The murderer unmasked?
We come to it at last!
The final post of Jayne Barnard's "The Evil Eye of Africa."
In which our intrepid investigator holds the traditional summation with all the suspects together in the manor of the late Baron Von Boddy!
If you think you have solved the mystery email your deduction to: madamesaffron at gmail.com.
We will be accepting your guesses and deductions until midnight on Sunday September 14th.
Madame Saffron (aka Jayne Barnard) will be drawing from all the correct solutions for some prizes from Tyche Books!
The first post is here.
A list of all the characters is here.
You can get all the posts by clicking on the mystery tag.
Good luck with your sleuthing!
Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ
By Jayne Barnard
A Guess-the-Murderer Mystery in Two Acts
Act II: Hercule Hornblower Investigates
August 30, 1898
It is time.
As I have collected all the images from all my spiders old and new, I have assembled all the suspects and will now put to them the questions of my little gray cells.
Madame Midas-White: Did you or did you not know the research that guided Baron von Boddy on his travels was in fact stolen? Did you kill the baron to silence the man you believed the only one who might challenge your claim to a treasure you had invested so much to recover from its desert hiding place? Or, when he refused to refund to you all the money he had cost you by claiming all his purchases in England and Egypt were made with your approval, did you shoot him for ruining your perfect record of money-making?
Professor Plum: You stole the research into the Nubian mask from Professor Indy Brown, is it not so? Did you come to Boddy Manor to claim your share from the baron, and kill him when he refused to split the proceeds? Or, if he had failed, to kill him before he could confirm your theft and see you ejected from the highest university in the land (yes, I know Cambridge will argue that it is the highest, not Oxford, but for the purpose of this discussion…)
Colonel Cardsharp, er, Mustard: You claim to have been the oldest friend and the trustee of Baron von Boddy, and you were missing from London when he reappeared here and vanished again. Did you, being desperately short of money and on the verge of being thrown out of the very regiment where you had accumulated so many battle honours, kill your old friend for the treasure he may have brought back from Africa?
Professor Indiana Brown: You lost your own original research, the product of many years’ labour, to the baron. You were laughed out of the most illustrious university in the English-speaking world (yes, I know all about what Cambridge would have to say on this subject). You were beaten to a treasure and the undoubted fame that would rightfully have been yours. Did you come here to confront the baron on his secretive return, and kill him in a fit of your undoubted American temper?
Sir Ambrose Peacock: Perennial financial distress is your lot. You gambled away the last of your own fortune to Colonel Mustard – and nobody would blame you for wanting to murder HIM – and your hope of marrying another fortune was misled by a female fortune hunter of convincing guise. Did you kill your uncle to inherit his estate, and any treasures he may have accumulated in his latest African adventure?
Lady Peacock, you loveliest of liars: You tried to induce the baron to marry you in Cairo, or, failing that, to take you with him on his treasure hunt. When that failed, you lured his feckless heir into marrying you instead, that you might inherit that treasure by another route. Did you come here to Boddy Manor to silence the baron before he could reveal to his nephew your true nature, if not your true name?
Lady Peacock?
Where is that young woman?
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