While researching inventive ways to poison someone, I found several intriguing facts. Lying awake at night, these began to coallesce into a story.

I want to write a short story about a man who is eating dinner with his wife - a dinner she prepared. While eating, he shares with her an idea he had been mulling over for the day. Throughout the city, several fatal 'accidents' have taken the lives of six well-off men. There seems to be no connection between the accidents and the only thing they ever have in common is that they were eating quail, their normal cook was out of town for the night, and they all had a bouquet of nightshade somewhere in the house. The Husband had been thinking about it (he's some sort of police officer or detective) and has realized that the accidents aren't accidents (somehow...). As he realizes it's a serial killer, he is told - in answer to his question - that he is eating quail, and he begins to feel unwell. He sees a bouquet of nightshade somewhere and his wife starts to laugh. [The End]

That's the bare bones. I do want this to be a short story, but I want it to be done well. I'm thinking of setting it sometime in the early 1900's. C.1912. How much info should I include? How would a meal be cooked? How would the table be set? From the dining room, could he see into the parlor? What sort of detective would he be?

HELP!!!!!

And thank you so much for taking the time to read this!!

I think this could be really fun to do. Especially if you can do it with lots of details, but without giving away too many clues to tell the reader who it is.

Quail would probably be baked whole, I think. Unless they made it into a pie similar to a chicken pot pie.

Depending on how the house is set up, he probably could see into the parlor. Especially if his wife engineered it so he could by keeping the door open. This could be a fun fact to put in. I believe that most of the time parlor doors were kept closed unless company was over and they were inside the parlor. So, maybe he could notice the parlor door is open on his way to the dining room for dinner and think that it is odd, but not really think much about it. Maybe the parlor needed to be aired out or something, he could think.

He could be a Pinkerton detective or just a regular detective from a larger city.

You have to write this story! I want to read it!

A Pinkerton detective?

Well, I will have to oblige you! Hopefully soon...

What would a full meal entail? What dishes would be served?

And, as my brother mentioned, what motive would she have to kill the other people? Would it be just to reach him? To cover her tracks? How would she be able to access the previous victim's food without suspicion?

I don't have an answer for your other questions, but on the query about motive: If she's a serial killer, she doesn't even need to know the other men. The mind of a serial killer can be quite twisted. Maybe she has a thing against men who are well off - some twisted reason why she wants them all dead. Maybe she just wants all the men of a certain age dead in their town.

Find something odd - something that most people wouldn't kill over. Find a way to twist it to use as a motive.

Okay, but then I've got another question. If she doesn't really need a normal motive, then why has she waited so long to kill her husband?

And, as an addition to the questions above for whoever comes along, what would they call each other? I know in some eras it was improper to go by first names, ever.

Pinkerton detectives were a special kind of detective. There's a thread somewhere about them. Here it is: viewtopic.php?f=193&t=8771.

As for the meals, I'm not sure...



Perhaps she secretly wants someone to know, but then she has to kill him so she can continue her killing spree.

That's a good idea. Especially as later victims were chosen...

And I'll probably have him just be a normal detective, as I don't want this exactly tied down to a specific area.

I'd have to research it further, but I'm pretty sure from 1900 on, in both England and the United States, a husband and wife could call each other by their first names.

Okay, thanks tons!!

And does anyone have an idea or know where a picture would be of a dining room fit for the day and age? I can't find any one c. that time...

I'll post the story in a few days as soon as I can retreive it from the dark, dusty, depths of my computer...

Yay!

Bouquets: A Dinner Story

The man walking home that evening was unaware of all that passed around him. His eyes were glaring at the ground in front of him and his hands were shoved in his pockets as he narrowly avoided walking head on into the path of a horse and carriage. His mind was flitting angrily around a series of deaths that had occurred over the last year - and over his suspicions that they were not natural or accidents. the only flaw was that he had no proof, no suspect, no motive connecting these deaths. All he had were coincidences, lost items, and a niggling fear in the back of his mind - hardly enough to open an investigation that would reopen closed cases and consume much money and time. No, it was easier for everyone else to just let it go - to accept the tidy conclusion - and leave it at that.

Mentally, he reviewed his list of connections between the deaths as he walked. There had been ten deaths so far, in as many months; and all had been well to do bachelor men living alone without help or neighbors - or the neighbors were out of town at the times of death. A week before their deaths, all had found different items that were commonly owned by women and had opened ads in the paper to find the owner. However, none of the items had been found in the houses; and the ads had never been answered. The other similarity between the ten was where they died. All died in the dining room with leftover food from dinner - which consisted of quail, a salad, bread, honey and red wine - still on the table. The men were all killed early on the weekend and not found until Monday, along with a bouquet of nightshade and oleander on their chair.

He scowled fiercely as he thought and laid out the connections - how could no one else see this? Glancing up from the ground, his stormy expression lifted as he saw his home and realized his walk was done. Opening the door, he entered the foyer and hung his coat and hat up. Walking to the end of the hall, he saw his wife step out of the dining room. He breathed her name, and her face lit up with a smile.

"John! You're home!"

He stepped forward and wrapped her in a hug. "Yes, and I've been given some time off, so I'll be home for the entire weekend."

She pulled back a little bit. "Really? That's wonderful!" She exclaimed when he nodded. "And how was your day?"

He sighed. "Stressful. There was another death today too..."

"The deaths with the nightshade bouquets?"

"Yes." he answered curtly, before shaking his head and changing the subject. " But enough of my job - I'm sure it's nothing you'd be interested in. How was you're own day?"

She blushed. "I made you dinner tonight after I gave the cooks and maids some time off..."

He laughed at her discomfort, and a smile brightened her face as she joined in. "I'm sure it will taste even better. And do I get to eat it now?" he asked hopefully, a teasing glint still in his eye.

"Of course you do! As if I'd deny my honest, loving, hardworking husband his evening meal!" She shooed him towards his chair. "You just sit there while I get it out."

He sat down and relaxed as she efficiently set his food before him. In a few minutes, she sat down as well, and they began to eat. He ate his salad first and listened as she talked incessantly of the newest style in jacket or train and shared with him the best gossip, knowing her chatter would calm him. Soon, his salad and quail were done; and he leaned back into his chair, content and sated.

As he began to relax, and drift in sleep, her conversation began to change from gossip to poisons, and from fashion to murder.

Drowsy, he slumped in his chair, wondering why it was so imperative he find out why the alarm in his head was ringing so insistently. After several minutes, he finally registered where his wife's conversation had wandered too, and what she was saying, and he lifted his head to stare at her in confusion.

When she saw him look up at her, she grinned and clapped her hands. "Ah! And you see me!" Assuming a look of wide-eyes innocence, she asked, "Are you alright? You look almost as if you've eaten poison..."

He blinked and tried to focus his attention on her as she laughed. His stomach cramped and the alarm in his head began screaming at him.

"Oh dear, it seems my food did not agree with you! What an unforeseen disappointment..."

Glancing across the remains of their dinner at his mocking wife, the alarm in his head finally began to register - too late.

"You...you..."

"Yes? Me?" She got up from her seat and sidled down the table towards him.

"Why..."

"Why?" She giggled, a cheerful sound if not for the darkness in her eyes. "Because it's fun! Does a girl always have to have a reason?"

"There's...always...a reason." he gasped.

She pouted and picked up the wine glass. "You're not any fun, Johnnie... Here." She placed the cup at his lips. "This will make you feel better - I promise."

He opened his mouth to drink, knowing wine would help ease the painful cramps in his muscles. When it was almost gone, she took it back and set it on the table, carrying on a one-sided, rambling conversation while he began choking.

"I'll miss you, you know - I really will." She wiped a tear away from the corner of her eye. "Everyone else was a stranger - just practice. You were the exam, the challenge." She grinned. " If I could fool you, I could fool the world. And don't you worry either." She gently patted his hand. "I'm not even thought to be here. I'll come home from my vacation on Monday and find your body lying here and -oh! How the new widow shall mourn her precious, loving husband. Because you were, you know - you were precious and living, and I almost wish this wasn't necessary. In the next few months, more men will die, and - after reading of the events in the papers - the widow's mind will break, and she will take a pilgrimage away form England's fair shores to stay with her dearest sister in France." She sighed, but the dancing smile in her eyes belied her. "And so, I shall be reborn and free, and the widow shall fade away with your memory. I'll miss you most terribly..."

She watched with an almost curious look on her face as he slid bonelessly to the floor from his seat. Taking the remaining wine, she threw it to the ground beside him and dropped the glass. Leaving the room for a few seconds, she returned carrying a bouquet of nightshade and oleander which she lay on his chair. Kneeling down beside him, she gazed into his dying eyes and whispered, "Good-bye, John."