comes to a little later on.
TBC
 | Cynthia Praski on SoCS – Tape – #4… |
 | Words from a Lentil… on SoCS – Tape – #4… |
| Cynthia Praski on SoCS – Tape – #4… |
| Words from a Lentil… on SoCS – Tape – #4… |
| Cynthia Praski on SoCS – Tape – #4… |
Graeme Sandford 