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Clued in Conundrums 2
140 Plays1 day ago
Sara Rosett, Trixie Silvertale, and Tom Mead return to play more mystery fun and games. Based on Author, Author, a mystery game show created by Ellery Queen in 1939, our guests come up with solutions to a mystery scene. This time, the scene opens in a manor house with a body in a locked dining room. Listen to find out how our guests solve this season's Clued in Conundrum.
Discussed and mentioned
Author, Author featuring Ellery Queen
Related episodes
Clued in Condundrums (Season 11) - released October 7, 2025
For more information
Instagram: @cluedinmysteryContact us: hello@cluedinmystery.com Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com Sign up for our newsletter: https://cluedinmystery.com/clued-in-chronicle/ Order Life or Delft by Brook and Sarah For a full episode transcript, visit https://cluedinmystery.com/clued-in-conundrums-2/
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Transcript
Introduction to Clued in Mystery Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke, and we both love mystery. Brooke.
00:00:20
Speaker
Hi, Sarah. We are back for round two of a game that we call Clued in Conundrums. That's right. We had so much fun the first time, and we are so fortunate to have The same three authors who joined us the first time returned for a second time. We didn't scare them away. That's right.
Origins of Clued in Conundrums
00:00:41
Speaker
Sarah, will you refresh everyone's memories of where we came up with this concept and um and where it came from? So when I was researching for our Ellery Queen episode, i came across a radio broadcast called Author Author, and it was a game show style radio program hosted by Ellery Queen and Ogden Nash.
00:01:05
Speaker
It originally was a replacement for something called the Screen Guild Theater, but became a tremendous hit with audiences. And after our first round, I understand why.
00:01:16
Speaker
On air, a mystery scene was presented and guest authors were challenged to come up with a clever explanation for the crime.
Meet the Guest Authors
00:01:25
Speaker
That's right. And so I will just introduce our three returning authors. And I will mention that each of these authors have been a guest on Clued in Mystery. They've got an episode that we interviewed them about different topics. So please go out and listen to their ah individual episodes as well. But we have Sarah Rosette. She's a bestselling author who writes the mystery novels that are the bee's knees with delightful settings and intriguing puzzles. A fan of Golden Age Mysteries and Jane Austen adaptations, she also hosts a podcast for readers, Mystery Books Podcast.
00:01:59
Speaker
We also have bestselling author Trixie Silvertail. She grew up reading an endless supply of Lillian Jackson Braun, Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew novels. She loves the amateur sleuths in Cozy Mysteries and obsesses about all things paranormal.
00:02:15
Speaker
These two passions unite in her mini Paranormal Cozy series, and she's thrilled to write and share them with readers. And finally, we have Tom Mead. He is a yeah UK crime fiction author specializing in locked room mysteries. He's a member of the Crime Writers Association and the International Thriller Writers Organization, and his series features magician detective Joseph Spector.
00:02:40
Speaker
Thank you everyone for joining us. Yes, thank you so much. Happy to be here. All right, so let's get started.
Mystery Setup at Ashcroft Manor
00:02:49
Speaker
Clued in Conundrums is a game of story invention in which you'll be able to hear how writers invent their story plot.
00:02:56
Speaker
The game starts with a little drama. It's a blustery evening at Ashcroft Manor. Lord Ashcroft has welcomed several guests for an elegant dinner party.
00:03:07
Speaker
Everything appears in order until the butler tries to open the dining room doors and finds them locked from the inside. After a tense moment, they break through, only to discover Lady Ashcroft lying dead on the floor, a glass of wine spilled beside her.
00:03:23
Speaker
And that's where our authors come in. Their part of the game now is to create a logical beginning and ending. They've got to tell us what unusual tale of romance, sentiment, or intrigue lies behind this tale. Their stories are unscripted, so don't mind if they stumble a little bit. That's the idea of clued in conundrums.
Mystery Solution 1: Sarah Rosette's Take
00:03:43
Speaker
So who would like to start?
00:03:48
Speaker
Sarah.
00:03:50
Speaker
Okay, so my explanation for this is that Lady A, Lady Ashcroft, was an American. She was very wealthy, and Lord Ashcroft married her to save the manor, and that has happened. Her money has gone towards restoring the manor.
00:04:07
Speaker
But he is chafing under her strict budgeting because it was her money and so she still controls the purse strings and he would rather be done with her. So he sets up this scenario where she will be found dead, but he wants to make sure he's not blamed.
00:04:22
Speaker
So ah he has an accomplice, the butler, and he's told the butler he will pay him off handsomely if he will help them do this. So as their guests gather in the drawing room, he mingles with the guest.
00:04:36
Speaker
Then he's, so he makes sure he's seen. Then he says to his wife, meet me in the dining room for just a moment. Have something important to tell you. So she leaves, he mingles some more and then he's timed it so that the butler will jog,
00:04:52
Speaker
the maid's elbow and she will drop a tray of drinks and everyone will turn. He slips out of the room, goes down the terrace, goes into the dining room, locks the doors. He serves his wife a drink that has poison in it. She drinks it and dies.
00:05:06
Speaker
And then he has a signal. He's told the the butler to come to the doors at this time. So a few minutes later, the butler comes to the door, the door won't open.
00:05:18
Speaker
He breaks it down and they find Lady Ashcroft dead. The Lord Ashcroft just stepped behind the door as the door opened. And then when everybody comes in, he steps out and joins the crowd. So hopefully nobody notices that he wasn't in the in the rush to find find out why the doors were locked.
00:05:40
Speaker
But he is not quite as smart as he thought he was because he forgot to wipe his fingerprints off the glass. And so he doesn't inherit all the money.
00:05:51
Speaker
That was great. but That was such a great solution, Sarah.
00:05:58
Speaker
Thanks. It was fun to think about it.
Mystery Solution 2: Trixie Silvertail's Perspective
00:06:02
Speaker
Okay. um Trixie, Tom, who wants to go next? I'll go. All right. Trixie. Okay. All right, so ah I do not write historical mysteries.
00:06:16
Speaker
I'm not British, so forgive if I don't have home effects, right? um So I chose to go with Lady Ashcroft hosting an anniversary party for her first anniversary at the manor, but she is not Lord Ashcroft's first wife.
00:06:38
Speaker
She is his third wife. The two previous wives died under suspicious circumstances, but due to his station, the matters were quickly put to bed and no no dishonor ever you know came to their family name.
00:06:51
Speaker
So in attendance at their little anniversary party are eight guests of various noble lineage that were all invited by Lord Ashcroft, including the Duke of Downsbury, who is the uncle of Ashcroft's second wife.
00:07:07
Speaker
And then there were only two guests that were invited by Lady Ashcroft, her younger sister, and the sister's betrothed. So the the scandal occurs, the doors are locked, they burst out, they find the body, and, you know, kind of are hemming and hawing around, looking around, every everyone's there, no one can figure out what could have possibly happened to her, maybe Maybe she had a fainting spell, you know, so they're checking her. And as they're looking over the body, they notice bruises that are starting to kind of come to the surface on the neck that resemble finger marks.
00:07:41
Speaker
So now they're questioning each other, you know, and and realize that no one was absent from the table and Lord Ashcroft is beside himself.
00:07:51
Speaker
So they they call the constabulary and the law enforcement, they suspect poison due due to the spilled wine. The dinner party's canceled. All the guests retire to their room.
00:08:05
Speaker
But moments later, there's quite an argument in the hallway and it it's Lady Ashcroft's younger sister who's arguing with a maid. and she's shouting about some spots on the maid's apron so that it appeared to be wine so she's thinking maybe this maid had something to do with it um but the duke of downsbury comes out and he's attempting to you know put this whole thing to bed and don't be foolish and she's probably cleaning up in the kitchen you know that sort of thing but during the fight the maid is getting very defensive and the duke says you know francine calm down so the fact that he refers to her by her first name becomes very suspicious to the crowd that is now gathered around this argument. He knows her and it turns out that he worked with her to end Lady Ashcroft's life because they suspected all along that Lady Ashcroft had killed the second wife to gain her position at the manor.
00:09:04
Speaker
So that's what I came up with. I love it Very good. Thank you.
00:09:13
Speaker
And Tom, what what was your solution to this conundrum?
Mystery Solution 3: Tom Mead's Revelation
00:09:18
Speaker
Well, i I absolutely love this one because it's a locked room mystery and that is my favorite subgenre. um But I thought, well, it's not a conventional locked room mystery because we have a victim who has been apparently poisoned by a glass of wine. Now, this is not the normal ah kind of scenario that you would have in locked room mystery. In this case,
00:09:44
Speaker
um it may well be that lady ashcroft locked herself in the dining room maybe there was something that she uh some secret that she wanted to do something that she didn't want her husband to know about but i thought let's make this a different kind of locked room mystery and so here we have a scenario where Lady Ashcroft is found dead, presumably poisoned by the wine. However, on investigation, it turns out that there was no poison in the wine. Nowhere nowhere was there any poison in the glass.
00:10:25
Speaker
Um... the The bottle had not been tampered with. And besides, everybody else had been drinking from it but before dinner. And so it becomes a question of how was the poison administered to Lady Ashcroft? So we have to look at the household of Lord Ashcroft. He is obviously the number one suspect.
00:10:50
Speaker
um Because they the um relationship between Lord Ashcroft and his wife was ah a somewhat... ah um a somewhat fiery relationship, you might say. and um Lady Ashcroft was, ah she was known to be a very ah controlling personality in the household. Whereas Lord Ashcroft was a lot more laissez-faire, a lot more laid back.
00:11:25
Speaker
He was the one who held the parties and who did all the socialising activities. Whereas Lady Ashcroft, she was the one who had who held the purse strings. So she, of course, left a will which ah split her money between Lord Ashcroft and their adult son, whose name was Roderick. Now, Roderick lives at the house with his family. um He is somewhat of a dilettante. He has never... found his ah his path in life. He has never worked. He has tried all kinds of hobbies and pastimes. He has tried sports. He has tried writing poetry. He has tried painting. And now he is an amateur ceramicist making decorative clay pieces and tiles and pots and things like that. So he has never found his niche in life. um
00:12:29
Speaker
He also comes under suspicion, of course, ah because he was there for the party. um But again, they cannot work out how this poison was administered to Lady Ashcroft. Elsewhere in the house, we have the butler, whose name is Ackroyd. And he is ah um he is a closet gambling addict. So he is heavily in debt. But there's no way that they yeah that he could have profited by their death. And so they rule him out pretty quickly. Next, they turn to the cook.
00:13:06
Speaker
whose name is Mrs McGinty and she um she becomes a suspect because of course she was the one who ah who had prepared the meal but of course this ah the the body was found before dinner and so Lady Ashcroft had not consumed any of the food.
00:13:30
Speaker
So they rule her out as well. And that leaves them with the lady's maid who ah looked after Lady Ashcroft and who laid out her clothes and things like that. So it seems maybe the lady's maid has something to do with it.
00:13:49
Speaker
Well, here is what really happened. When they do the autopsy on Lady Ashcroft, they find, strangely, that she is missing a tooth. She is missing one of her back teeth. And it emerges that she and she used to wear a dental plate to replace that tooth.
00:14:10
Speaker
um So where did the dental plate go? Why was it not why was it not in evidence in her murdered corpse? And so... It transpires that the son, Roderick, had, using his ah newly acquired skill with ceramics, had produced a replacement for that dental plate, which was made, in fact, of wax. And he had injected ah a dose of poison into this replacement tooth that was fashioned from wax and screwed into the dental plate. And so when his mother sipped the wine, the acidic wine melted the wax and caused the poison to trickle down Lady Ashcroft's throat and kill her in that locked room scenario. and But of course, he had to be in cahoots with the lady's maid because she was the only one who would have had access to the dental plate to...
00:15:13
Speaker
ah switch out the fake one for the real one. So it was, of course, the grown-up son Roderick and the lady's maid in cahoots in the murder of Lady Ashcroft.
00:15:31
Speaker
Oh, that was so great, Tom. um All of you, really. And, you know, one of the things we were looking forward to was seeing a peek inside of an author's process. And we definitely got that today. So thank you so much for sharing. That was great. Thank you. Thank you again for having me.
00:15:50
Speaker
Me too.
Where to Find the Authors & Wrap-Up
00:15:52
Speaker
Before we go, i think it would be great for each of you to share where our listeners can find you, because after this, I'm certain that they're going to want to read some of your books.
00:16:06
Speaker
ah So why don't we start with Tom, because we just heard from you and your solution. With pleasure, yes. Well, um first of all, let me just say thank you. ah Thank you for inviting me back. It's lovely to talk to you again. um And that was such a fun scenario. I enjoyed that very much indeed. um But I... ah I write a series of Locked Room Mysteries and I am ah very active on social media. You can find me over on Facebook at Tom Mead Author, Instagram, Tom Mead Author. I'm on Blue Sky as well. um I have recently set up a new author website. So you can you can find me there at TomMeadAuthor.com.
00:16:56
Speaker
And there are all kinds of things on there, including you can order signed books and things like that. And um I have ah a monthly newsletter which goes out where I review books. I talk about the writing process and I also feature a Q&A with a different crime author each month. So you can sign up to that via my website as well.
00:17:24
Speaker
Thank you. ah So Sarah, where can our listeners find you? So I have my website, sarahrosette.com. And there's all sorts of information there about books and reading. um I also have a bookstore where you can buy my books, sarahrosettebooks.com. And that's Sarah, S-A-R-A-R-O-S-E-T-T.
00:17:45
Speaker
r o s e t t And if you like podcasts, you could check out Mystery Books Podcast. That's a seasonal podcast I do where I talk about books that I'm reading and authors I've enjoyed.
00:17:59
Speaker
Wonderful. And Trixie, where can listeners find you? Yeah, thank you so much for coming up with this idea. this was it was really fun. It was really enjoyable to participate in. I have an author website, TrixieSilvertail, and that's T-A-L-E dot com.
00:18:18
Speaker
And find out about me and my books and five different paranormal cozy mystery series. I'm also pretty active on Instagram. um'm sort of once in a while on Facebook.
00:18:29
Speaker
But those are those are the main places to connect up with me.
00:18:35
Speaker
Wonderful. It has been so fun to do this with you guys. I think I can speak for Brooke and say that we are both so pleased that you agreed to participate not once but twice in our Clued in Conundrums.
00:18:49
Speaker
Yes. Thank you for playing our game. And thank you listeners for listening today to Clued in Mystery and Clued in Conundrums. I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah.
00:19:00
Speaker
And we both love mystery. Clued in Mystery is written and produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers. If you liked what you heard, please consider telling a friend, leaving a review, or subscribing with your favorite podcast listening app.
00:19:16
Speaker
Visit our website to sign up for our newsletter, The Clued in Chronicle, and get mystery news, podcast updates, and bonus episodes. We're on social media at Clued in Mystery.