The Agatha Christie Book Club

By Cheryl Lee

Does the mind grow duller with age, or does the mere actions of game playing, puzzle solving increase their sharpness? Two seniors, newly widowed wished to keep their 'little grey cells' active. By chance a neighbor appears to disappear, her character flaws seemed to lead them into believing that she could be a victim of something dangerous. They use what they have learned from their book club to find the answers, but when they do, who would believe them?
Many false clues, many possible characters had the right motives to commit a 'perfect' crime.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cheryl Lee
• Release date: Jul 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476339481

Cheryl Lee

A retired educator now living in the Pacific Northwest.Traveled through and visited forty-eight of the fifty United States, summered in Mexico, Canada, Great Britain-England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, visited western France, written plays for elementary, middle, and high school, taught classical fencing, volunteer reading, teaching puppetry, international artist with work displayed in greater London, Scotland, Wales, mid-west and western states.I will also go by my late husband's title name, Cheryl Lee DeLighton, to honour my late husband, C.N. Lee DeLighton and the stories he dictated to me. See zazzle.com/CherylLeeDesigns or contact:[e-mail]

Book preview

The Agatha Christie Book Club

Cheryl Lee

Copyright 2012 by Cheryl Lee

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Introduction

It was another sweltering day. Leigh was wondering if Effie was still ‘on’ for the club’s meeting at her house. Her box fans, usually adequate for the weather’s unpredictability, were trying valiantly to move the hot air around the small kitchen. It just wasn’t enough. Leigh was on this week’s schedule to make the hors d’oeuvres for their book club discussion. Cold sandwiches would be nice but, the freshly purchased bread looked suspicious for their consumption. The ice for their drinks had been melting in the glasses faster than she imagined. She put the containers inside of the refrigerator to stop the relentless progression. Besides, the back patio was too hot to sit at with the sun’s rays beating down on the awning and through the top. The sirocco whirling air was sucking up all of the moisture from the vegetation such as the trees, plants and small birdbath in the manicured garden at the end of the patio.

O.K. she thought, give Effie a call and cancel. With Bea gone to visit her ailing sister, Paula on a short senior cruise and Jeannie babysitting her grandson for the next two weeks, it would be just the two of them today anyway. The club was temporarily shy of any majority voters for their usual debates about this week’s story.

The A.C.B. Club was born out of necessity to keep all of their minds sharp and agile. It had been the brainstorm of Effie and Leigh after they suddenly became widows. Effie read somewhere where mind games, twisters, mysteries kept the brain cells active -the little gray cells- as Poirot would say. As for the others, they were divorcée’s and devoted to other pursuits anyway.

Leigh was a retired teacher and loved to discuss the different facets of everyday living. She read and was devoted to mysteries anyway, Conan Doyle’s famous detective – Sherlock Holmes; Rex Stout detective stories; Dashiell Hammett’s Thin Man ; Cadfael-a medieval mystery solving monk stories; and of course Agatha Christie’s varied heroes, but above all of the rest was the infallible Miss Jane Marple! Who better, than a spinster living in a sheltered English village with a variety of characters to draw life’s lessons from? Leigh was also living in a small town, surrounded by neighbors who fit the listings of, shall we say: characters.

Leigh and her late husband had indeed traveled abroad, like Christie’s characters, throughout the British Isles, France, and Italy. Each summer break was a joy and then recall for her students’ edification in the school's next seasons. They did it for decades and wonders never ceased for them. People watching became a pleasant pastime while abroad, noticing that human nature was the same for everyone; predictability was a game to them. They thoroughly enjoyed the joy of travel. They had planned to go to Egypt when the professor finally retired, but, alas a sudden heart attack took away that chance.

Effie had traveled with her late husband later on into his early retirement; his work took him all about the United States lecturing on his inventions. She had their children right out of college and now they were either married or in college themselves. Therefore, observation of the masses of people coming to the series of talks and demonstrations gave Effie a fair knowledge of how the human mind processes, as well. They were equally, yet differently approaching the same puzzles coming to the identical logical conclusions, she and Leigh. The deliberations between the two were stimulating to say the least and fulfilling for them both. The others were friends of theirs. Not as needy but, offered diversions. Thus the club was born.

This week was devoted to the Murder Is Easy story, a whodunit where the obvious is deviously played with, a real treat for the amateur detectives-Effie and Leigh. Real clues strung about and hidden among extraneous plot additions to purposely throw off the unwittingly slow reader to confuse and cajole. A ‘piece of cake’ as they would say- read the story and pluck out the misguided tidbits and stick to the ‘character flaws’ as they will always ring true.

The weather was scorching hot for over a fortnight now. Not even a cool breeze in the evenings. People were on edge she noticed, for example, her neighbors to her north. A young couple, newlyweds she imagined, had a shouting match last evening and he left the residence in a huff this morning. The children down the road had a ball game that ended in an argument as to the legitimacy of the point made. A fist fight broke out and two boys rolled onto the pavement bloodied and dirty as the result. Names were exchanged loudly and much to her embarrassment the language was frowned on even in today’s’ ‘open’ diplomacy actions. She remembered back in her childhood, although she had always thought of ‘old fogies’ doing that and she never did consider she as an ‘old fogy’ yet, those terms were punishable by any stretch of the imagination.

So many newcomers to her area, no time to really get to know them, pity though, not like the times of her youth where neighbor relied on each other for friendship, recipe exchanges and taking turns doing general patrol of the surroundings for anything to disrupt the harmonious existence. People were constantly on the move nowadays anyway, she thought.

It was same for Effie’s neighborhood, youngsters moving off to college or to the bigger cities to find work: downsizing. She grew to loathe that term. The family dichotomy was changing rapidly. Even the extended family was disappearing, for instance, Uncle So-and-so or, Auntie So-and-so, or Grandpa So-and-so no longer lived with the family. It was a shame not to have the dynamics of such personalities’ around the children, especially to draw from their life’s wonders.

People were too busy to notice the little, subtle differences now. Wrapped up in their own small world , placed themselves in the protective bubbles not observing those closest to themselves, much less the neighbors. As someone once noted-if you fail to learn from the past you are doomed to repeat their mistakes in the future. As an active observer of Life, Leigh was bound and determined not to follow that failure. Effie vowed to do the same as she.

Thus came the first clue that all was not well and those two, who watched carefully, noted the plot unfold before their vigilant eyes. ‘The game was a foot, Watson’, marked Leigh to Effie, whose eyes shone with delight to have to solve a mystery, in their, very own, world.

Chapter One

The Couple

You never gave me a chance, he said turning away from her stare and tears.

She smiled slyly at his statement, knowing how she manipulated every situation since they met. How did they meet? She recalled the hot, summer’s breezes as she sat in the car being driven by her ‘friend’. They were going to a birthday party, the ‘friend’s’ instructor’s birthday party. It was a standing invitation for her ‘friend’, she wondered how this ‘birthday person’ would greet her or would he merely accept her as part of the celebrating group. As it turned out to be just as she had envisioned, the ‘hostess’ welcomed the ‘friend’ and also greeted warmly her intrusion into the festivities. As they were brought back to the rear of the stately home a sight of tables and lanterns decorating the backyard showed the vision of the other guests happily milling around the ‘host’.

There he sat, next to the ‘man of the hour’; she clasped eyes on him noticing everything about him. After the usual introductions of everyone around, she focused on him. The wife of the celebrator brought out the refreshments, sandwiches, iced drinks and cake for all around. She managed to ‘accidently’ spill her drink next to, but not on her target for the evening. The ‘friend’ that brought her left her side to get her a fresh glass, and it was just enough time to make her impression on her target while the rest were gone or busy. Their eyes locked as she knew they would by now.

Laughter was ricocheting about the incident and she threw herself into the ‘clumsy ole’ me’ routine she had expertly executed many times before. I am such a goose when it comes to served drinks; enviably I always spill them when I am distracted or nervous. She flashed a shy