The Red Herring Exposed - A Clue Analysis (PART 3)

THE SECOND MURDER - THE COOK

The Situation:
The series of events that lead to the murder of the cook begin towards the end of the hijinks following the supposed death of Mr. Boddy in murder #1. The investigation into what killed Mr. Boddy eventually focused on the cognac and the possibility that it was poisoned. Mrs. Peacock, hysterical from fear due to her also drinking the cognac, begins screaming and is laid out by Mr. Green. Yvette then begins to scream in the billiard room, having perhaps drunk the poison cognac she learned about listening to and recording the conversation in the study.

The Murder:
When Yvette begins to scream the full cast races out of the study and into the billiards room where Yvette is. Mrs. Peacock is the last person to leave the study and has disappeared by the time the gang arrives at the billiard room. When the gang returns with to the study with Yvette, Mrs. Peacock is back with the group and is actually the first one to return to the study. To have enough time to commit the murder Mrs. Peacock must have already grabbed the knife when the whole gang left the study to go to Yvette. She then continued on to the kitchen while the main group was knocking on the billiard room door and stabbed the cook and stuffed her in the freezer. She must have been moving quick though. We get the explanation that the reason nobody heard the cook scream was that Yvettes screaming covered it up. Yvette quit screaming though pretty much as soon as the group got there and we actually see Mrs. Peacock slide behind everyone as they approach the billiard room door so there isn't much time to get further down the hall and do some stabbing. Once the killing was done though, Peacock would have plenty of time to get back to the group because they spent quite a bit of time in the billiard room talking to Yvette. The first ending suggests that the killer returned to the study using the secret passage but there is no evidence of that and there was also no need. Once the murder was over she could just get back to the group, there was time for that. We also see what appears to be Mrs. Peacock entering the study at the front of the group coming in, not already there having gone through the secret passage.

Conclusion:
This murder is actually wrapped up pretty nicely. The cook has almost no speaking lines or memorable actions in the entire film so we don't have to worry about the issue of character motivation that is going to plague so many of the other minor characters. The only questionable issue is whether or not it's believable that Mrs. Peacock could have committed the murder quickly enough to mask the screams but we don't actually have any evidence the cook did any screaming so ultimately, who cares. Mrs. Peacock's reasoning and calculations are spot on though. To the best of her knowledge, Mr. Boddy has just been murdered by one of the other guests. She correctly realizes that the Cook is the last one left that can affirmatively incriminate her for taking bribes. The other guests and Wadsworth know about it of course but they only have hearsay knowledge so that isn't much of a threat. They also have their own secrets and problems being implicated in the murder of Mr. Boddy and the Cook, so exposing Peacocks secrets probably aren't high on their list of priorities. Had Mr. Boddy actually been Mr. Boddy, Mrs. Peacock could've solved all her problems in the first 30 minutes of the movie.

This is another example of dumb luck for Wadsworth. He did nothing to instigate the actions that led to the cooks death. The fortuitous murder was simply the result of Mrs. Peacock being a murderer and the coincidence that she happened to be drinking cognac when Professor Plum opined that the death of Mr. Boddy could be poison by cognac. Without both things happening simultaneously with the covering noise of Yvette screaming and its difficult to see Mrs. Peacock getting a chance to murder The Cook, a woman quite a bit younger and more physically imposing than our Senators wife. We are now up to 2 murders that were executed simply because Wadsworth apparently has a galaxy level brain understanding of the true nature of his guests and their morals. It should be noted though that as the group went to see Yvette, Wadsworth was the last one to reach the billiards room, aside from Mrs. Peacock. When Peacock actually slides past the group to continue on to the kitchen, she actually brushes past Wadsworth who kind of glances around before going into the billiard room. It's entirely probably that Wadsworth knew at the time what exactly was going on.

The only interesting thing to consider here is whether or not Yvette screaming was an intentional distraction ordered by Wadsworth. She doesn't seem to react to the commotion surrounding the gunshot attempt on Mr. Boddy but does for the possibly poisoned cognac? We do see her drinking the cognac at one point but we also see her serve all of the cognac being drunk at the time. If Mr. Boddy had been poisoned either she would have been the one to do it or the poison would have been added to his drink after it had been served. There's no real way Yvette could have been affected by a poisoned bottle of cognac since she was in more control of it than anyone. Additionally, she seemed to be drinking the cognac from the billiards room, not the study. Either way, if Wadsworth told her to scream to create chaos and some kind of opening for Mr. Boddy to escape and/or give someone else an opportunity to kill, he didn't take it and it was only dumb luck that another guest decided to kill someone. Neither scenario makes much sense but the whole screaming episode allowed there to be a time gap for somebody to commit a murder, to keep the plot moving, and it reminded all of us that Yvette was in the movie and was going to become a more major character than the cook or Mr. Boddy.

Up Next:
Murder #3, the actual murder of Mr. Boddy which happens nearly simultaneously with the murder of The Cook. This is also where the editing or the plotting starts to get off the rails a little bit.

Recap:
Wadsworth: 0 murders
Peacock: 1 murder
Green: 0 murders
White: 0 murders
Mustard: 0 murders
Scarlett: 0 murders
Plum: 1 attempted murder

Mr. Boddy: faking death
The Cook: dead
Yvette: alive
Stranded Motorist: not arrived
Off Duty Cop: not arrived
Singing Telegram Girl: not arrived