The Detection Club was a group of detective fiction writers, including Agatha Christie, G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, Anthony Berkeley, Hugh Walpole, Freeman Wills Crofts, and a dozen or so other popular authors. They met regularly in London to discuss the techniques and travails of crime fiction writing and to provide support to one another. Each had taken an oath to be fair to their readers in creating and presenting the solutions in their stories, but whether the oath was anything more than an inside joke, Phyllida wasn’t certain.

The Murder Fête in Listleigh was a weekend event that had been arranged to allow aspiring writers of detective stories the opportunity to meet successful writers of such works, as well as for the public to come and listen to the authors speak and to buy their books.

The aspiring writers paid a fee for the first day, which included the private Welcome Luncheon at half past one with the Detection Club attendees who were present—Sayers, Chesterton, Berkeley, and Christie—along with short classes taught by some of the published writers. The highlight of the first day was an outdoor cocktail party in the evening, giving the hopeful writers another chance to hobnob with the author celebrities. Along with their entrance fee, each amateur author had been offered the opportunity (for an additional fee) to submit a short story for a contest to be judged by the professionals. Tomorrow, Saturday, the fair on the grounds of St. Wendreda’s would be open to the public for book sales and a general festival. On Sunday at teatime would be the awarding of the Murder Fête Grand Prize.

As Grand Master, G. K. Chesterton would speak at the luncheon today, and on Sunday he would give out the prize for best short story to one of the aspiring authors. The prize was a publishing contract for the story in both England and the United States. Phyllida was privately rooting for Dr. Bhatt to win, for she’d read some of his work about a physician turned amateur detective. She thought it was exceedingly good.

Listleigh had been chosen as the site for the Murder Fête because of the local writers’ club. After John Bhatt, the town’s doctor and a member of the local club, heard about a fundraiser the Detection Club had participated in in London, he conceived the idea of a local fundraising event. This one was for the nearby orphanage and school for wayward children sponsored by St. Wen-dreda’s, which needed a new roof. Dr. Bhatt had sent a very compelling proposal to Mr. Chesterton, by way of Mrs. Agatha. The publicity such an event would afford the writers, the money it would raise for children in need, and the opportunity to get out of London during the hottest part of the summer prompted the Detection Club to accept the Listleigh writers’ club’s proposal.