Where the Biggest Attraction is Playing Dangerous Games*

In Agatha Christie’s Dumb Witness (AKA Poirot Loses a Client), Hercule  Poirot and Captain Hastings are investigating the death of Miss Emily Arundell. In this murder mystery, there are plenty of suspects, as Miss Arundell had a large fortune to leave and several relations who are desperate for it. In the course of the investigation, Poirot doesn’t hesitate to eavesdrop on conversations, prevaricate and do other things that Hastings considers “not playing the game.” Poirot says,

 

“…and my reply is that murder is not a game.”

 

He’s right. Murder is a very terrible and serious event. And yet, it’s interesting how often people get together for “murder games” in crime fiction, only to have one of them not leave the party alive.

Christie herself shows how serious a business murder is in Dead Man’s Folly. In that novel, mystery novelist Ariadne Oliver is commissioned to create a Murder Hunt competition for an upcoming fête at Nasse House, the property of Sir George and Lady Hattie Stubbs. She travels there to create the clues, the synopsis, and so on. As she does so she begins to feel that there’s more to this competition than a simple entertainment for a fête. So she asks Hercule Poirot to join her there and investigate. He agrees and travels to Nasse House under the pretext of giving away the prizes. Oliver’s fears are realised when fourteen-year-old Marlene Tucker, who plays the part of the “victim” during the hunt, is actually killed. Poirot works with Inspector Bland to find out who among the house party was using the fête as a pretext to commit murder. It turns out that Marlene Tucker knew more than it was safe for her to know about one of the people at the party, and that person used the game as a “cover” to silence her.

We also see a sort of murder game go terribly wrong in Margery Allingham’s The Crime at Black Dudley. Dr. George Abbershaw is among several guests invited for a house party to Black Dudley, a remote old mansion owned by Wyatt Petrie, a successful young academic. Another guest is Albert Campion, who’s got a reason of his own for being at the house. One night, Petrie tells the guests of an old family ritual, the Black Dudley Ritual. According to that ritual, participants darken all the lights in the house, and then pass an old dagger around, the idea being to get rid of it as soon as possible. The guests want to follow the ritual as a game, and finally Petrie agrees. Abbershaw isn’t eager for the game, although he isn’t squeamish, but he acquiesces in the end. The lights are darkened, the dagger is taken down and the game begins. At one point, Meggie Oliphant, another guest and the object of Abbershaw’s affections, gets the dagger which she notices seems to be covered in blood. Then someone slips it out of her hand in the darkness. This suggests to Abbershaw that something is very wrong with this game, and his worst fears are confirmed when Colonel Coombe, Petrie’s uncle, dies. At first, Abbershaw believes that Coombe was murdered by a group of thieves who were there under the guise of being Commbe’s business associates. But it’s soon enough clear that someone else is the murderer. Now Abbershaw has to find out who the murderer is before the thieves actually do commit murder (which they will not hesitate to do) or the real murderer strikes again.

In Ngaio Marsh’s first Roderick Alleyn novel A Man Lay Dead, we meet Nigel Bathgate, who, together with his cousin Charles Rankin, is invited to a house party given by Sir Hubert Handesley. The main event of the party is to be a Murder Hunt. One guest will be tagged as “the murderer,” who will choose a “victim.” The rest of the guests are charged with finding out who the “murderer” is. The game goes terribly wrong when Rankin is stabbed to death. Alleyn is called in to investigate and he soon finds that there are plenty of suspects. For one, Rankin was openly flirting with Margery Wilde, one of the other guests, despite the presence of her husband Arthur. For another, he was also involved with another guest Rosamund Grant. And then there’s the Russian-made dagger used in the crime, which points to the butler Vassily Vassilyevitch, who disappears shortly after the crime. It turns out that Vassilyevitch was involved with a Russian secret society, and that Rankin may also have been involved in that group.  So there’s no lack of suspects or clues as Alleyn sifts through the evidence.

And then there’s Anthony Berkeley’s Panic Party (AKA Mr. Pidgeon’s Island). In that novel, eccentric Oxford don Guy Pidgeon has come into a large sum of money. He buys a yacht and a private island and organises a yacht party to which Roger Sherringham is invited, along with several other guests. The yacht party starts well enough, but then the yacht malfunctions and has to dock at the deserted island. The guests go ashore and they soon find out that they’ve been stranded. Pidgeon then informs everyone that one of them is a murderer, and that he can prove who it is. He proposes that as a distraction, the guests try to find out who the killer is. No-one wants to play this game, and later, Sherringham is stunned to discover that the whole sequence of events has been a hoax; Pidgeon wanted to conduct an experiment so see how everyone would co-operate and interact. The  “fun” Pidgeon’s organised soon goes horribly wrong when he himself is pushed from a cliff on the island. Sherringham now realises that Pidgeon was right; someone is a murderer.

In The Killing Club, co-written by Michael Malone, we meet a group of New Jersey teenagers who half-jokingly put together a Death Book in which they write the names of people they would like to see die, and how they’d like to see those people killed. It’s not meant to be taken seriously but then tragically, one of the members of the group commits suicide in exactly the way mentioned in the Death Book. That trauma breaks the group up and the members go their separate ways. Ten years later, one of the group’s former members, Jamie Ferrara, has become a police officer.  She and the rest of the Killing Club re-unite to attend another member’s funeral. Shortly afterwards there’s another death. Ferrara soon realises that these deaths were not co-incidences and that they’re all related to the Death Book, which didn’t turn out to be a game at all for someone.

Linda Suzane’s The Murder Game is another piece of evidence that murder is not a game. Mystery novelist Gwen Wilson is commissioned to create a Murder Hunt in honour of Lawrence Van Hise’s 70^th birthday. Wilson has a personal connection to the Van Hise family as her mother was once Van Hise’s housekeeper. After Van Hise accused Wilson’s mother of stealing a valuable statue, she committed suicide. Now, Wilson begins to have questions about what really happened to her mother. Then on the night of the birthday party and Murder Hunt, Van Hise is murdered. Wilson has a very good motive for the murder, and since she planned the game, she also had a very good opportunity. Now, she has to find out who the real killer is in order to clear her name.

Murder games like “murder parties” can go horribly wrong, as you can see. But in real life, they usually don’t end up in a real death. Find out for yourself; check out games like the ones designed by fellow blogger and writer Elspeth Antonelli. You’ll see, they’re terrific. Just….erm…be careful .

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from The Byrds’ Dangerous Games.