Cast:
Cully Barnaby...................Laura Howard
Joyce Barnaby..................Jane Wymark
Tom Barnaby....................John Nettles
Gavin Troy........................Daniel Casey
Location(s):
Upper Warden
Lower Warden
Summary:
In the village of Upper Warden Ellis Bell's bestseller 'The House of Satan' has been adapted for the theatres. On the premiere, however, the leading star (Larry Smith) is blown up inside the summerhouse of his ancestral Upper Warden Manor, which belongs to the wealthy Smythe-Webster family. Barnaby and Troy soon discover there's an on-going dispute between the Upper and Lower Warden. All the residents of Upper Warden point the finger at someone from Lower Warden. But then another Smythe-Webster is murdered - electrocuted on a gym-bicycle - and it seems as if someone really holds a grudge against the family. Barnaby discovers a plot involving adultery, crime and blackmail, but before he finds the murderer, the cook at Upper Warden Manor is drowned in a cauldron of tomato soup...
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The murderer is Phil Harrison. On the murders of Larry Smith and Frank Smythe-Webster, he co-operated extensively with the chef, Danny Pinchel. Phil Harrison wanted revenge on the Smythe-Websters because they had been mean to his mother, Sarah Proudie from Lower Warden, who ran the Ellis Bell museum, but Danny was purely in it for the money. Danny had stolen Ruper Smythe-Webster's key of the armoury of the Upper Warden Territorial Army and taken some explosives, which he hid in the summerhouse. Via cell phone he informed Phil Harrison of when to press the remote control and ignite the bomb. Unfortunately for them, Frank Smythe-Webster decided not to pay them any money. The two therefore planned his murder too - Frank often worked out in the gym, so Phil went to the room lying directly underneath and connected the electronical gym-bicycle to the mains on Danny's command. Later, Danny told Phil mockingly that he, Phil, was in fact Ruper Smythe-Websters son (and thus was the legitimate heir to the Smythe-Webster fortune). Phil realized Danny had let him do all the dirty work in an attempt to frame him, so he drowned Danny in a cauldron of soup, conveniently placed right where the two were standing in the kitchen of Upper Warden Manor. |