I Need Obstacles!

I'm currently writing a murder mystery, and I have just realised that the path to the murderer is really rather obvious.

The central character (the detective) finds a guest to the palace in which she lives dying. She says a few words, then dies. On her dress is a stain that is identified by a doctor as a fictional herb, medicinal in small quantities, but deadly in excess. So she's been poisoned. The MC talks to the kitchen maids, who tell her who prepared the victim's last meal. She says that the woman's husband insisted on taking it to her himself. So he's the man to question, and get info on. Someone tells her that he bought the herb, and bam - she has her man.

How boring. I have a lot of other clues, false leads, and a dark, murky backstory that needs to be worked in, and in making this a difficult crime to solve, it not only interests the readers, but also fosters the MC's own growth.

So how can I throw her off and lead her down the wrong path, require more than one line of investigation, etc.?

 

She could have a hard time finding the one that prepared the meal? Maybe he paid her off and she took off (which makes her look guilty) or he killed her too and stashed her somewhere? Murder mysteries aren't my thing, so I'm sure someone will have better (more original) ideas than this. I tried anyway.

 

Plant a red herring -- why would he immediately think a stain is a clue? What is she fell on something and he assumes she's been stabbed.

 

This. To throw off suspicion from the husband he needs to have a convincing alibi.

Are there any other suspects with motives that could be framed? Maybe make the poison slow acting? Make it so that it looks like someone else murdered her but it turns out she was already dead and the cause was pre and not post mortem?

There's quite a few ways on how this can go.

 

The poison is already slow-acting. For one false lead, I was thinking about a woman who knows that she was having an affair (we went over this in another thread) because after the affair ended (the husband found out) her lover began an affair with her. So she began to blackmail the victim to fund her elopement, which would obviously lead to shiftiness. The catalyst for the poisoning is the victim (Marie - it's so much easier to use names!) announced that she was going to go back to her lover, Giovanni (who was also attacked, but not fatally), not knowing about his affair with the blackmailer, Mirabel. And yes, I did consider staging an accident for the kitchen maid as well. I also considered having the husband bribe/trick someone else's servant into taking the meal and adding the poison instead of doing it himself. Since it's set in the eighteenth century, the "fine, upright, honest" Count would come under less suspicion than he would in the modern day, and could then play the "grieving widower also worried for his children" card. It's also widely believed to be suicide. The stain is yellowish-green, so it can't be blood. I'll keep thinking about it.

 

on the opposite end of the spectrum, does he have to be a fine and upstanding person? could all of your characters be a little conniving, thusly muddying the waters? you could use the "everyone suspects the husband first" trope to your advantage by having your main character openly distrust and accuse him and then find herself undermined by a piece of evidence that vindicates him.

 

Been having a think.

This is set in a palace and the heroine is a princess. The Dauphin (crown prince) has a very strong sense of honour, has been known to fight duels over breaches of honour, has a very bad temper, and wants to protect the image of the royal family as much as possible. He is also married to Marie's daughter, Elise.

The detective, Henrietta, does not know that the poison is slow-acting. At the time of Marie's death, her husband, Jean-Richard, was having dinner with the King and Queen. However, minutes earlier, one of the Dauphin's servants had gone to bring her tea, on Elise's instruction. This obviously puts them under suspicion. One of Elise's siblings finds a letter in his apartments to a trusted friend, saying he is worried that if Marie's affair gets out the Royal Family may receive some of the stigma, the herbs are also found there, and bam! Hard evidence. His family know that he would never actually stoop to murder. No-one else does.

But who can Henrietta think it was? Any ideas?

ETA: Oh, and I've dropped the idea about the husband wanting to take the meal himself.

 

How about... the poison is the red herring and Marie died some other way that isn't discoverd till towards the end. One of the kitchen staff could be known (or secretly known) to experiment with or use ususual herbs and the husband spilled/gave the herb to his wife knowing this - but only to frame the kitchen hand - because while the herb can cause blah blah problems it wouldn't have killed Marie because blah blah blah. Meanwhile, underneath all of this, the husband has done something else, something almost undetectable that did actually kill his wife - but of course Henrietta doesn't discover this till much later by some chance finding because.... she was focused on the herbal thing??

Just an idea !

 

Well, the prime suspect is the Dauphin, and the other initial suspects are the servant, Elise, and Elise's sibling. If Henrietta believes that the prince didn't do it, then it's between these 3. Btw, was the husband the one who wrote the letter? Or was it the prince?

 

How does he identify the stain as this herb?

1/ Why would a herb cause a stain? Is it a "Tomato Sauce" kind of stain? In which case, what on earth is a medicinal herb doing in such an intense sauce?
2/ What is it about the stain that even causes the doctor to think that it might be this herb? Is it some VERY SPECIFIC colour? Most herbs are greenish, and likely to cause a greenish stain.
3/ What test can he perform to prove that the stain is THAT herb? Nowadays, the most common form of elemental analysis, CHNS analysis, is accomplished by combustion analysis. In this technique, a sample is burned in an excess of oxygen and various traps, collecting the combustion products: carbon dioxide, water, and nitric oxide. The masses of these combustion products can be used to calculate the composition of the unknown sample. Not commonplace equipment for a country doctor nowadays, let alone in a backward country in the middle ages!

You also mention that the poison is slow-acting; so how does she end up with a stain on her clothes? If it's slow-acting, she'll almost certainly be exhibiting symptoms for some time before dying. Also, are you using slow-acting to mean "not instantaneous"? Because very few poisons are instantaneous. You hit a tiger with a tranquillizing dart and it'll be a few minutes before he keels over. It makes me laugh when the hero injects the guard (especially as guards are usually big buggers, and the bigger you are the bigger the "kill" dose, and the slower it will be in acting), who promptly drops.

While there are plenty of plants that could qualify as the active agent, I think you need to research them in real life, rather than hand-waving it and saying "magic herb X does exactly what I want for the story". Read Ellis Peters' Cadfael stories for how to make mediaeval herbs credible.

 

Sounds to me like you only have stuff happening. Where is the human factor?

I think you have a great skeleton for a personal story about the detective. Make the obstacle as much a mental block as a real one. You could have the dying woman torment him in some way, perhaps his mother is dying or just died?

A good example is The Exorcist. At face value, it's a story about a girl getting possessed and having an exorcism, but in reality, it's about a priest who's struggling with his faith as he feels helpless and responsible for his mother's death.

 

Thanks for all your replies.

@Viridian. What did you have in mind for how she died? Something that won't leave a mark, because Henrietta would notice it if it did.


@Surcruxum, the problem with that is that I don't know what the motive for the servant could be, and neither does Henrietta. She knows Élise and how lovely she is (although that could lead to emotional stuff of an "I'm so glad it wasn't you!" sort), and Élise's siblings are her new friends and most of them are quite young. (Henrietta is really not a professional detective.) Oh, and I've had an idea that the Dauphin began the letter and the husband finished it.

@Shadowfax It's mixed with wine (or something else liquidy) so it's changed the colour of the wine. I had the idea that the herb (powdered) could be found amongst the Dauphin's possessions. It's brown, but when one applies alcohol/water/whatever it becomes orangey yellow.

And no, I don't simply mean "not instantaneous". She dies hours after eating (hence the tea being taken to her minutes before would serve as a red herring) but she is very upset after discovering that her former lover (with whom she planned to resume relations) has found someone else and has locked herself in her room. She opens the door to receive the tea (upon hearing it's from her darling daughter) and Henrietta finds her minutes later. So no-one sees her between eating and dying. She's disoriented and dazed, so it's possible that she would have knocked her glass down herself. The room shows other signs of clumsiness /temper (overturned chairs, vases smashed, etc.).

@newjerseyrunner, there is already a personal story about Henrietta, although not one of torment. She is, however, going through a rather rude awakening. Her sixteen years of life have been blissful and carefree. She's not the oldest child and is unlikely to become so, so she has few royal duties. She has a loving family and lots of hobbies, so she's really enjoying life. Then a palace guest (Marie) is murdered, and her new friends want answers about their mother's death, so she's doing it not for herself, but for them, and this is the first time she's done something for someone else without deriving some sort of pleasure from it herself, and so that helps her mature. I can't kill off the Queen as she has a major role in the story. Do you have any thoughts?

 

Oh sorry i thought that she was a professional one. Hmm if it's like you said, then there should be a discrepancy in writing that exists within the letter, unless the husband is a really good forger. Henrietta could notice this, but then again, it will immediately puts suspicion to the husband.

Maybe Henrietta doesn't need to suspect someone at the beginning. She could just follow where the clues take her. Like asking around stores to find out which one sells the herb.

 

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1/ How does the stain end up on her clothes? Did she spill her wine all over herself at the point of drinking it?

a) Wouldn't somebody have noticed?
i/ That she spilled her wine.
ii/ That her wine was a different colour to everyone else's.

b) Wouldn't that have reduced the dose of poison that she received? Possibly to the non-fatal level. (In which case, the murderer has got to have put in enough to kill a horse "just to be safe")

2/ She is poisoned at a meal? Which meal? Evening meal means she's getting taken her tea in the middle of the night? Long past her daughter's bedtime? Or in the morning?

 

@Viridian: I think you may just be a genius. I've had an idea: the wine is poisoned by a more subtle herb than the one that leaves the stain. It is slow-acting, and she gets weaker and weaker as the hours pass. Someone's been paid off to poison the tea with a more violent poison. After drinking some, she suffers a violent pain (effect of one of the poisons) which causes her to drop her cup and leave a funny-coloured stain. (The tea that remains in the pot can be fed to a rat or something to prove it's poisoned.)

@Surcruxum, people were taught to write in roughly the same style (from what I could find, it's called Ronde) and so the Comte's writing would be similar at least to the Dauphin's. However, Henrietta may be able to pick up a certain quirk of her brother's handwriting that is missing in the latter half of the letter. It won't necessarily put suspicion on the Comte, she'll just know that something's up.

@Shadowfax, I love your habit of numbering your points. 1. I've rethought that already. a) She's taking her meal alone in her rooms. b) I'll need to think about that, but what do you suggest? I've seen poisoned wine before. I also had the idea that the herb becomes deadly when mixed with alcohol, rather than in certain doses.

2. Thanks for pointing that out. She is now receiving poisoned lunch.

 

I do like the first idea. It effectively places a red herring, although it's only one more obstacle.

 

Can you think of any more? I'm trying to think what could lead her to discover the affair. Questioning the lover as to why he thinks he's been attacked could be a good start.

ETA: Catching him with his new lover, the children's tutor, could also be progress, especially if he was unforthcoming in the above questioning.

 

Well.... it has been said before. Actually no it hasn't.

I like where you've taken the idea - I do love a good crime novel.

 

The monarch is visiting, and the countess goes to her room to eat alone? She'd better have a better reason for insulting the crown than wanting to finish Call of Duty II!

 

She's visiting them - a foreign court. She's very distressed - no-one knows why but it later turns out that she's upset over the loss of her lover, after she's told her husband that she plans to resume her affair. It was arranged that she could stay in her room until she felt ready to face society again. Queen Tryphaena is a very accommodating person.