2014 Agatha Christie Festival: Part 6 - Murder Mystery Dinner Party

As with all good things, our week at the Agatha Christie Festival had to come to an end. But before it was over, we spent our last night doing a bit of sleuthing at a Murder Mystery dinner!!

The evening was hosted by The Man in the Brown Suit - a little reference there to one of Agatha Christie's books. In fact, there were quite a few references - apparently we couldn't ask Mrs McGinty any questions, because she was dead (Mrs McGinty's Dead), Miss Honeycott was carrying a copy of The Mystery of the Blue Train, on the front cover it mentioned The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Albert said there was a wasps nest in the potting shed (The Wasps Nest) and there was some discussion as to why nobody has asked Doris Evans (Why Didn't They Ask Evans?)!!

Our Host, The Man in the Brown Suit

Our host set the scene for us - it was 1930, we were dining in the private members club of the Sunningdale House Hotel where a Mr Anthony Shepherd had recently been found murdered. The police already had a suspect in custody - a Miss Doris Evans (his mistress). It was our job - along with the help of Tommy and Tuppence - to find who had really committed the crime!!


Tommy and Tuppence

We were given a list of suspects and there were a number of witnesses to question. They were dressed up and kept in character all the way through the evening. One thing we learnt was to get there early - the characters were there and you could mingle with them and ask questions before being seated. We found this out afterwards...

At first I found it a bit odd, asking them questions but we soon got into it. At the end of each round, Tommy and Tuppence summed up their findings, to make sure we were keeping up with the story. They also visited each table during question time to help and lead us in the right direction.

In between questioning, we had a three course meal - for once I didn't take any pictures of my food! We were too busy questioning the witnesses and making notes!!


We were also given the opportunity to send a telegram to Doris Evans, who was in prison. We were told that Mr Shepherd had been stabbed with a hatpin so I asked whether Doris ever wore hatpins. This is the reply I received....


A Telegram

Not so helpful! In hindsight, maybe I should have asked if she had lost one of her hatpins. There were other clues, all supposedly belonging to Mr Shepherd - an almost finished painting (which had some of the trees painted brown instead of green), a pair of walking boots and socks (with one red and one green sock) - all very odd because the victim was not colour blind. However, one of the suspects was!!

Clues!!

We had already worked out who the murderer was, but to be honest, it all seemed a bit familiar to me. I was sure I had read the story somewhere, but a long time ago. I only remembered things when they happened or when someone told us something useful. But it meant some of the more obscure clues made sense.

At the end of the night we had to write down who we thought the murderer was and why. I wrote an essay and included all the clues we had picked up along the way!! It was such good fun. And, we came second!

All too soon, it was time to go back to our apartment and finish packing, before we set off early the next morning back to Yorkshire. It was a really enjoyable week and we met lots of other Agatha Christie fans, from all over the world - Scotland, Belgium, Germany, America and even Australia! We're going back this year and have already booked an apartment. However, there's still no news on the programme :(. But it's been fun reminiscing about last year.

I've been re-reading all of Agatha Christie's books and I recently read The Sunningdale Mystery which is a Tommy and Tuppence story. And that's the one! It was the story that this Murder Mystery dinner was based on. I knew I'd read it somewhere before. I think I've also seen it on television.

Mystery solved....!