The Butler didn't do it!

...Its getting close to the busy season and the weather has been glorious for days now. It even feels warm at night which is a good sign that Summer is just around the corner. We have had a very busy week and still more to do.

Last night was a great night of entertainment. Paneils my favourite Benidorm Restaurant, held a murder mystery night. The menu fixed at 15 Euros per head which included the meal and the mystery. We got there reasonably prompt at 7 pm with Bob and John (new kids on the block) and Margaret, Andrea's mother. We took our seats and didn't need to look through a menu everyone needed to pre-order so that all the meals could be served at one time (not an easy task for the chef Neil, or the waiters, Patrick and Marge).

Four of us had spare ribs, and Ange had salad nicoise, For the main course 4 of us had Salmon and I had stuffed Pepper which was one of the nicest main courses I have ever had. There was rice, mushrooms, onions, spices and seasoning in the pepper and it sat in a rich tomato sauce which had a dash of chilli to spice it up. And for desert two had peach crumble Margaret had a fruit salad topped with Ice cream and I had sponge cake with dates and walnuts and custard. But we didn't eat in the conventional way. First of all, the Mystery master explained where we were (we were in an art gallery in Benidorm, which was owned by One of the suspects), who we all were and that each table had a suspect on it. I turned out to be the suspect on our table. My name was Ivor Biggun (I know what you are all thinking so I am just moving on swiftly) I was a bisexual gigolo, who was having a liaison with a wealthy widow who had bought me a yacht, a fast car and a luxury penthouse. There were 6 other suspects including her son and daughter, the Galery owner a lady in a wheelchair who was a childhood friend of her daughter, a sculptor and my ex-boyfriend! The suspects were given a script which explained what they were doing up to the discovery of a body. The body being Lady Plenty (my lady friend).

We were then served our starter. After the starter each of the suspects were in turn asked to stand and answer questions from the rest of the people in the room, this relaxed everyone and we were all in good spirits. Then we were given some evidence like a knife, a tram ticket and a cigarette lighter. We were then served our main course. After which the suspects were questioned again in the light of the discovered evidence. Then we were shown a couple of documents, one was lady Plenty's will and the other was a forensic report which showed that the knife which bore the initials of the sculptor, had the dead woman's daughter's fingerprints on. and a blood sample proved to be that of her daughters also. The finger of suspicion was firmly pointing in her direction. Now as well as me being a suspect, as there were 7 suspects but only 6 tables, John was a suspect too. he was the dead woman's son, and his sister was played by an older lady on another table who had certainly gone into character. We were not allowed to lie we had to tell the truth as we knew it. But if we liked to embelish it that was fair game. So when ever I asked her a question she said "Not you again!" and when my 'ex-boyfriend' was asked questions about me he looked at me in a very annoyed manner as though I betrayed him. It is surprising what a few bottles of does to someone acting a role. We then had dessert.

After dessert we had a summary of facts from the Mystery Master and all the suspects had a final quizzing.

The decision time was due, we were each given a sheet of paper, with questions who was the murderer? What was the motive? So everyone gave an answer. After being analysed the Mystery master asked us suspects to stand up. He then explained who didn't do it (a bit like Hercule Poirot) it wasn't the son, he sat down, it wasn't the Gallery owner, she sat down, it wasn't the sculptor, he sat down could it have been the daughter, he said "I will come back to the daughter", Was it the ex-boyfriend, no he sat down, which left me and the daughter standing. He went back to the daughter and it wasn't her either. I hadn't sussed who it wasm but it was me who did it!.....