A Deadly Case of Boredom
Disclaimer: I don't own Clue.
Note: I was watching Clue a while back and it occurred to me that in the "real" ending, there really didn't seem to be any reason for Mr. Boddy to have hosted the dinner party other than he couldn't be bothered to kill off all of his accomplices himself so I wrote this.
"More tea, sir?" Wadsworth asked his employer, gesturing towards the empty cup on the desk Mr. Boddy was sitting behind.
"I have no time for tea," Mr. Boddy exclaimed. "I have problems!"
"Problems, sir?" Wadsworth repeated, sensing he was about to be called upon to solve whatever difficulty his boss had now.
"Blackmailing problems," Mr. Boddy clarified.
Wadsworth was so shocked he almost dropped the tea kettle he was still holding. "Someone is blackmailing you?" he asked incredulously.
"No, no, don't be silly. Who could blackmail me? I've never done anything wrong," Mr. Boddy said indignantly. He paused. "Well…except for blackmailing all those people. But I can't possibly get blackmailed for that; it would be weird."
"Indeed it would," Wadsworth agreed. "And it would be difficult to do if the people being blackmailed were not willing to come forward, as the fact they are paying blackmail in the first place would suggest."
"Quite right, my good fellow. And it was really good of you to keep working for me even though I forced you and your wife to work for me for three years without paying you because she was friends with some socialists I was also blackmailing and eventually drove her to suicide," Mr. Boddy said sincerely. "Not many people would do that."
Wadsworth shrugged. "What can I say, sir? When you actually pay your employees you are quite generous and funerals aren't cheap."
"Yes, that's why I prefer blackmailing my help," Mr. Boddy explained.
"So if no one is blackmailing you, are you having problems with one of your blackmailing targets? Can you not find anything or are they threatening to go to the police?" Wadsworth inquired.
"Oh no, nothing like that," Mr. Boddy shook his head. "In today's political climate, just the hint of wrongdoing would be enough to ruin any one of the people I'm blackmailing and it's not like I ever have a certain target in mind before I start, just as long as they are either wealthy or influential. And, of course, everyone has skeletons in their closet."
"Then what is the problem?" Wadsworth pressed.
"I don't know," Mr. Boddy confessed. "Things are going great. Really, really great. Almost too great."
"So what's the problem?" Wadsworth asked, confused. "Do you suspect treachery?"
"I don't know!" Mr. Boddy said, frustrated. "I don't think anyone's out to get me, no one is on to me…everything is going perfectly? Why isn't that enough?"
"If I may, sir," Wadsworth said hesitantly.
"Go on," Mr. Boddy allowed.
"It's possible that things are going so well and you've been at this for so long that you've simply gotten bored of it all," Wadsworth suggested.
"Bored of it all?" Mr. Boddy repeated, sounding as if the idea had never occurred to him. "You might be right."
"It happens to even the best of us, sir," Wadsworth assured him loyally.
"How do I make it go away?" Mr. Body demanded.
"Try doing something out of the ordinary. Something in which you cannot predict the outcome, for example," Wadsworth suggested. "You could take a trip or take up a new hobby, for instance."
"Hm…something new and unpredictable…" Mr. Boddy mused. "I know! I'll throw a dinner party."
Wadsworth blinked. That wasn't exactly what he had in mind by 'exciting' but… "Whatever you think is best, sir."
"They'll all have to use pseudonym's, of course," Mr. Boddy was saying.
"Pseudonym's, sir?" Wadsworth questioned. "Does this mean that you will be gathering together a group of strangers?"
Mr. Boddy looked surprised. "Of course; I'm fairly sure that none of the people I'm blackmailing have ever met."
"You are inviting the people you are blackmailing?" Wadsworth tone was a bit incredulous despite himself.
"Who else would I invite?" Mr. Boddy asked rhetorically. "I hate dinner parties. All that small talk makes me nauseous."
"Whatever you think is best, sir," Wadsworth said mildly.
"Hm...now which of my many victims should I choose? I guess I should start with the alias' and then go from there. I need a theme. Wadsworth, give me a theme for my alias'," Mr. Boddy commanded.
"Colors, perhaps?" offered Wadsworth.
"Hm…colors…I like it," Mr. Body decided. "So that means that I'll have to invite that bordello owner as she would be the perfect 'Miss Scarlet.' That old military coward who was a war profiteer…calling him 'Colonel Yellow' might not go over so well, not to mention it doesn't have a very good ring to it…"
"Colonel Mustard, perhaps?" suggested Wadsworth.
"Brilliant, Wadsworth, absolutely brilliant. That corrupt Senator's wife is about as ostentatious as they come so I think I've found a perfect 'Mrs. Peacock.'" Mr. Body cocked his head contemplatively. "Is peacock even a color?"
"I believe it is a shade of light blue, sir," Wadsworth informed his employer.
"Right, so that works," Mr. Boddy nodded to himself. "Good, good. That's such a perfect alias, but it's tacky to break a theme, so...Then there's that doctor who works for the UN on a revoked license. I can't imagine how no one caught that. You'd think they would have some sort of screening process. Anyway, I'm thinking 'Professor Plum' for him, but I'm drawing a blank at thinking of any meaning for purple other than royalty. Wadsworth?"
After thinking a moment, the butler supplied, "Purple is a mixture of red stimulation and blue calm, causing unrest and uneasiness, which could be why he had the affair in the first place."
"Hm," Mr. Boddy considered. "It's unorthodox, but I like it. Let's see…there's also that Black Widow whose husband was cheating on her with 'Yvette'. Since she'll be there for Miss Scarlet and Colonel Mustard, we've simply got to add her. I'm thinking 'Mrs. White' as white represents both innocence which she most certainly lacks and also death, which she does not. That's five…I need one more to round out the party. Pick a scandal, any scandal," he instructed.
"Being exposed as a homosexual," Wadsworth replied.
"Oh, that's a good one. It's illegal and could you get fired, as well. I think I have someone I'm blackmailing for that. Let's see, I've still got orange and green left… 'Mr. Orange' just sounds weird, so I guess it's 'Mr. Green' because of the fertility issues," Mr. Boddy concluded.
"Is Yvette also going to be a guest?" Wadsworth asked. "The Colonel may not recognize her but Miss Scarlet and Mrs. White most certainly will."
"No, we can have her play a maid," Mr. Boddy declared. "It's not like she doesn't have experience with the outfit. We can have Mrs. Peacock's cooks serve dinner…somehow arrange for the Colonel's driver, Miss Scarlet's corrupt cop, and Professor Plum's ex-patient to stop by."
"I've heard that the patient does singing telegrams now," Wadsworth informed his employer.
"Oh, that's excellent. If I plan everything carefully, I should be able to have her show up right when I need her…and I could call the cop about a disturbance, I suppose to get him here. Although how to lure the driver…"
"I'm sure you'll think of something," Wadsworth told him dutifully. "Why are you bringing together people you are blackmailing and the people who put them in a position to be blackmailed in the first place?"
Mr. Boddy shrugged. "I'm getting tired of paying them a share of the blackmail and their very existence makes them a security threat."
"So you plan to kill them?" questioned Wadsworth.
"Personally?" Mr. Boddy laughed. "Heavens no. Not unless I absolutely need to. I plan to set the stage for the guests to murder the ones who tattled on them to me. These blackmail victims are just about at their breaking point, I think, and by committing murder and relying on me to cover it up for them, they will trap themselves further in my game. Perhaps, I can arm them all with lethal weapons…"
"Will you be there?" Wadsworth asked.
"Of course; how else can I make sure everything goes according to plan and – more importantly – relieve my boredom?" Mr. Boddy asked rhetorically.
"I do not know, but surely if the guests will be killing all your accomplices then they will come after you, too. I mean, they will probably want to keep their body count to a bare minimum and if they kill only you then there is a chance that they will not continue to be blackmailed but if they don't kill you then they definitely will continue to be trapped."
"Good point," Mr. Boddy continued. "But I really want to host this party…I know! We can switch?"
"Switch?" Wadsworth asked blankly, not liking the sound of that.
"Yeah," Mr. Boddy sounded excited. "You'll be Mr. Boddy and I'll be Wadsworth."
"You're asking me to die to relieve your boredom, sir?" Wadsworth sounded incredulous.
"Of course not," Mr. Boddy waved his hand impatiently. "Good help is really hard to find, especially good help that's okay with blackmail. We can set it up as I was a victim of your blackmailing scheme, I want to take it to the police and you say that I have to be killed so their secret doesn't come out. I'll probably borrow your situation to make it sound more realistic. You give them all weapons with which to kill me and turn off the light so no one knows who did it. They'll probably come after you and you can play dead so you'll be fine and I can continue to enjoy myself."
"And what if they do decide to go after you?" Wadsworth asked reasonably.
"Hm," Mr. Boddy considered. "I suppose if that happens then I will have thoroughly deserved it by provoking a bunch of pissed off, desperate blackmail victims and then arming them and telling them to kill me, so it's a risk I'm willing to take. So…will you do it?"
"I want a raise," Wadsworth said frankly.
"Certainly," Mr. Boddy said magnanimously. "After all, if they thought I was able to blackmail them for a lot before for their petty indiscretions, imagine what I can get for keeping them out of prison for murder…"
Note: Mr. Boddy/Wadsworth said that the motorist, the cop, and the singing telegram girl were all called over. For the girl and the cop, I can understand that, but the motorist's car broke down. What was he supposed to be there for? And what was the telegram? The world may never know.
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