TUFFY FARQUESON

Character Booklet
Hello and welcome to Mistletan Manor If you are innocent, you win by
– and to the murder mystery set to unfold collaborating with your fellow bystanders
under its ancient roof. I am author Ruth to correctly figure out the murderer. If
Ware, and I will be guiding you through you are guilty, you win by tricking the
the events of the night. other participants into accusing the wrong
person.
Your host is the bestselling writer Aubrey
St Clair, author of more than forty books You are the rotund, port-swilling Tuffy
starring his celebrated sleuth Eric Argent, Farqueson, Aubrey St Clair’s long-time
and founder of the Detective Club, whose literary agent and friend. With more
members comprise the crème de la crème of than fifty years in the book business
crime writers. Tonight is the fiftieth annual under your belt, you are one of the
meeting of the club, and you are one of the old school of publishing, and almost
honoured guests. as much a staple of the London crime
scene as Aubrey himself. As you’re
First of all, an explanation about this fond of telling editors, you never met
character booklet. Anything written a percentage you couldn’t argue, or an
in italics is for your eyes only, so please advance you couldn’t raise, and you’ve
don’t read it aloud. It may contain secret seen out more scandals, takeovers and
information or clues to your motive, if industry hubbubs than they’ve had
you are guilty. However, you may choose dinners at Ottolenghi. Sadly though,
to share this information as part of the publishing isn’t a lucrative business, and
discussions at the end of the evening. now you’re coming up to retirement
you realise that you might need one last
The night begins with a draw determining cracker of a deal to feather your nest.
who is the murderer and who is an Maybe you can poach someone here
innocent bystander. Whatever your status, tonight?
keep this information to yourself! But when
you come to the paragraph in the character
booklet marked ‘if you are innocent’ or ‘if
you are the murderer’, then you must read
the appropriate section.
INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 2
A QUESTION OF MOTIVE
Read the paragraph below to your fellow guests when you are invited to introduce
yourself. After the narrator has finished, it’s time for you to ask some questions – and answer them!

What ho, chaps and chappesses! Tuffy Farqueson here – Aubrey’s literary agent of Below are the questions you might wish to ask your fellow guests. Each guest can ask
more than fifty years and, dare I say, friend for even longer. Aubrey and I were at TWO questions, so choose wisely. They don’t have to be directed at the same person. At the
boarding school together, as a matter of fact, and we’ve been what you might call end are the questions you may be asked yourself. The answers may be different according
partners in crime ever since! Feel like a bit of an interloper, don’t you know. Not to whether you are the murderer or an innocent bystander, so take a moment to read
really a writer, what. But I flatter myself I know more about the business than most through all the questions and answers, and familiarise yourself with what you should say
of you young whippersnappers here tonight, and if you want my advice, you’ll pick a in the event that you are questioned.
good agent, and stick with them. Worked for Aubrey, what?
If you are innocent, then your job is simple: to figure out the murderer. You need to get
other people on your side, so don’t be afraid to point out holes in the stories of your fellow
CHAPTER 1 guests! If you are the murderer, then remember you cannot lie – you must read out the
REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD ‘if you are the murderer’ answer if you are asked that question. However, your job is to
deflect suspicion onto your fellow guests, by rousing suspicions against them. Be ready
Read the paragraphs below when the narrator instructs you to do so. with some red herring theories!

Good Lord. Aubrey, dead? It doesn’t seem possible! Oh, but this is terrible news, Questions for Valerie Chime
terrible! It’s not just the personal loss, though that’s a painful blow, for I counted
Aubrey as a friend as well as a client. But the loss to the world of letters – he wrote 1) You said you’re something of a ‘scribbler’ – can you tell us a bit more about your
to me only the other day about the new novel he was planning, Eric Argent and the literary ambitions?
Secretary’s Revenge. And now the world will be deprived of reading that work –
though of course there’s always the possibility of a collaborator. I’ll have to call The 2) Sir Aubrey always gave his speeches off the cuff. Why would he be writing out
Times about the obituary – and his publishers, to discuss a special commemorative notes this time? Was that really what he was writing?
edition, they might even want to rejacket his backlist.
3) Can you tell us anything about the murder weapon? The maid said it was a letter
As for that young woman’s absurd suggestion that one of us might be involved – I opener. Do you know the one she meant?
can’t speak for these others, but in my case of course it’s completely ridiculous.
Yes, it’s true that I went up to Aubrey’s room on arrival, but in point of fact he was Questions for Alex Masters
dressing and told me we would speak after dinner. Besides, Aubrey was one of my
most illustrious and lucrative clients. Why would I want to kill the golden goose? 1) You said that you had last seen Aubrey at a writing retreat. Did anything happen
there that we should know about?

2) What is your next book about?

3) You told us that you arrived on the 5.20 train from London, but other guests said
the London train was late. Did you really take that train? How is it that you arrived
ten minutes before them?
Questions for Dolores de l’Amour 3) In your opinion, as a medical examiner, would it have taken much strength to stab
Aubrey?
1) You told us that you gave Aubrey’s forthcoming novel Eric Argent and the
Secretary’s Revenge a glowing quote. Other guests have told us that this book wasn’t Questions for Clive Barking
finished yet. How did you manage to give a quote for it?
1) You said in your statement that you usually stay with Aubrey but you didn’t this
2) What was Aubrey’s forthcoming novel about? time – why was that?

3) How did your late husband die? 2) You said that you co-founded the Detective Club alongside Sir Aubrey – I never
knew that. It’s very generous of you to let Aubrey take all the credit.

Questions for A. N. Andrews 3) You mentioned that Sir Aubrey was stabbed with a letter opener you gave him –
can you tell us a bit more about that?
1) What did you say in your letter to Sir Aubrey? It seems a big leap from writing
one fan letter to being invited to join the Detective Club.
Questions for YOU!
2) You told us that your train from London was late. Other guests who were on the
same train arrived ten minutes before you. What were you doing in the interim? 1) You seem awfully eager to make hay out of Aubrey’s death with special editions
and so on. Isn’t that a little macabre?
3) What is your novel about?
If you are innocent, say: Well, when you put it like that, dashed if it doesn’t sound a
Questions for Kick Carmichael little cynical. The truth is I’m damned cut up about Aubrey’s death, but I’m an old-
school fellow, what. Not very good at emotion. My way of dealing with this sort of
1) You mentioned that you drove down from London. Did anyone actually see your thing has always been to put my head in the sand and bury myself in business. Feels
car arrive? like this is my only way of honouring the dear old chap now. If you’ll excuse me, I
think I’ve got something in my eye.
2) You don’t seem very sure of the plot of your own books. Why is that?
If you are guilty, say: I find that dashed impertinent. Aubrey employed me to do
3) How long have you been a member of the Detective Club? my best by his books, and he paid me 15 per cent of his income to make sure I did,
dammit. I won’t let his death stop me doing right by his books. It’s what Aubrey
would have wanted, and any suggestion that I’m doing it to feather my own pocket
Questions for Rowan McTaggart is bloody rude. Besides – there’s no getting around the fact that his death is going to
increase his profile and his sales. I may have been his friend, but that doesn’t make
1) You seemed very reluctant to look at Sir Aubrey’s body. As a doctor, didn’t you me a sentimental fool as well.
want to see if there was anything you could do?
2) You told us that you went up to see Aubrey before dinner but that he was
2) You told us that your train from London was late, and you were one of the last to dressing. Other people have told us he was in his study. Can you explain the
arrive at the party, but other guests who were on the same train arrived considerably discrepancy?
before you. How do you explain the difference?
If you are innocent, say: Aubrey had a bad habit of getting ink stains on his shirt cuffs, If you are the murderer:
so he always kept a spare shirt in his study to change into. I imagine that’s what he
was doing when I came up, but I didn’t barge in to find out. I just knocked on the Damn your eyes for an interfering busybody. Yes, I killed Aubrey, and the miracle
door and he said not now, old chap, I’m getting dressed. His secretary can confirm that, is that I didn’t do it sooner. He was a pain in the proverbial, and I’d put up with his
if you don’t believe me. grousing and grumbling for years. ‘Is this the best advance you can strike, Tuffy?’
‘Did you bother negotiating these royalty rates at all, Tuffy?’
If you are guilty, say: Well, they probably came up after me when he had finished
getting dressed. I’m telling you, Aubrey was in his bedroom when I saw him. I When the truth is that his books were getting drearier and duller, and his readers
knocked on the door and he said not now, old chap, I’m getting dressed. I hung around were falling away in droves.
on the landing for a few minutes to see if he’d finish, but then I got thirsty and went
downstairs for a whiskey and soda. When I left him he was alive and well. Fifteen per cent he paid me, and I deserved twice that for all I did for him. So what
if I helped myself to a little more – I earned my fee ten times over and then some. I
3) You mentioned Aubrey wrote to you about his forthcoming novel, Eric Argent and don’t know how he found out about my dipping my fingers in the pot, but he did,
the Secretary’s Revenge. What was the novel about? and he threatened to report me to the Association of Authors’ Agents. I would have
been ruined – struck off – clients gone – out on my ear after years of thankless work
Answer: Tragic loss to the literary world, what. I hadn’t read it, it wasn’t finished for that ungrateful scoundrel. And all for pocketing a few extra pounds of royalties
yet, but he’d told me the outline. He said it was about a famous writer who is killed he never even missed.
by his downtrodden secretary. To be honest it was a relief to hear he was back on
form again. He’d been suffering from writer’s block recently. Something in his When I went up to try to reason with him before dinner he told me that he was
personal life, he said. writing a letter to his publisher to inform them that he was sacking me forthwith for
gross misconduct and betrayal of trust, and that was the last penny of commission
I’d ever see from him. Not so much as a ‘thank you for fifty years of service, Tuffy’.

CHAPTER 3 Well, I saw red, and I stabbed him. Yes I did, and I’m not sorry. Aubrey was a wart,
J’ACCUSE! and bumping him off was the best day’s work I’ve done in years.

After the narrator has finished, it’s time for you to share your theories with the other guests
– and vote. The accused is decided by majority vote.

If suspicion has fallen on you, then read out the appropriate passage below.

If you are innocent:

Yes, it’s true I went up to see him before dinner, but then so did half the bally party
judging by the accounts we’ve heard tonight. He was alive and well when I left him,
and I’ll take any oath you like to that effect. You’ve got the wrong end of the stick,
dash it.