Twelve Days of Christmas Murder and Mayhem

By Aaron T Knight

Agatha Christie's famous detective, Miss Marple has amazed everyone with her super ability to solve murders. Why hasn't any killer tried to knock her off when they learn she is on the case? In this satire a Miss Marble, quite different from Miss Marple, is to be murdered by a group of people out for revenge. A perfect settiing is a 500 year anniversary celebration of a castle located in Northern England.  Bumbles, fumbles and outright stupidity foil attempts to kill her. Comic satire.

Lisa Binion  Author

Story & My Thoughts: I grew up reading Agatha Christie's mysteries. I own all of them, and each one has been read several times. No criminal could get away with any wrongdoing if Miss Marple happened to be in the vicinity. With her long history of solving crime, have you ever wondered why no criminal ever tried to do away with her? Twelve Days of Christmas Mayhem and Murder is a mystery-comedy spoof in which Miss Marple is known as the hilarious Miss Marble. In this story, someone is trying to do away with her so she will no longer stick her nose where criminals feel it doesn't belong. Cheatham castle in northern England provides the setting for this story during a brutal British winter and the Christmas season.  A 500-year anniversary is seen as a time to draw attention to the castle and prepare to turn it into a tourist magnet. During this celebration,the castle is full of guests and one or more of these guests wants snoopy old Miss Marble dead. Others among the visitors do not want her to stay alive. There are enough red herrings, attacks, narrow escapes, and murders to satisfy any fan of mystery fiction. I don't believe that there will ever be another Agatha Christie, but Aaron Knight has successfully written a satisfying spoof of one of the brilliant detectives she created. If you are a fan of Miss Marple stories, you might get a kick out of seeing her in a different light. I believe that even Agatha Christie herself would get a kick out of this spoof of one of her famous detectives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aaron T Knight
• Release date: Oct 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393980889

Book preview

Twelve Days of Christmas 

Murder and Mayhem

Chapter One

December 1950 Somewhere in Yorkshire, England.

This tale encompasses the traditional Christmas season in  England beginning Decmber 25 and ending January 6.

1950 was a special year at Cheatham castle since it marked its 500th year anniversary. Adding to the special occasion was its opening during the Christmas season 500 years ago. The famous castle was an English landmark built on the site of a Roman fort. It was situated next to Hadrian's Wall built by Hadrian to protect the Roman army, and mark the end of civilization. This was near Scotland where the northern English tribes viciously and frequently attacked the Romans.

The wall marked the farthest point where reasonable protection from the wild hordes could be expected. If you wandered off into the hills past the wall, you no longer had any hope of help from the Romans.

In other words, don't blame us if something dire happens should you wander beyond the Wall.

There would be 50 prominent guests coming to the castle for a week long pre-Christmas event. Many of the guests would be a wide variety of family relatives bound by blood ties to the Cheatham clan. In order of importance were the inhabitants of the castle, all the way down to a sprinkling of third cousins. There would also be a number of celebrities and well known important people. Cheatham Castle was guaranteed wide spread publicity for the week long anniversary event.

Cheathams presently living at the family home were Lord and Lady Cheatham, a widowed daughter, her three children, and a son. A grand celebration of this magnitude hadn't been held at the castle since prior to World War II. Post war England was only five years removed from WWII. The country was struggling to recover from the world conflict which drained away the wealth of the kingdom. Industries had to be revived to get back to competitive commerce. It was a slow process since the vital functions were now owned and operated by the government. Civil service has never been known for vigorous forward looking efforts.

Many landed families like the Cheathams were flat broke. Taxes of all kinds were choking them, their revenue producing activities were in chaos. Circumstances made life difficult and they only knew how to be idle with servants, or in a war killing people. Some did get into politics but those opportunities weren't plentiful.

In the case of the Cheathams their enterprising son, Neville, was working to turn the castle into a tourist attraction. The tourist business was small at present. It had been opened to the public for tours, for a fee, of course. The family lived in one section of the castle and the rest was open to the tourists. Neville had big ideas to convert the castle into a high class hotel. He saw the 500 year anniversary event as their big chance to raise the capital they needed to go big time with a combination of a hotel and tourism.

This bash was costing a small fortune. Fifty guests being fed and entertained for a week in the grand old fashion complete with bird hunting, fox hunting, balls, and parties had a price tag you don't want to know. Raising the funds was Neville's responsibility which he attacked with enthusiasm. Making deals seemed to be in his blood and nothing defeated him for long.

He created a corporation to raise the money needed to hold the event. It was an eclectic mix of investors each representing an area needed for the project. For example, a large hotel in York was supplying uniformed domestics, cooks and all of the linens needed for 60 bedrooms. They owned 15% of the company and solved many of the operational details for Neville. He considered it to be well worth the stock ownership he had to give them.

Many merchant associations in Yorkshire saw the future potential of the image Cheatham Castle would be creating for the area. More money and help poured in from these sources and several villages provided needed maintenance people for a share.

In all, 40% of the corporation was owned by this mixed bunch. Neville was pleased. But the family was a little alarmed, until he explained the real estate and castle weren't an asset of the operating company.

Most of the people who were invited to the special celebration were eagerly looking forward to being well fed and entertained. Not so with all of them though. Some would only go through the motions because they had to. Prior commitments to social and family links made a plausible excuse for not attending. Refusing the invitation without an alibi would create all sorts of social problems.

This anniversary celebration was the first phase of the Christmas season. Within a week after the closed event by invitational only was the grand opening of Cheatham castle to the public as a modern, top rated hotel. It was fully booked several months ahead of the gala opening during the coming holiday. All of this world wide publicity as a one-two punch would guarantee full occupancy for months.

Chapter Two

One such malcontent without an alibi was Basil Beaverton whose mother was a sister to Lady Elizabeth Cheatham. He was in a foul mood as he turned off the highway onto a narrow rural road winding like a snake up and down the hills. It was a road to be taken seriously since it was barely wide enough to accommodate two cars driving in opposite directions. Basil hoped he would be lucky enough to avoid meeting another motorist and be forced to creep slowly forward to pass the other car.

Such an encounter required each vehicle to be moved onto the very edge of the road, then slowly pass one another with only inches to spare. A miscalculation could cause a car to slide down into a narrow shallow ditch. Or worse, it was possible to become badly wedged in a bog and hopelessly stuck without a hope of powering your car free.

Several situations were common when mired down. There was the possibility of no traffic for hours which would have been a fortunate thing if you weren’t in a ditch. Or, you are able to contact a garage in a nearby village and arrange for a tow truck to pull you out. Then you are left to wait not knowing when the truck would arrive. Chances of the tow truck arriving before midnight were only a hope.

Basil was relieved to pass through this treacherous stretch of the road unscathed. Now the way was straight and wider near the hamlet of Stream on Green. Basil's Jaguar quickly picked up speed, maybe a little faster than the road conditions warranted on a gray, drizzly day. Near the hamlet was the first crossing of the stream for which the place was named.

Basil hadn't been relieved of his lousy mood, he was impatient to reach his destination, Cheatham Castle. Out of the gloom of the day he saw the upper beams of the bridge spanning the stream coming up. No need to slow down for the bridge, it was a straight run across to the other side. His car entered the bridge area between the supporting upper beams, unfortunately they were the only structures of the bridge still standing.

The car launched into open air, then arched downward as it ran out of momentum, landing nose first into the bank of the stream. It came to rest with the hood completely buried in the mud, leaving Basil staring through the shattered windshield into blackness.

He was slightly injured from the dive. His head was bleeding from striking the windshield when the Jaguar dove into the stream bank. His chest was badly bruised from his collision with the steering wheel when the car came to an abrupt halt. As the shock of the crash wore off, panic set in and he frantically pushed on the car door. It opened enough to allow Basil to slither through it to the muddy stream bed.

He began to do an inventory of his working parts. No broken bones as far as he could tell, but his head and chest were throbbing with pain. He was about to sit down on a rock near the car when a man in working clothes and Wellingtons approached him.

Are you bleedin' or anything? he asked Basil as he looked him over.

Three outrageous elements of the current situation collided in Basil's brain. Their incendiary power combined to create an incomprehensible rage he was unable to stop from expressing itself.

Why? why? aren't there warning signs posted? I was nearly killed! Do you work here?

The force of this outburst alarmed the workman and he back-pedaled away from Basil. Then tripped and fell on his rump in the mud. He stood up and stared at the madman, then he replied warily.

"There was signs up until last night. Someone stole them, probably some of the local lads. We have been debating whether we would put up signs again. It's quite an expense to us, and everyone in the area knows the bridge was washed away in the recent flooding.

‘We didn't reckon on a stranger driving on this road. Now I can see it was a bad decision. Except for the little bit of blood on your forehead you look fine. I'd say the deep mud you landed in cushioned your fall."

Basil was staring at him, dumfounded over the lunatic explanation he had just heard.

Are you people insane? No warning signs at the bridge because the locals knew it was destroyed. So you people took a chance that a stranger wouldn't be using the road? I have never heard such nitwit thinking in my life! I'm not feeling lucky to crash into soft mud as you have pointed out. It shouldn't have happened in the first place!

The last part was screamed out as his voice went higher and higher. Now the worker instinctively retreated a few yards away from Basil to protect himself. Bodily harm at the hands of the raving maniac seemed to be iminent He was also becoming angry over the insulting remarks being shouted out at him. What cheek! he thought to himself, the man has only a scratch or two.  No need to be abusive!

By now there was a crowd of residents lined up on the other bank where a bridge had once existed. A policeman arrived at the accident scene. He was a little late since he was forced to drive ten extra miles to the nearest crossing to get over to the accident scene. He inspected the car. Then came over to the laborer