The Rotary Club Murder Mystery Read Free Page B

Rotarians and Rotary Anns.
    The point is that many of the Rotarians were just as much friends when they were away from the Rotary meeting as they were when they were eating together at noon on Tuesday. And that’s why Rotary meant so much to me.
    We always had good times with Rotary friends and their wives. Often we would go on vacations with people we got to know through Rotary. But the thing that meant most to me then and does so still is the Rotary Bridge Club.
    Of course, it never was a formal club at all. It started as just three tables of bridge, meeting twice a month; and we had more fun! It just happened that most of us were Presbyterians, and so, of course, we knew each other through the church as well as through Rotary.
    But it was a long time ago that we had three tables of players. One by one, we have been passing over to the other side. But you know, the rest of us always saw to it that the widow or the widower had a way to continue to play with us. Sometimes we invited a new player to make up the number. And one year, two couples moved away to Florida about the same time.
    What I am getting at is that there is only one table left. It is made up of me, Lona Champion, and Daisy Beth and Fred Middleton. So we are three Rotary Anns and Fred.
    As you have already found out, the district governor died in the night between Monday and Tuesday, May 26/27. Then it was all in the paper on Wednesday and Friday. And then the Rotary Bridge Club met with Daisy Beth and Fred on Friday night.
    Now do you think we did much serious playing that night? Oh yes, we bid and we made or did not make our bids, but our minds were altogether on one thing—and that didn’t have much to do with the game.
    Lona was having the time of her life because we were right there with Fred, and Fred had been on the spot even before the
police arrived, and he was telling us all about it. I have to admit I was just as excited as Lona was—like the old fire horse smelling smoke.
    Well, we talked it over and talked it over. And Fred made the observation that if the chain had not been on the door and the door had not been locked, he would seriously doubt that it was suicide. He didn’t think the note sounded like evidence of suicide, and the poor man hadn’t even finished his Dick Francis book.
    â€œOf course it wasn’t suicide,” I said.
    â€œWhy do you say that?” Lona wanted to know.
    â€œWell,” I said, “you know very well that the dearest wish of every Rotarian in the country or maybe in the world is to be district governor. Not one of them would forgo being district governor even to go to Heaven-or Hell, for that matter. They love the idea of being district governor, and you know they do.”
    Lona thought maybe that was right, and Fred kind of chuckled, but he didn’t say I was wrong.
    â€œAnd as for that locked room,” I went on, “I wouldn’t let a thing like that stop me from calling it murder.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t?” Fred raised his eyebrows.
    Ever since I cracked (notice the professional language!) the Famous DAR Murder Case, people pay attention to me when I talk about crime.
    â€œNo, I would not.”
    â€œYou think a murder can take place in a locked room?”
    â€œLocked room?” I said. “There is no such thing as a murder taking place in a locked room. The room was unlocked when the murder took place and then locked afterward.”
    â€œWhat are you going to do about that chain on the door?”
    Well, I didn’t know the answer to that one, but I wasn’t about to admit it. Still, if it was murder, it had to have been done by somebody who got out of that room. And if that somebody figured out how to do it, it stood to reason somebody else could figure it out, too.

    So we argued about that for a little. Then Daisy Beth said, “I understand that they couldn’t find his wife for two days.”
    â€œWhere did you hear