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Last night was a little break from my usual reality. (Although for those interested in my personal soap opera: Jose is taking the mulch away and has promised to get me walking-stick branches from other oaks he cuts, guaranteed lightning struck. It's a sideways way of making right, but he pointed out that mine is hardly the first tree like that he sees in a week. Also, I took most of the mystery books to the Book Thing because TBH why pay me to buy what can be gotten in paperback at any store, or probably a sample downloaded in ebook for free? I will, however, be listing the unique books, signed books, and the signed unique books when things settle down a bit.)
Anyway - when you want inexpensive local entertainment, you can't go wrong with Riversdale Mansion, which hosted a "Gothick Evening" aka "Riversdale House Museum's Historical Whodunit."
There were 6 or 7 teams of four people (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fandance and I were lumped in with a charming German woman and her American daughter) and it went like this: Rosalie Calvert (actual owner of Riversdale) had invited all of us to a dessert party. After much chatter at the high table, the ladies left while the men had their port (single-gender teams had figure that one out for themselves); after the groups reunited there was a little country dancing in the ballroom (single gender teams flipped another coin). But what is this? When Genevieve Verrat went to get her boorish brother out of the salon -- he refused to dance with anyone not of the French blood, y'see -- he was dead! With a brandy decanter by his head and a month worth of laudanum gone from Mrs Harper's medicine basket!
Was it:
-- Mrs. Harper, who had the laudanum and who was seen giving Pierre citric acid drafts for his headache?
-- Genevieve, whose dowry was being spent to pay Pierre's debts?
-- Timothy Dodson*, obviously in love with Genevieve but told directly by Pierre that he wasn't good enough?
-- Captain Dashwood, who has a crush on Genevieve, or his lady wife, who hasn't noticed... or has she? And what of this upsetting letter from their son?
Our hostess, of course, was above suspicion and her husband was apparently missing in action. (We had a writeup for him but Rosalie handwaved his absence first thing.)
There were verbal clues in the various gossipings, physical clues of papers left "accidentally" about** and we could talk to anyone. We'd been given little notebooks and pencils, although to tell you the truth I mostly wrote down the lines that made me laugh:
"It takes our coachman three and a half hours to bring us from the Federal City.*** Including the ditch. He never misses the ditch."
"My dear, this is 1805! You have rights!"
"I am as healthy as a horse. [pause] A well-bred horse."
Nobody caught up on the vital clue, and only one team picked the right killer. But a good time (and a good nosh) was had by all and we all went away with the steps to a new square dance and a little souvenir magnifying glass. I hear the waiting list was quite long, so if we all keep stum about whodunit they can run that one again, and I lobbied for more to the woman who wrote this one (she played a servant so that she could run around keeping an eye on everything.) Well worth the very reasonable price of admission, which was a mere $25 for locals and $10 more for nonlocals -- still a bargain considering that two of the winning team were from Phoenix, Arizona!
*Yeah, I got Pavlovian every time I heard his name
**Each team could take one. I sort of wish I'd nicked our team's so I could make 'em into a collage
***Washington DC, Now about 35 minutes away by car.
Anyway - when you want inexpensive local entertainment, you can't go wrong with Riversdale Mansion, which hosted a "Gothick Evening" aka "Riversdale House Museum's Historical Whodunit."
There were 6 or 7 teams of four people (
fandance and I were lumped in with a charming German woman and her American daughter) and it went like this: Rosalie Calvert (actual owner of Riversdale) had invited all of us to a dessert party. After much chatter at the high table, the ladies left while the men had their port (single-gender teams had figure that one out for themselves); after the groups reunited there was a little country dancing in the ballroom (single gender teams flipped another coin). But what is this? When Genevieve Verrat went to get her boorish brother out of the salon -- he refused to dance with anyone not of the French blood, y'see -- he was dead! With a brandy decanter by his head and a month worth of laudanum gone from Mrs Harper's medicine basket! Was it:
-- Mrs. Harper, who had the laudanum and who was seen giving Pierre citric acid drafts for his headache?
-- Genevieve, whose dowry was being spent to pay Pierre's debts?
-- Timothy Dodson*, obviously in love with Genevieve but told directly by Pierre that he wasn't good enough?
-- Captain Dashwood, who has a crush on Genevieve, or his lady wife, who hasn't noticed... or has she? And what of this upsetting letter from their son?
Our hostess, of course, was above suspicion and her husband was apparently missing in action. (We had a writeup for him but Rosalie handwaved his absence first thing.)
There were verbal clues in the various gossipings, physical clues of papers left "accidentally" about** and we could talk to anyone. We'd been given little notebooks and pencils, although to tell you the truth I mostly wrote down the lines that made me laugh:
"It takes our coachman three and a half hours to bring us from the Federal City.*** Including the ditch. He never misses the ditch."
"My dear, this is 1805! You have rights!"
"I am as healthy as a horse. [pause] A well-bred horse."
Nobody caught up on the vital clue, and only one team picked the right killer. But a good time (and a good nosh) was had by all and we all went away with the steps to a new square dance and a little souvenir magnifying glass. I hear the waiting list was quite long, so if we all keep stum about whodunit they can run that one again, and I lobbied for more to the woman who wrote this one (she played a servant so that she could run around keeping an eye on everything.) Well worth the very reasonable price of admission, which was a mere $25 for locals and $10 more for nonlocals -- still a bargain considering that two of the winning team were from Phoenix, Arizona!
*Yeah, I got Pavlovian every time I heard his name
**Each team could take one. I sort of wish I'd nicked our team's so I could make 'em into a collage
***Washington DC, Now about 35 minutes away by car.
