My favorite mystery writer is the great Agatha Christie. I don’t know what it is about mysteries and word games that go so well together. Maybe a puzzle is a puzzle. Agatha used nursery rhymes and children’s songs in her books. Lots of modern mysteries in the “cozy” style are based on puns and word games; also cats and food. What’s not to love? For myself, I’m fond of limericks. But so far as I know, Christie never wrote a story composed entirely of them. I have taken the liberty of filling the gap.

Every English Mystery

In England the corpses abound;

They’re often in libraries found;

The doors are all locked;

The windows are blocked;

No footprints appear on the ground.

Dear Edgar is dead! The wife cries;

The son disbelieves her fake sighs;

The servants agree

The wife’s lover must be

The person who caused the demise.

A brilliant detective is called;

Because the police have been stalled;

He questions the lover,

The servants, the brother

And even the priest, who’s appalled.

The lover gets all of the money;

About the will something is funny;

He sips wine with panache

And talks about cash

Then dies. Poison’s bad for the tummy.

The household erupts in hysteria;

A clue is among the wisteria;

The culprit’s not me!

It’s she or it’s he!

Can nobody solve the mysteria?

The detective is hot on the track

To prevent another attack;

“But the gardener’s shot

And this thickens the plot,”

He thinks while he munches a snack.

To the parlor all suspects invited;

All nervous, but one truly frighted;

Many secrets revealed;

And nothing concealed;

But no one so far is indicted.

The detective drones on while they sit;

Some thinking, “This man is a twit”;

Then he suddenly cries,

“There is one here who lies!”

And points! “Tis the butler who dun it!”

All gasp! Then Jeeves goes quite zonkers;

But they stop him — because justice conquers;

He says he’s the true heir

And nothing is fair;

It’s clear the poor man has gone bonkers.

And this is the end of the tale;

This story, it never grows stale;

They drink lots of tea

Amidst secrecy

And the good guys will win without fail.

Anneli Byrd is an academic adviser in Weber State University’s Student Success Center.

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