Tuesday, 9 December 2008

The Fountain Plays - chapter of Crime Never Pays

Mrs. Sayers is the author of The fountain plays, one of the stories included in the book Crime never pays, a compilation of crime and mystery stories by authors from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Agatha Christie.
The story is about a man called Mr. Spiller who has just installed an ornamental fountain in his garden. He is so proud of it that invites some friends to have dinner at his house to admire it. During the dinner, the guests give their opinion about the fountain in the garden, about the place and the bushes around it. But it doesn’t like to everybody, above all, to Mr. Gooch, who is offending the host all the time criticizing his new fountain.
At the end of the dinner, some of them decide to play bridge but Mrs. Digby, one of his neighbours, decides to leave, and Mr. Spiller offers himself to accompanies her.
Once he is back home, realizes that everybody has gone to bed but Masters, the servant. He has turned off the fountain and everything is ready to go to sleep, so Mr. Spiller tells him to leave. But not everybody was in bed… Mr. Gooch, who had declined to play bridge with the other guests after the dinner, had decided to go to the garden. Some minutes later, they both meet in the living room and start to talk. Mr. Gooch knows a terrible secret about Mr. Spiller, and blackmails him in order to get more money than in fact he is receiving to keep the secret. He threatens to tell her daughter about it, they argue, and the crime takes place. Mr. Spiller was not intended to kill him but, actually, he did.
He hides the body next to the fountain and turns it on so that the water keeps the body temperature and confuses the police the next morning pretending to feign a natural death.
In the morning the body is found and the Police thinks it is a natural death as Mr. Spiller planned, but when everything seemed to be finished, Masters the servant tells Mr. Spiller that he knows everything about the crime he committed, and in order to keep the secret of the recent murder, Mr. Spiller has to increase his salary and to give him money when he ask to.
Mr. Gooch blackmailed him before, and Masters is doing it now. The same story is repeated again, like the fountain, which uses the same water over and over again.

27 comments:

  1. you're great, now i've an oral test about this story, you save me haha. i'm from argentina, kisses !

    ReplyDelete
  2. thank you! I have to write a summary about this book!
    you save me!! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you chica, you awesome! :P

    ReplyDelete
  4. In this story, what is the French Window ?

    ReplyDelete
  5. thank you! im from Argentina you are awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thank you very, very much !

    ReplyDelete
  7. i'm not from argentina, but never the less you're a frickin genius!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thank you so much!!
    It's great!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. YOU'RE THE BEST ! THanks !!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Who is betty in that history??

    ReplyDelete
  11. thanks a lot!! i have a test tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
  12. You're great! You save me! I have an oral test about this novel next week.

    ReplyDelete
  13. please give me the climax of this story!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  14. thank you, really. I have a test of 10 histories, and this is one of them, i'm from Spain

    ReplyDelete
  15. Thank you! I'm Argentinian too haha

    ReplyDelete
  16. todos los vagos argentinos ajajaja aguante argentina perros

    ReplyDelete
  17. Thank you so much. Now I don't have to read the Story again.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Can somebody help me and write me short summary "Through The Window By K.R.G Browne. Please guys!!

    ReplyDelete
  19. jajajjaja no entendia un carajo y lei esto y me vino barbaro, saludos de argentina

    ReplyDelete
  20. saludos desde España, vaya libro es
    incompresible

    ReplyDelete
  21. I'm from argentina too
    me ayudo a entender mejor xq tuve que googlear como mil palabrasss
    thanks
    saludos desde argentinaaaaaa

    ReplyDelete
  22. what a briliant writterwjkjixh



    ReplyDelete
  23. Relationship between mr spiller and mr gooch in the story

    ReplyDelete
  24. Thank You and I have a neat offer: How Much Is A Complete House Renovation interior home remodeling

    ReplyDelete

If you have any comment or you want to add your opinion, feel free to write whatever comes to your mind.