WHODUNITS

The necklaces

Once upon a time, in England in a beautiful castle near London, lived the Robertson family who was a rich family. Around there, everybody knew them because they were like the perfect family, everything about them seemed incredibly perfect.

  This week all of the family was in the castle and it was Christmas eve so uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters … had arrived a few days before. Duke Robertson, the patriarch, had decided to cook a very expensive and good meal because it was the only time of the year when every member of the family was present. The ladies were gorgeous with amazing dresses and beautiful necklaces. The men looked smart in their dinner suits like every Christmas eve. At 8.00 pm Mrs Miller rang the bell which was under the stairs and everybody went downstairs to the dining room to have supper. The Duke didn't like people to be late and the members of the family knew that, so they arrived just after the bell.

  Everybody had gone down to the first floor. They had all forgotten Mrs Muller who had been a widow since the death of her husband 10 years before. She was late. Everybody was impatient. Her sister, Mrs Cole decided to go upstairs to see what she was doing. The bedroom door was closed. She called her sister but unfortunately nobody answered, so Mrs Cole kicked the door open.

Suddenly a big cry was heard! All of the family went upstairs to Mrs Muller's bedroom, they were in a state of shock, it was terrible. Most of the ladies were crying. The patriarch decided to close the door behind him and to wait for the detective before someone erased any evidence.

During the night, nobody could sleep because of the corpse in the house. It was very disturbing to the family.

The next morning, detective White arrived at the castle with his assistant Mr Millstone. They asked to see where the murder had happened.

Immediately, they noticed that she had been strangled with a pearl necklace. There wasn't any blood but she had been killed just because she couldn't breathe. The detective started to ask questions to figure out how she had been strangled. In the bathroom they found a jewelery box which was open.  They asked her sister to come and check to see if any necklace was missing. In fact, one was missing: the most beautiful and precious one.  

  Later in the evening Inspector White invited all the family to join him in the living room to explain the situation. Sarah, the cleaning woman, was perturbed about something as she trembled and sniffed noisily. Mister Robertson, the victim's  father, was infuriated by his wife who didn't look very affected by the situation. The patriarch sat on the red sofa, surrounded by his daughter, Mrs Cole and his cat.

The atmosphere was cold and tense. Nobody talked, there was only the sound of the crying.

  The inspector questioned all the people of the castle. He started with  Mr Robertson who declared that he was at the Bridge Club with his father. It was a tradition according to him and the patriarch confirmed this as he was at the Bridge Club also.
  It was Mrs Cole's turn  . She was strange and preoccupied. After 20 minutes, she decided to tell what she was doing at the time of the murder. It turned out she was with the gardener at his house. It was verified by Sarah who had seen them leaving the house at 5 p.m.

  Only Sarah and Robertson's wife were in the house. During her questioning, Sarah perspired and was nervous. After several questions, she explained that she had seen Kelly, the father's wife, climb the stairs and quarrel with Mrs Muller about a necklace. The inspector made the connection between the lost necklace and so he asked Millstone to search Kelly's suitcase. They found nothing.

  Although Mrs Robertson denied the claims, White carried on with his investigation.

At first, Mr White looked for the motive but nothing was important enough to commit a murder. Mrs Cole had a motive, she was jealous of her sister. Since her childhood, Alice Muller had looked prettier than Lily Cole. She was more appreciated than her. Alice was perfect. But the detective noticed Lily Cole loved her sister, so he thought it was impossible that Mrs Cole had killed her.

He had to dig somewhere else because he couldn't find the murderer without other clues. He decided to investigate on the murder place because a few weeks before, he had resolved a murder thanks to a clue which he had found under the victim's bed. It was a ring so he wanted to use the same method . He asked Mr Millestone to look for something which could belong to the murderer.

At the beginning, he looked for a clue under the bed, under the wardrobe but he couldn't find anything. He examined closely every single corner of the room. Then, he went to the bathroom … nothing !

A couple of hours later, Mr Millestone was tired and decided to give up the inquiry. Luckily, he stumbled because of the corner of carpet and he fell down near the fire place. There were no logs in it. He was desperate suddenly, he noticed something shining under the ashes. It caught his eyes, he blew over the ashes to discover what it was. He called his superior, Mr White and they deduced it was a button. The investigation was taking a new turn.

They went together to the living room and they asked everybody to take a seat. The atmosphere was very tense. The two investigators turned around each member of the family. They were trying to find whom the lost button belonged to.

Suddenly, Mr White discovered Mrs Robertson's dress was missing a button. He verified that it was the same button. Fortunately, it was … ! She was GUILTY ! Everybody was extremely shocked, nobody could imagine that she was the murderer.

Mr White went to another room with her because he wanted explanations. She started to tell him why she had done that. In fact, she had killed Alice Muller because she wanted Alice's mother's necklace. It was very expensive and since the first time she had met Mrs Muller, Mrs Robertson had been jealous of her...

Marie Lorre and Nina Sanchez