630+PM

A Murder is Announced Chapter 3 Summary

 * Miss Blacklock declares that everything is prepared for the party, looking over the chrysanthemums, violets, cigarette box, and tray of drinks
 * Patrick asks Miss Blacklock if she lit the central heat, and she tells him she had Evans light it
 * Julia asks if there was a surplus of coal years ago, and Miss Blacklock proceeds to tell her all about the olden days, how they wrote letters, everything was different
 * Phillippa Haymes comes home and apparently had no idea there was a party
 * Dora explains that the murder party is "a very nasty joke" (20)
 * Miss Blacklock goes out to shut up the ducks, although both Patrick and Dora offer to do it instead
 * Patrick tells Dora that Miss Blacklock "really prefers to do everything herself"(20)
 * Miss Blacklock takes half a bottle of sherry from the cupboard, then asks Patrick to bring up a new bottle
 * Colonel and Mrs. Easterbrook arrive first, the Colonel is slightly embarrassed and says that they haven't turned on their central heating yet
 * Mrs. Easterbrook compliments the chrysanthemums, and Julia argues that they're "rather scraggy" (22)
 * Miss Hinchcliffe and Miss Murgatroyd are the second to arrive
 * Murgatroyd also compliments the chrysanthemums, and Julia again argues that they are scraggy
 * Hinchcliffe comments that it's early to have the central heating on
 * Mrs. Swettenham arrives with her son, Edmund, and compliments the chrysanthemums
 * Mrs. Harmon arrives last and asks frantically and loudly if she's "not too late" as she enters (24)
 * Mrs. Harmon tells Miss Blacklock that her husband, Julian, was angry that he could not come because he loves murders
 * As the clock strikes 6:30, all the lights go off and everyone freaks out
 * The door swings open and a flashlight "played rapidly round the room" (25)
 * A man's voice yells "Stick 'em up! Stick 'em up, I tell you!'' (25)
 * A woman exclaims that she's enjoying the murder game
 * 2 shots are fired and someone screams, the figure in the door hesitates, there is a third shot, he falls to the ground, and the door closes
 * people turn on their lighters and a woman is heard screaming behind a closed door
 * Dora thinks it's Mitzi being murdered, but Patrick confirms it is not
 * The colonel and Edmund find Mitzi in the dining room, screaming and paranoid. Mitzi sees the blood on Miss Blacklock and tells her she will bleed to death
 * Miss Blacklock's white blouse and pearls have blood all over them from the bullet grazing her ear, yet she is very calm
 * Colonel Easterbrook discovers the man on the floor shot himself and he is dead
 * The lights come back on "as if by magic" and the colonel removes the man's mask(28)
 * The man is young and Dora recognizes him as an employee of the Spa Hotel in Medenham Wells that asked Miss Blacklock for money to go back to Switzerland, but she did not give it to him
 * Miss Blacklock takes control of the situation and tells Patrick to call the police