Surfeit of Lampreys Trivia Quiz

Answer: A sudden death of a wealthy relative

The Lampreys are a peerage family, however Lord Charles Lamprey is the younger brother and thus has no wealth of his own. His wife Imogen Charlot also has little money of her own. They have six children: Henry, Frid, the twins Stephen and Colin, Patricia "Patch" and Michael, the youngest. Lord Charles' older brother is Gabriel, Marquis of Wutherwood, who is wealthy. The Lampreys frequently live well beyond what their bank accounts let them, and are in constant debt. In the past, Roberta remembers that whenever the Lampreys hit rock bottom, a distant relative would up and die suddenly and the inheritance would solve their fiscal woes.

Lady Lamprey frequently pawned some of her possessions but it was never enough to pay off the debts and she usually wound up buying them back anyway.

Answer: Charades

The Lampreys are notoriously good at charades and often perform something elaborate. After much discussion, they decide to perform the story of Jael and Sisera. In the Bible, Jael killed Sisera by putting a nail in his head. In this case, they mimic that act with a skewer, and that is very similar to the way Uncle G was killed.

Answer: Witchcraft

Many of the Lampreys believe Violet to be a witch (or mentally insane) because of her hobby. Indeed, she seems high strung and often speaks about the occult and witches. This is to the annoyance of her husband who believes it is scandalous that his wife would engage in such a hobby. Charles and Gabriel's Aunt Kit is also perturbed by this, as she finds sacrilegious.

It is Violet's mental state coupled with her hobby that makes it easy for the Lampreys to gang up on her after the murder occurs.

Answer: A possible love connection between Gabriel's chauffer Giggle and Violet's maid Tinkerton

Roberta was among the first to be questioned by Alleyn and, out of loyalty to the Lampreys, she lied to Alleyn about the money. Roberta and the Lamprey kids (minus Michael) had listened outside the door when Lord Charles and his brother were talking about the money. Gabriel plainly refused to lend any more money to his brother. Roberta lied about this because Gabriel's death solved the money problems but made Lord Charles look like the likeliest suspect. Roberta assumed it was safe to lie to Alleyn because she knew the Lampreys would also have lied about it (and they did), but Alleyn saw through it anyway.

Twins Stephen and Colin are identical and often cover for each other when one gets in trouble. They realized that the twin who brought Aunt Violet to the lift had a very good opportunity to kill Gabriel, so they both claimed to be the twin who did so. Lord Charles warned them to stop that charade since it just made them look more suspicious but the twins refused until they were discovered.

Aunt Kit was visiting the Lampreys at the same time Gabriel and Violet did. In the chaos after the murder, Aunt Kit suddenly disappeared without explanation. Henry rang up her house but she was not there. The family wondered what happened to her until she suddenly returned to their flat and explained she pawned her jewelry to pay off the Lampreys' debts. This was not well received because it proved that Gabriel had denied Charles the money, which they lied about.

A possible love connection between Giggle and Tinkerton is hinted once or twice in the novel but the Lampreys seem unaware of this fact.

Answer: Michael

Michael, the youngest child, had been sent to bed and missed most of the action. However, earlier in the evening he was playing trains with Giggle, who was helping Michael repair some of the train cars. Michael had noticed the skewer on the hall table but a short time later he noticed the skewer was missing.

This provided Alleyn with a very short span of time and few people who could have taken the skewer. Crucially, this eliminated Violet, Charles and Giggle, all likely suspects in Alleyn's mind, as none of them could have taken the skewer.

Answer: Roberta

A number of people said that they heard Violet scream as the lift went down and continuing to scream as the lift came back up to the fourth floor where the Lampreys lived. However, Roberta heard the lift go down and come back up before Violet screamed.

This meant that there was a second lift trip down and back up (which actually occurred before the one everyone knew about) that was unaccounted for. The building's doorman confirmed that the lift never reached the ground floor and that the first two floors are empty because the families who lived there were on vacation and no one lived on third.

Answer: Macbeth

The constable talks at length about Macbeth and this gives Alleyn a new perspective on the case. Specifically, the constable talks about how Macbeth was kind of weak-willed while Lady Macbeth was far cleverer and the brains of the operation. Alleyn starts thinking of the suspects in this case as characters in Macbeth.

Answer: So she could steal his hand

Violet was a practitioner of witchcraft and wanted to use her dead husband's severed hand for protection. It is an old lore called the Hand of Glory that the severed hand of a murdered man will protect its holder. The only way Violet could ensure she could get the hand was to have the body brought home where she chopped it off in the middle of the night with a saw.

Answer: Giggle

Giggle is found murdered in his bed during the middle of the night. Henry, Roberta and the servants on the scene at the time all assumed that Violet had murdered him because she wandering around the house with her husband's severed hand in her pocket. However, Giggle had been dead for a few hours by that time, leading Alleyn to believe Giggle was not killed by Violet.

Answer: Giggle

Gabriel was killed by his chauffeur, Giggle. Giggle's alibi for when the skewer was stolen was that he was playing trains with Michael, which was true. Tinkerton took the skewer. Giggle left Michael's room and made sure that Michael saw him go down the stairs while Gabriel was in the lift which was stopped on the fourth floor. Tinkerton, who was the brains behind the plan, pressed the button sending the lift down to the third floor where Giggle stabbed his boss before sending the lift back up to the fourth floor. He then continued down the stairs with Tinkerton following a short distance behind. This gave the appearance that neither Giggle nor Tinkerton could have killed Gabriel. Violet then got on the lift and rode it down to the third floor and screamed when she found her husband's body.

Roberta's story about the elevator ride proved to Alleyn that Giggle was the murderer. Giggle began panicking when Alleyn questioned him further so Tinkerton killed him so he wouldn't blab.

Alleyn knew Tinkerton was involved because she lied about seeing Gabriel in the lift when she headed down the stairs. The lift was designed so that one cannot see into it from an angle. This meant to Alleyn that the lift wasn't on the fourth floor when Tinkerton went down the stairs and Tinkerton would only lie about it if she was involved in the murder.

The motive was money. Giggle inherited valuable property upon his boss's death. Tinkerton received nothing, but she and Giggle were involved and she would gain the money and property via him.