Reader, I Buried Them and Other Stories

A Monologue for Mystery Lovers

This little old lady is in the pub and her voice is extra loud.

She’s had a few of the local brew and is playing to the crowd.

Her speech is slurred and her cheeks are pink and her eyes are shining bright,

As she explains to a bunch of the lads what brought her here this night.

Fill ’em up, she says to the landlord Les. The drinks are all on me.

Sixty years ago in this very bar I met my destiny.

He was tall and dark and handsome, too — as handsome as handsome goes,

With piercing eyes and a cultured voice and a very distinguished nose.

And above all that a deerstalker hat perched atop his six-foot frame.

I’m not going to spoil my story, but you’ll probably guess his name.

Truth to tell, I was under his spell before the night began.

Oh, his silver hair was beyond compare — I adore an older man.

Now I need to make clear to all of you here that I was just nineteen

And my rosebud face had won first place in the Tatler magazine.

But I acted coy with the average boy, keeping a low profile.

In the pub I’d sit at the back and knit, and hardly ever smile.

As I recall, I was knitting a shawl in a pretty pink three-ply

Upon the night the distracting sight of this stranger met my eye.

Without dropping a stitch, I made my pitch to this dream with the gorgeous nose.

Men are easy to pull with a ball of wool, as every woman knows.

With a nonchalant toss I bowled it across to where my hero stood.

A line so true that it found his shoe like the nudge of a bowler’s wood.

There was deathly quiet inside the bar when he eyed this ball of pink.

Nothing was said. He just turned his head and requested another drink.

But a man called Bruce said, Can you deduce the source of this woolly sphere?

There were laughs all round, an ugly sound made more ugly by the beer.

It chilled my skin and I wished I’d been outside the bar-room door.

The wool, you see, was linked to me, by a thread across the floor.

Then my heart-throb spoke, a brilliant stroke, or where is genius from?

He said, I deduce, if my thoughts are of use, that this ball is an anarchist bomb.

The laughter died and they rushed outside — ah, you should have seen them flee.

Scared out of their shoes, they quit their booze, all except him and me.

After quite some while, he gave me a smile that flashed like a carving knife,

Prompting me to say, in my modest way, Sir, I lead a sheltered life.

He replied, My dear, that’s abundantly clear to a man of my profession.

The clothes, the hair, the tonic you drink, the mild-as-milk expression.

Your name is Jane, you’re a first-class brain, and as pure as the driven snow.

I can also see you’re attracted to me, and that’s very good to know.

Don’t ask how I tell, it bores me to hell to answer this type of question.

But now we’re alone, the birds having flown, may I make a bold suggestion?

Next time you feel like an intimate meal, why not travel to London town?

Baker Street for high tea, 221B, is an offer one shouldn’t turn down.

Reaching up to a shelf, he then helped himself to a very fine champagne.

Without more talk, he popped the cork and it flew like an aeroplane.

Now the lads out back heard the cork go crack and knew where it was from.

A controlled detonation was their explanation: we had dealt with the anarchist bomb.

Feeling rather more bold, they came in from the cold to find the pub forsaken.

Not wanting trouble, we had left on the double, with only the bubbly taken.

The place is hushed. We all feel crushed, not knowing if it’s ended,

This gripping tale from the lady frail: it seems to be suspended.

Then she smiles, the old dear, and asks for a beer, and we offer a glass of champagne,

If she will reveal: Did she go for that meal, high tea in his rooms with her swain?

She says, What’s one glass to a lady of class? It’s a magnum or nothing for me.

So we have a whip-round, and raise fifty pound, for a magnum of Mumm ’83.

She sinks one or two of this premier cru, then gives a peculiar smile.

Yes, I went for the tea at 221B, and the visit was very worthwhile,

For apart from the food, which was frightfully good, what followed was out of this world:

The violin strain, the shot of cocaine, the pipe smoke that twisted and curled.

I have to confess that my memory is less than exact as to what happened then,

But I wish to point out, in case there is doubt, that I had little knowledge of men.

You have to believe I was rather naïve; I didn’t quite understand

When a question was posed by my glamorous host: Had I heard of his Speckled Band?

I thought, Janey, my dear, you must get out of here if you value your reputation.

But he said with a smile, It’s a case in my file, a famous investigation.

In you I detect a fine intellect that could be as sharp as my own.

I tell you in truth, you will make a good sleuth if I teach you the things I have known.

Well, he told me the history of many a mystery including his Speckled Band,

The Lion’s Mane, and the Second Stain and the thumb from the engineer’s hand.

The Five Orange Pips came hot from his lips along with his Sign of Four.

Crime after crime, I lost count of time, and still he detained me with more.

When a pause came at last, I was really aghast, for midnight was just coming round.

I cried out, I must go! But he said, No, no, no. There’s the tale of the gigantic hound.

Now who would pass up the Baskerville pup from the lips of the Baker Street master?

My option was plain: I had to remain, just hoping he’d go a bit faster.

It was dark and profound, his account of the hound, with effects he had not used before.

I was really afraid, when he actually bayed, just like that thing on the moor.

I said, Please would you stop. This is over the top. It’s making me queasy with fright.

So he kissed me instead and took me to bed — and the dog didn’t bark in the night.

You may think I was lax to run off the tracks, staying late in 221B.

Yet I claim in defence that in more than one sense that night was the making of me.

Sixty years later I’m an investigator unashamedly shedding a tear,

Recalling the night that Miss Marple was launched — on the start of her brilliant career.