(dramatic music) - I had dinner with Alan last night.
(glasses clink) Down the hatch, here's to you.
- [Charles] He's finished it.
- [Susan] "Magpie Murders ..." - One for sorrow, two for joy.
- Very Agatha Christie.
- Number one in time for Christmas.
- Bloody manuscript, there's no last chapter.
A whodunnit without the solution.
It's not even worth the paper it won't be printed on.
- I've got something terrible to tell you.
Alan's dead.
- I'm gonna work out who killed him.
I'm gonna go to Suffolk and look for the missing pages.
"Magpie Murders."
It's 1955.
- [Alan] There were many who considered Atticus Pund to be the world's greatest detective.
- It's not strange how evil can find its roots so easily in English village, a place of beauty and tranquility.
(man gasps) (body impacts) - Never underestimate the stupidity of criminals.
There's no such thing as a coincidence.
Everything in life is part of a pattern.
- What are you doing?
- What he does.
- [Susan] Alan put you in his books.
- Yes, I'm James Fraser, the thick assistant.
Well then do tell me, I want know.
- He based a character on you, the dim detective.
- You stay out on my way.
- [Alan] Unmarried, unloved.
- Yes?
Yes, I'm on my own, but that didn't give him the right to turn me into some sort of grotesque loser.
- [Atticus] Why does anyone kill anyone?
I can think of four reasons.
Fear, envy, anger, and desire.
(hand slaps) - He played games designed to hurt people.
(car horn honks) - Am I the killer?
- If someone really did push him off that tower, there'd have been plenty of volunteers.
- Why do people buy my book, Susan?
- Because they want to know who did it!
- Think.
We all analyze.
It'll come to you.
- [Susan] It's his last novel and everyone he knew was in it.
And that's why the chapter was taken, because it reveals the secret.
The answer's in the book.
- You wish to know the answer.
- That's all I want to know.
(dramatic music)
