Mystery and Masquerade
Wadsworth Atheneum
Hartford
October 2, 2025
I don’t have a lot of time to tell you this, but there’s been a murder at the Wadsworth Atheneum. I know who the culprit is, and they’ve already sent their men after me to silence me.
We need to act fast!
I picked up this information while attending the monthly First Thursday celebration at my local cultural center, the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. Every month, the Atheneum hosts a themed party with live music, a special activity and food and drink. As a professional purveyor of the fine arts, I decided to go schmooze with the rest of the art glitterati.
Whence I arrived, I found that the evening was indeed a masquerade ball. The gorgeous people of Hartford were decked out in their finest evening wear: gowns that flowed across the bright linoleum floor, suits that represented the latest in high fashion.
Most striking were the masks. Some were like war masks, bright red with adornments shooting out in all directions, warning any interlopers of impending doom. Others were simple yet elegant, hiding part of the guests faces, but all of their murderous intent.
Amongst all the hobnobbing, a few guests stood out as particularly suspicious. They wore name tags and spoke in ostentatious tones. These were the members of the Billionaire’s Club, played adroitly by the actors of The Murder Mystery Club.
The president of the club, a foppish gent with a mauve and gold mask and orange boa, called us together for a billionaire’s game. He drank from a glass along with other guests, and began to cough uncontrollably. Before long, the president had collapsed to the floor.
He had been … murdered!!
The maid, aptly named Ms. Luna Tick, took over the hosting ceremonies for the evening. She informed us that ... Wait, did you hear that? Is someone in here? I must hurry ... We would be tasked with interviewing the suspects of the Billionaire’s Club and determining the culprit.
Little did they know, I finished reading Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None earlier in the week. I’m practically a certified private eye at this point. No, I didn’t guess the correct killer there, but that’s besides the point.
There were eight suspects all together, including a malicious television host, a doofy business partner and a treacherous butler. Using my extraordinary powers of deduction, I soon narrowed it down to three main suspects:
1) Ms. Bertha Peacock. Ms. Peacock, a longtime member of the Billionaire’s Club, was inconsolable over the death of the president. Wailing doesn’t begin to describe the utterances of despair that escaped her throat. It felt a bit like a put-on. During her interrogation, she let slip that she’d seen her husband searching for information about poison on their computer. A little too convenient, if you ask me, blaming her husband. Clearly she was having an affair with the president, and killed him to keep her infidelity a secret.
2) Dr. Feelgood. When someone is murdered using poison, the on-site medical expert is always a primary target of suspicion. Not only did he have access to the poison used and the expertise to administer it; the good doctor also harbored a personal grudge against the president, as he had kept the doctor out of the club for years. As Ms. Luna Tick put it, murder is about motive and opportunity, and Feelgood had both.
3) Reginald Sawbucks III. A nasty and arrogant man who wallows in his self-admitted unearned wealth and wields it with reckless abandon, Sawbucks simply did not like the president, and with his generally deficient personality, it was not difficult to imagine him making the leap from poor disposition to calculated murder.
THUD!
They’re here! They’ve come for me! Quickly, you must listen closely.
I had a blast at the masquerade ball. Sharing clues and theories with the other guests was a wonderfully unique social event that I’m already looking forward to trying again.
And now, what you’ve been waiting for. The killer of the President of the Billionaire’s Club was none other than ...
BANG!!!
…
NEXT
Jamil heads to his old neighborhood to celebrate the opening of a new museum.
