u/miriel41

Hey readers and welcome to the first check-in of The Clock House Murders! Find discussion questions below, feel free to add your own observations.

Note on spoilers: As the books in the House Murders series can be read independently, please use spoiler tags if you want to refer to anything that happened in The Decagon House Murders, The Mill House Murders or The Labyrinth House Murders.

You can add spoiler tags on reddit like this without the spaces in between: > ! [text goes here] ! <

Links:

• Schedule
• Marginalia

Summary:

Prologue

• Kawaminami goes to meet his old friend Shimada (or Shishiya Kadomi as is his pseudonym as an author).
• In the building he sees Kōmyōji Mikoto, a spirit medium and Shimada's neighbour.
• As an editor at the magazine Chaos, Kawaminami will soon work on a feature about the ghost at the Clock House. He'll visit the house two weeks later and Shimada says that he would like to come as well.

1 – The Clock Tower Without Hands

• The group from Chaos as well as some students of W- University's mystery club arrive at the Clock House.
• There are nine people: Kawaminami, Kobayakawa (deputy editor-in-chief), Utsumi (photographer), Kōmyōji (spirit medium) and the university students Uryū, Katagi, Kawarazaki, Watanabe and Nīmi.
• At the house, they meet Inami Sayoko, the woman responsible for running the estate.
• Kōmyōji tells the group that they can't take anything artificial with them. That means they all have to wear the same robe and leave things like watches or jewellery behind. Watanabe even has to leave his glasses behind.
• They also meet the young master of the house, Koga Yukiya. He gives the impression as if he's sleepwalking.
• Then there's Mr Nonomiya, a fortune teller who also lives in the house, who sees ill omens and warns of destruction.

2 – Two Late Arrivals

• Fukunishi Ryōta is also a student at W- University and part of the mystery club. He cancelled because he went to his cousin's funeral, but he decides to leave there early and makes his way to the Clock House.
• On his way, he meets Shishiya, whose car has broken down. Together they get it running again and make their way to the Clock House.

3 – The Old Wing (I)

• The nine visitors settle into the old wing.
• They hold a séance. It seems like the ghost, Towa, Michinori's daughter, speaks from Kōmyōji's mouth. Later it seems like the ghost makes thuds. At the end of the séance, Kōmyōji mentions a key and they find one behind a cabinet.
• Part of the group discusses what happened and if it was real or a trick.
• Kawaminami wakes up during the night to go to the bathroom. He spots a figure that he thinks is Kōmyōji. He follows her and sees her enter the Pendulum. He faintly hears a conversation. Then he hears the sound of a person falling to the ground and flees.

4 – Chain of Death

• Shishiya and Fukunishi briefly speak with Ms Inami.
• Then they both drive back to Tokyo and talk a bit more, first at a restaurant, then at Shishiya's home.
• Shishiya has asked his brother, who works for the police, about the Clock House. He has learned about seven deaths that are related to the house and its inhabitants.
• Towa, Michinori's daughter died ten years earlier, in August 1979, at the age of fourteen. Cause of death: illness of some kind.
• Terai Akie, a woman employed as a live-in servant. Committed suicide soon after Towa's death at age twenty-seven.
• Inami Kyōko, Inami Sayoko's daughter died at age nine. Cause of death: disease.
• Inami Yūsaku, husband of Sayoko and father of Kyōko killed in a traffic accident at age forty.
• Koga Michinori passed away at age sixty-three in September 1980 due to illness.
• Hasegawa Toshimasa, the personal physician of the Kogas died during a fire at his clinic in December 1981, aged fifty-two.
• Hattori Ikuo, the executive managing director of Koga Clocks, died in a car crash in March 1982, aged forty-five.
• Ms Inami calls Shishiya and says she liked his book that he gave her earlier. She also invites him to the house to talk about something related to the death of Koga Michinori.

Hello readers!

You have chosen, these will be the books that we'll read over the course of the next year for our Year of Poirot:

• The Mysterious Affair at Styles
• The ABC Murders
• Five Little Pigs
• Hickory Dickory Dock
• Death in the Clouds

We'll be starting with The Mysterious Affair at Styles in September (probably more like mid to late September). Watch r/bookclub for a detailed schedule to be published later this month.

Hello readers!

24 hours remain to vote for your favourite Poirot books to read over the course of the next year. Head to the post here:

• Year of Hercule Poirot (Agatha Christie)

Upvote all you'd read with r/bookclub and remember that several books will be chosen.

Happy upvoting!

Hello detectives, we recently read The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie. Check out the discussions, if you've missed them, they're all linked here.

We decided this will be the start of The Year of Poirot! Reading all of the Hercule Poirot books might be a bit much, so we've decided to read some of them over the course of a year, with one book roughly every two months.

And which ones will we read? You decide!

I'll list 24 books that you can choose from. We referred to this list.

We excluded all books that r/bookclub has already read, no matter when we read them, because there are still plenty to choose from. And we excluded the ones that might spoil other stories according to the document linked above. That means, these are excluded:

• Death on the Nile (read in May 2022)
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (read in Jan 2022)
• Murder on the Orient Express (read in Nov 2017)
• The Mystery of the Blue Train (read in July 2026)
• Curtain (spoilers)
• Elephants Can Remember (spoiler)
• Hallowe'en Party (spoiler)
• Cards on the Table (spoiler)
• Hercule Poirot's Christmas (spoiler)
• all the short story collections

So choose among the following. You can find the blurbs in the comments below.

• The Mysterious Affair at Styles [1920]
• The Murder on the Links [1923]
• The Big Four [1927]
• Peril at End House [1932]
• Lord Edgware Dies [1933]
• Murder in Mesopotamia [1936]
• Three Act Tragedy [1934]
• Death in the Clouds [1935]
• The ABC Murders [1936]
• Dumb Witness [1937]
• Appointment with Death [1938]
• Sad Cypress [1940]
• One, Two Buckle my Shoe [1940]
• Evil Under the Sun [1941]
• Five Little Pigs [1942]
• The Hollow [1946]
• Taken at the Flood [1945]
• Mrs McGinty’s Dead [1952]
• After the Funeral [1953]
• Hickory Dickory Dock [1955]
• Dead Man’s Folly [1956]
• Cat Among the Pigeons [1959]
• The Clocks [1963]
• Third Girl [1966]

Happy voting and see you soon for more puzzling over clues!

Voting will be open for 72 hours.

Hello detectives, welcome to the last discussion of The Mystery of the Blue Train!

Links:

• Schedule
• Marginalia

Summary:

Defiance

• The Comte visits Derek and tries to blackmail him. He says he has compromising information from Mirelle. Derek's answer is that the Comte can go to hell.
• Derek goes straight to Mirelle. He says he'll never go back to her. Mirelle says she saw Derek come out of Ruth's compartment and that Ruth was dead at that moment.

A Warning

• Poirot and Katherine talk about Richard Knighton, Derek Kettering and the Comte de la Roche. Poirot warns her about a dangerous man in her life.
• Derek opens his heart to Katherine and tells her about his relationship to Ruth and about how he lied, when he said he had not been in her compartment. He says Ruth was asleep. Derek says he cares about Katherine.
• Knighton also comes to Katherine to open his heart and also tells her he cares about her.
• Katherine feel like the spirit of Ruth is beside her and wants to tell her something.

Interview with Mirelle

• Poirot and Knighton visit Mirelle and tell her they are acting on Mr. Van Aldin's behalf.
• Mirelle accuses Derek of murdering his wife and gets all temperamental. They go see the police together. Poirot says she should have gone to the police sooner.
• Mirelle denies knowing anything about the jewels.

Poirot Plays the Squirrel

• Poirot tells Lenox that she should tell Katherine that Derek has been arrested.
• Lenox proposes that Ruth may have been killed while the train was in Lyon.
• Poirot has dinner with M. Papopolous and Zia. They also spend some time at the casino. There Mirelle comes to talk to M. Papopolous. She says she “will get the money”.
• Poirot takes Zia into the garden and reminds her of the affair 17 years ago. He knows more about what was going on then he ever told anyone. He then asks for her help. He learns that M. Papopolous currently has the jewels. The rubies have been handed over by a woman. Zia also says that the Marquis seemed young to her, despite the white hair.

A Letter from Home

• Katherine gets a letter from Miss Viner and feels a longing for St. Mary Mead.
• Poirot, Lenox, Katherine, Knighton and Van Aldin all meet. Van Aldin wants to go back to England. Poirot suggests that Knighton should tell Katherine about it. She in turn decides to also return to England.
• Poirot goes to see the Comte's servants, Hippolyte and Marie. He knows they lied about the date of the Comte's arrival.
• Poirot accuses Mirelle of having entered Ruth's compartment and that Ruth was dead. Poirot wonders if someone else had been there before Mirelle.

Miss Viner Gives Judgment

• Katherine is back in England and currently lives with Miss Viner.
• Miss Viner has some paper cuttings, including one that is about jewels being stolen from Viscountess Tamplin.
• When Miss Viner hears about Knighton, her opinion is that he is looking to marry a rich woman for her money. Still, they arrange to have him over for lunch.
• After that lunch, Miss Viner changes her opinion and says he's genuine.

Mr. Aarons Lunches

• Poirot meets Mr. Aarons, who tells him about Kitty Kidd, a singer, dancer and male impersonator. She's supposed to be with someone in France, a Marquis.
• They also talk about Mirelle, who's with the ex-Prime Minister of Greece. She's supposed to wear a large ruby around her neck.

Katherine and Poirot Compare Notes

• Poirot meets Katherine. Poirot is not satisfied with the end of the mystery being that Derek is in responsible and in prison. He still puzzles over the disfigurement of the face of the victim.
• Poirot tells Katherine he has visited the Russian embassy in Paris as well as a theatrical agent and a Harley Street doctor in London. He now knows whether the robbery and the murder were done by the same person.
• Katherine shows him the newspaper cutting she got from Miss Viner.

A New Theory

• Poirot meet Van Aldin and shares the theory that Derek didn't murder Ruth with him.

The Blue Train Again

• Van Aldin, Knighton and Poirot take the Blue Train again.
• In Paris, Poirot makes them all try to leave the train, but since the conductor has their tickets, they are not let go.
• When they arrive in Lyon, Poirot tells Van Aldin and Knighton about Kitty Kidd and that she is also known as Ada Mason.
• Poirot hands Knighton the cigarette case with the letter K and says that it belongs to Knighton. He also reveals that Knighton is the Marquis.

Explanations

• Poirot explains everything to Van Aldin over lunch.
• Poirot first suspected Ada Mason when she told them that the cigarette case with the K was one that Ruth had given to Derek. She had only been with Ruth for two months and Ruth and Derek already weren't on good terms.
• Curiously, Knighton had also only been with Van Aldin for two months.
• There was no man who entered Ruth's compartment in Paris.
• And it was not Ruth, but Ada Mason, who told the conductor she was going to leave her maid in Paris. That was also the reason for the disfigured face. With that, the chance was lower that the conductor realised it wasn't Ruth who had talked to him, if he found the dead woman.
• It was also Knighton who took the jewels.
• Ada Mason left the train in Lyon in a man's clothes.
• Poirot noticed similarities between Knighton and the Marquis, like the places he went to and that he spoke French well. The limp Knighton had was fake.

By the Sea

• Poirot tells Lenox the same story he told Van Aldin.

I made a post about this two months ago in r/bugs, but the issue still exists. I'm posting here again, because I want to express my frustration as a moderator that I never heard back on the issue. A simple answer like "we know about it, but don't have a timeline to fix it yet" or "we can't reproduce what you're reporting" or "this issue doesn't exist with the new wiki" would have helped.

I'm posting here, because I know active admins read posts here and sometimes approach the appropriate teams at reddit.

I'd also like to know if fellow moderators also experienced the bug? Does anyone know if it exists solely on the old wiki or the new one as well?

And as to other solutions, I simply need the scroll bar, because I edit this monster list every month and without the bar, I'm breaking my wrist scrolling.

Thanks for listening to this frustrated mod.

Hello readers, welcome to the last discussion of The Great Believers!

Links:

• Schedule
• Marginalia

Summary:

2015

• Cecily and Kurt meet with Fiona. They are worried about Claire, because none of them have heard from her.
• Fiona gets Claire's address from Kurt.
• When Claire opens the door to Fiona, she says that this is not okay.

1986

• Dr. Cheng treats Yale, but keeps anything related to AIDS off Yale's record.
• Yale sends a note to Bill to get tested for HTLV-III, now known as HIV. He later hears that Bill's wife Dolly has left Bill.
• Yale visits Katsu Takami at the County hospital.
• Yale gets a letter from Charlie. Charlie asks if he was directly responsible for Yale getting infected.

2015

• Richard has a surprise for Fiona. Julian Ames is still alive and comes to see them.

1988, 1989

• Charlie's paper is doing well, but apparently Charlie spends all the money on coke.
• Charlie continues to write letters to Yale.
• Asher tells Yale that Charlie wants to see him and Yale thinks about all the things he could tell Charlie, like Fiona's college acceptance, that Nora's show is delayed and that Nora passed away, that Roscoe had gone to live with Cecily.
• Yale goes to see Charlie one and a half years later. Charlie has gone blind. Yale almost doesn't recognise him. Charlie is sedated and Yale doesn't talk to him, only feeds him water.

2015

• Julian tells Fiona, Cecily, Richard and Serge what has been going on in his life.

1990

• Yale and Fiona take part in a protest.
• Fiona tells Yale she is in love with her professor. She can also see that Yale is in love with Asher. Asher is the reason Yale is at the march.
• When a reporter stops in front of Yale and asks him what he feels, Yale kisses Asher.
• They all lie down in protest and are taken away by the police one by one. When it's Yale's turn he doesn't manage to be stiff and lands on the ground. The police claims he resisted and Yale is constrained. He feels his rib break.

2015

• Fiona talks with her therapist online.
• A few days later, she gets a phone call from Claire. Claire tells her that there's gunfire near her, but that she is save.
• Fiona meets Jake again and they have sex.
• Fiona gets a message from Claire, who proposes that Fiona and Cecily could watch Nicolette for a while.

1990

• Charlie is gone and Teresa shows Yale stuff in his and Charlie's old apartment that Yale might want.
• Asher comes to get Yale. He tells him that he's moving to New York. His activism will have a bigger impact from there.

2015

• Fiona and Cecily meet Claire and Nicolette. The two grandmothers watch Nicolette play on the playground.
• Fiona starts to cry. She admits that she sent away Yale' mom, when she came to visit him in the hospital.
• Yale died shortly after Fiona gave birth to Claire and she couldn't be with him.

1991

• Fiona and Cecily take Yale to the gallery to the opening of the exhibition with Nora's pictures. Ranko Novak is also featured.

2015

• It's the day of Richard's exhibition. Fiona, Cecily, Julian and even Claire all attend.
• Fiona and Claire have an argument about their relationship in front of Julian. Julian says that they can be grateful, as people who love each other, to be alive at the same time.

1992

• Fiona visits Yale and he looks a bit better.
• Rafael had been Yale's roommate for a while.
• Teresa regularly sends cards to Yale.
• Yale can't think of anyone he wants to see, when Fiona asks.
• Fiona starts getting contractions and the nurse Debbie calls Labor and Delivery.
• Yale starts feeling worse and Dr. Cheng says that they're officially starting hospice.
• Kurt brings Roscoe to the hospital.
• Yale starts dreaming and he mostly sees Fiona.

2015

• They are all at Richard's exhibition. Jake is also there.
• There is a video of Yale, Charlie and Nico.