The little grey cells, as Hercule Poirot would say, were what Mrs. Chen Wei lived for these days. At sixty-five, retired from Beijing Normal University after four decades of teaching English literature, she found her weekly online book club meetings kept her mind sharp as a jade blade. She adjusted her webcam, ensuring the backdrop of her study—neat rows of English and Chinese classics—was perfectly visible.
"Good evening from Beijing," she said as faces materialized on her screen like a modern séance. "Or should I say good morning to some of you?"
"Still afternoon here in Lagos, and bloody hot," laughed Ademola Okonkwo, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief. Behind him, the gleaming towers of Victoria Island stretched toward a hazy sky. "My air conditioning gave up the ghost yesterday. Even the electronics are surrendering to this heat."
Sarah Mitchell, joining from her tidy London flat, smiled warmly. "Evening from a rather drizzly Camden Town. I've got tea and biscuits ready—very Christie of me, don't you think?" She lifted her Union Jack mug to the camera. "Is everyone here? Priya?"
"Present and accounted for!" Priya Sharma's voice bubbled through the speakers before her video connected. When it did, she appeared to be in what looked like a break room, harsh fluorescent lights washing out her features. "On my dinner break at the office. It's past midnight here in Mumbai, but you know me—vampire hours for the IT crowd."
"And I thought my schedule was bad," said Carlos Mendoza from Mexico City, his study behind him cluttered with historical texts and archaeological journals. "Though I suppose when one is on sabbatical, every hour is whatever one makes of it."
The last square flickered to life, revealing Yuki Tanaka in her Tokyo apartment, morning light streaming through shoji screens. She waved, a pencil tucked behind her ear, sketchbook visible on her desk. "Ohayo gozaimasu, everyone. Ready to discuss murder most foul?"
Sarah cleared her throat in that particularly British way that suggested order must be restored. "Right then. This week we're on Chapter Seven of 'And Then There Were None.' I trust everyone's managed to resist reading ahead?"
"The temptation," Mrs. Chen said, adjusting her reading glasses, "is rather like placing a box of chocolates before a child and saying 'wait until after dinner.' But yes, I have maintained discipline."
"I actually wanted to discuss the cultural aspects of guilt that Christie explores," Carlos began, his professor's instincts never far from the surface. "You see, the way each character carries their secret—it's quite universal, isn't it? Transcends the British setting entirely."
Ade leaned forward, his tech entrepreneur's mind always seeking patterns. "What fascinates me is the logistics. On an island, cut off from civilization—it's the perfect closed system. No variables from outside. Very elegant from a systems perspective."
"It reminds me of a manga I'm working on," Yuki said softly, her English careful but precise. "Isolation changes people. Shows their true nature."
Priya nodded enthusiastically, her dangly earrings catching the harsh office light. "Yes! And Christie was so ahead of her time with the psychological aspects. In Indian philosophy, we have this concept of karma, and this novel is like watching karma unfold in real-time—"
She stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes widened, staring at something beyond the camera.
"Priya?" Sarah's voice carried a note of concern. "Are you alright?"
Priya's mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her hand rose slowly, pointing at something off-screen. Then, with a strangled cry that sent chills through five different time zones, she lurched backward. There was a crash, the sound of something breaking, and her screen went black.
"Priya!" multiple voices called out simultaneously.
"Try calling her," Mrs. Chen commanded with the authority of someone used to managing crisis situations in classrooms. "Ade, you're in tech—can you trace her connection?"
Ade's fingers were already flying across a keyboard outside the camera's view. "Her connection dropped completely. It's not just video—she's offline entirely."
"I have her mobile number," Sarah said, phone already in hand. "It's ringing... going to voicemail."
"This could be nothing," Carlos said, though his face betrayed his worry. "Power outage, perhaps? Mumbai does have infrastructure issues..."
"At her office building?" Yuki questioned quietly. "Big companies have generators."
Mrs. Chen was thinking rapidly, her mind cataloguing possibilities with academic precision. "Sarah, contact the Mumbai police. Ade, can you reach out to any tech contacts in Mumbai? Someone who might know her company?"
"Already on it," Ade replied, his phone now pressed to his ear.
For several minutes, the book club that had formed during the pandemic's darkest days—strangers who had become friends through their shared love of mystery—worked in anxious concert. Sarah navigated the complexity of international emergency services. Ade leveraged his business network. Carlos searched online for Priya's company's security contacts. Yuki pulled up Mumbai news sites. Mrs. Chen coordinated their efforts like a conductor managing a desperate symphony.
"The police say they'll send someone," Sarah reported, "but it might take time. They seemed... skeptical about a video call from London."
"I got through to her company's security desk," Ade announced. "They're checking the floor she works on."
Twenty agonizing minutes passed. Then Ade's phone rang. His face went ashen as he listened.
"They found her," he said slowly. "She's... she's unconscious. They're taking her to Lilavati Hospital. Someone attacked her in the break room."
The silence that followed was profound, stretching across continents and time zones.
"My God," Sarah whispered. "We were right here. We saw it happen, and we couldn't..."
"Wait," Mrs. Chen interrupted, her voice sharp. "Look at your screens. The chat function."
Where Priya's video square had been, text was appearing:
"Ten little book club members, reading online fine; One got too curious, and then there were nine."
"What in the hell—" Ade began, but was cut off by a doorbell ringing. His doorbell.
"That's odd," he muttered. "It's past 8 PM. We don't get deliveries this late." He disappeared from view. They heard a door opening, muffled conversation, then he returned carrying a small package. "This is bizarre. It's addressed to the Tuesday Night Murder Club, care of me."
"The what?" Carlos asked.
"That's not our name," Sarah said. "We've never called ourselves that."
"Open it," Mrs. Chen directed. "But carefully."
Ade used a letter opener—everyone noticed how his hands trembled slightly. Inside was a small figurine of a soldier, exactly like the ones described in Christie's novel, and a note: "One down, nine to go."
Before anyone could respond, multiple doorbells rang—in London, Tokyo, Beijing, and Mexico City. Each member returned to their screen carrying identical packages.
Sarah's contained a figurine and a different note: "The island is everywhere now."
Yuki's included a sketch—a disturbing recreation of the island from the novel, but with each of their faces superimposed on the houses.
Carlos found a historical timeline of justice and revenge, with their names added to the bottom in red ink.
Mrs. Chen's package was the most unsettling: a photo of each book club member taken from what appeared to be security cameras in their own cities, all timestamped within the last week.
"Someone's been watching us," Yuki breathed. "All of us."
"This is insane," Sarah said, her librarian's need for order warring with growing panic. "We need to call the police. All of us, in our own cities."
"And tell them what?" Ade challenged. "That we're being stalked by someone recreating an Agatha Christie novel? They'll think we're mad."
"But Priya—" Sarah began.
"Is proof that this is real," Mrs. Chen finished. "The question is why us? What connects us besides this book club?"
Carlos was examining his package with academic thoroughness. "These figurines are not mass-produced. They're handmade, carved from soapstone. This took planning, months perhaps."
"We need to think like Poirot," Mrs. Chen said firmly. "Or Miss Marple. What would they do? They would look for patterns, connections, the thread that binds the seemingly random together."
"When did we all join the club?" Yuki asked, already pulling up her calendar.
"I founded it in March 2020," Sarah said. "During the first lockdown. Posted in several online forums for mystery lovers."
"I joined in April," Mrs. Chen added. "I found it through a university alumni page."
"May for me," said Ade. "A tech forum, someone mentioned it."
"Also May," Carlos confirmed. "Academic Facebook group."
"June," Yuki said quietly. "Reddit."
"And Priya joined in July, she told me," Sarah recalled. "She said she found us through a coding forum."
Ade was typing furiously. "I'm pulling up our meeting recordings—we agreed to record them for anyone who missed, remember? Let me check something..." His eyes scanned his screen rapidly. "There. In our second meeting, we all introduced ourselves properly. Professional backgrounds, why we loved Christie..."
"And?" Mrs. Chen prompted.
"We all mentioned specific cases. Real crimes we'd encountered or been affected by. Mrs. Chen, you talked about a student who disappeared. Carlos, you mentioned that archaeological fraud case you testified in. Sarah, your cousin's murder when you were young. Yuki, your friend who was stalked. I discussed that corporate espionage case my first startup was involved in."
"And Priya," Sarah said slowly, "talked about her sister's accident that she always suspected wasn't accidental."
"Six people, six injustices," Mrs. Chen mused. "Like the novel."
"But none of those cases were connected," Carlos protested. "Different countries, different years..."
Yuki held up her sketchbook. She'd been drawing while they talked—a habit they'd all grown accustomed to. But now she turned it to the camera. She'd mapped out their cases in a timeline.
"Look at the dates," she said. "They're all between 2010 and 2015."
"So?" Ade asked.
"That's when Christie's estate released the digital rights globally," Sarah said suddenly, her librarian's knowledge surfacing. "There was massive publicity. Online book clubs started forming everywhere..."
Mrs. Chen's eyes sharpened. "There was a forum. I remember now. 'Justice in Fiction'—for people who loved mystery novels but had experienced real injustice. It was popular for about a year before it was shut down."
"Shut down why?" Carlos asked.
"The moderator disappeared," Mrs. Chen recalled. "There were rumors... something about taking justice into their own hands. Vigilante action."
"I remember that forum," Ade said slowly. "I posted there once or twice. About the corporate case."
"As did I," Carlos admitted.
One by one, they all acknowledged having participated in the forum, sharing their stories of unsolved crimes or unpunished wrongs.
"Someone's been collecting us," Sarah whispered. "Gathering us like the ten little soldiers."
"But for what purpose?" Mrs. Chen wondered. Then her expression changed. "Unless... what if we're not the victims in this recreation?"
"What do you mean?" Ade asked.
"In the novel, the ten people on the island were all guilty of crimes they'd never been punished for. What if someone thinks we're guilty of something?"
"That's absurd," Carlos protested. "We're the ones who suffered injustices."
"Or," Yuki said quietly, "what if someone thinks we didn't do enough about them? That we let the guilty go free?"
A new message appeared in the chat: "Clever little book club. But not clever enough. The game has already begun. Check your emails."
They all reached for their phones or opened new tabs. In each inbox was an identical message with an attachment.
"Don't open it!" Ade warned. "It could be malware."
"It's a PDF," Sarah said, having already clicked. "It's... oh my God."
"What?" the others demanded.
"It's a case file. About Priya's sister's death. But this... this shows it definitely wasn't an accident. There's evidence here that was never made public."
They all opened their attachments. Each contained detailed information about their respective cases—information that had been hidden, suppressed, or ignored by authorities.
"Mine shows the archaeological fraudster is still operating," Carlos said, stunned. "Under a different name, in Peru now."
"The manager who stalked my friend," Yuki said, "is a executive at a major company now."
"This is evidence," Ade said excitedly. "Real evidence. We could take this to the authorities, get these cases reopened."
"Is that what this is about?" Sarah wondered. "Someone trying to help us get justice?"
Mrs. Chen shook her head. "Then why attack Priya? No, this is something else. This is a test."
Another message appeared: "Nine little book club members, with evidence to share; One will make the right choice, or none will make it there."
"There where?" Carlos demanded of the screen, as if it could answer.
"To the end," Mrs. Chen said quietly. "Like in the novel. We're being judged. But for what?"
Sarah's phone rang. She answered immediately. "Yes? Yes, I see. Thank you." She hung up. "That was the hospital in Mumbai. Priya's conscious. She's asking for us—she says she needs to warn us about something."
"Can we video call her?" Ade asked.
Sarah was already dialing. After a moment, Priya's face appeared on screen, bandaged and pale, but alert. She was in a hospital bed, an IV in her arm.
"Thank God you're all safe," she said weakly. "I need to tell you—the person who attacked me, they said something. They said we all had a choice to make, five years ago, on that forum. That one of us made the wrong choice."
"What choice?" Mrs. Chen asked urgently.
"There was a vote," Priya said. "Remember? About whether to share information publicly about our cases or to take direct action. It was split. Someone voted to expose everything to the media. The moderator—they considered it a betrayal. They said that person destroyed any chance for real justice."
The book club members looked at each other through their screens, suspicion beginning to creep into their expressions.
"Who voted for exposure?" Ade asked slowly.
"It was anonymous," Sarah said. "We never knew."
"But the moderator would have known," Mrs. Chen pointed out. "They could see the backend data."
"So one of us is being punished for that vote?" Carlos asked. "And the rest of us are... what? Collateral damage?"
"Or witnesses," Yuki suggested. "In Christie's novel, everyone was guilty. But what if in this version, everyone is innocent except one? And we have to figure out who?"
"That's monstrous," Sarah protested. "We can't turn on each other."
"But that's exactly what happened in the novel," Mrs. Chen reminded them. "Suspicion, paranoia, everyone wondering who among them was the killer."
"Except we know the killer is outside our group," Ade pointed out.
"Do we?" Mrs. Chen asked quietly. "Or is that what we're supposed to think?"
The silence that followed was different from before. Where there had been unity in crisis, now there was the faintest thread of doubt.
Priya coughed from her hospital bed. "There's more. The person who attacked me—they left something. A notebook. The police have it, but I saw it. It had all our names, our cases, everything. But one name was circled in red."
"Whose?" everyone asked simultaneously.
"That's the thing," Priya said. "The page was torn. I could only see part of the circle. It could be any of us."
"This is psychological torture," Carlos said with disgust. "Whoever is doing this is trying to make us suspect each other, destroy the trust we've built."
"Like the island," Yuki said softly. "Isolation doesn't have to be physical. You can be isolated by suspicion, even when surrounded by people."
Mrs. Chen was thinking rapidly. "We need to approach this methodically. First, we establish alibis. Where was everyone when Priya was attacked?"
"I was right here," Ade said. "On camera with all of you."
"As were we all," Sarah added. "We're each other's alibis."
"Which means," Mrs. Chen continued, "either the attacker is someone else entirely, or..."
"Or one of us has an accomplice," Carlos finished grimly.
"Stop," Sarah said firmly. "This is exactly what they want. We're playing right into their hands."
"Then what do you suggest?" Ade asked.
"We do what the characters in the novel should have done," Sarah said. "We leave. All of us. Go somewhere safe, somewhere public. Don't stay isolated."
"I can't leave," Priya said from her bed. "And running won't solve this. They found us all, in different countries. They've been watching us for who knows how long."
Mrs. Chen stood up, decision made. "Then we solve it. Like proper detectives. We have evidence now—these packages, the messages, the case files. We pool our resources, our knowledge. Sarah, you have library access to databases. Ade, you have tech skills. Carlos, historical research methods. Yuki, visual analysis. I have academic connections globally."
"And I have time to think," Priya added weakly. "Stuck in this bed."
"But what are we solving for?" Carlos asked. "Who the attacker is? Which one of us they're really after? Why they're doing this?"
"All of it," Mrs. Chen said firmly. "We solve all of it. Because that's what Christie would do. Every thread, every clue, they all matter."
Ade was already typing. "I'm creating a secure shared document. Military-grade encryption. We'll compile everything we know."
"I'll research that old forum," Sarah offered. "See if I can find archived versions, user lists."
"I'll analyze the photographs and sketches for any identifying details," Yuki said.
"I'll research the soapstone figurines," Carlos added. "The carving style might tell us something about origin."
"And I'll coordinate," Mrs. Chen said. "And think. Those little grey cells need to work overtime now."
For the next two hours, they worked with an intensity that transcended their physical separation. Information flowed across continents at the speed of light. Sarah found cached versions of the forum, including the fateful vote that had split the community. Ade traced IP addresses and found that all the packages had been shipped from different countries, but paid for with the same cryptocurrency wallet. Yuki discovered that the sketch in her package contained a watermark—nearly invisible, but definitely there. Carlos identified the soapstone as coming from Kenya, of all places, hand-carved in a style specific to a particular region.
"Kenya," Mrs. Chen mused. "None of us are from Kenya. None of our cases involved Kenya."
"Wait," Priya said from her hospital bed. She'd been quieter, conserving energy, but following along. "The moderator of that forum. Their username was KenyaKnight. We all assumed it was just a random name, but what if...?"
Sarah was typing rapidly. "I'm checking... yes! KenyaKnight posted once about living in Nairobi, working in international law. They mentioned representing victims of injustice who couldn't afford proper legal help."
"An idealist who became disillusioned," Carlos suggested. "When the vote went toward exposure rather than direct action, they snapped?"
"But why wait five years?" Ade questioned.
"Because," Mrs. Chen said slowly, "they were waiting for the perfect setup. The book club. Us discussing 'And Then There Were None.' They've been patient, planning, waiting for all the pieces to align."
"Like the judge in the novel," Yuki added. "Justice Wargrave planned everything meticulously."
A new message appeared in the chat: "Getting warmer. But the game isn't over. Check the news."
Sarah quickly pulled up BBC News on her phone. Her face went white. "There's been an incident in Kenya. A British lawyer named Martin Wainwright has confessed to covering up evidence in multiple international cases. He's turned himself in, along with boxes of documents."
"Wainwright," Carlos said. "Why does that name sound familiar?"
"Because," Mrs. Chen said, her memory sharp as ever, "he was mentioned in that forum. Several members had cases that his firm had handled badly. Including..."
"Including my sister's case," Priya whispered. "He was the insurance investigator who ruled it an accident."
They sat in stunned silence, processing this information.
"So this whole thing," Ade said slowly, "was about forcing Wainwright to confess?"
"But then why attack Priya?" Sarah asked.
"To make it real," Mrs. Chen said. "To show us this wasn't a game. To make us take it seriously enough to act."
"Or," Yuki suggested quietly, "Priya wasn't really attacked at all."
Everyone turned to stare at their screens.
"Yuki!" Sarah protested. "We saw—"
"We saw her react to something off-camera and fall," Yuki pointed out. "We heard she was taken to hospital. But we're taking her word for everything else."
Priya's eyes widened in her hospital bed. "You think I'm lying? That I'm part of this?"
"I think," Yuki said carefully, "that in Christie's novels, nothing is ever quite what it seems."
Mrs. Chen was studying Priya's image carefully. "The bandages are real. The IV is real. But..."
"But what?" Priya demanded, tears forming in her eyes.
"But you're in a private room," Mrs. Chen observed. "Very expensive for an IT worker on night shift. And that notebook you mentioned—how convenient that the crucial page was torn."
"This is insane!" Priya protested. "I'm the victim here!"
"Or," Ade said, his analytical mind working, "you're KenyaKnight. You organized all of this. You knew we'd all be online for book club, giving you the perfect alibi."
"Then who attacked me?" Priya challenged.
"Wainwright," Carlos suggested. "You could have made a deal with him. Confess and attack you to make it look real, or you'd release something worse about him."
Priya was crying now, but even through the tears, there was something else in her expression. "You're destroying everything," she said. "The trust we built, our friendship..."
"That's what isolation does," Yuki repeated softly. "Shows people's true nature."
Mrs. Chen made a decision. "Priya, I'm going to ask you something, and I want you to answer honestly. That vote five years ago—you voted for direct action, didn't you? You wanted vigilante justice."
Priya's tears stopped. For a long moment, she stared at the camera. Then, surprisingly, she smiled.
"No," she said. "I voted for exposure. I was the one who 'betrayed' the cause, as KenyaKnight saw it."
"Then why—" Sarah began.
"Because," Priya continued, "I'm not the one orchestrating this. But I know who is." She looked directly at the camera. "It's one of you. It's been one of you all along."
The accusation hung in the digital air like a poison.
"That's exactly what someone guilty would say," Ade pointed out.
"Or what someone innocent would realize," Priya countered. "Think about it. The packages arrived at everyone's houses at exactly the right time. Someone in our group had to coordinate that. Someone knew exactly when we'd all be online."
"We all knew that," Sarah protested. "We meet every Tuesday at the same time."
"But someone knew I always take my break at exactly 12:30 AM Mumbai time," Priya said. "Someone knew Ade would be home despite usually working late on Tuesdays. Someone knew Carlos would be in his study, not teaching. Someone knew too much."
Mrs. Chen was thinking rapidly. "The forum votes weren't really anonymous. The moderator could see them. If one of us was KenyaKnight..."
"Then they'd know who voted for what," Carlos finished. "They'd know who to punish."
"But we were all on camera when Priya was attacked," Sarah insisted.
"Were we?" Mrs. Chen asked. "Or were some of us using virtual backgrounds that could have been pre-recorded?"
Everyone started scrutinizing each other's video feeds more carefully. The suspicion that had been seeded was now in full bloom.
"This is exactly what the killer wants," Sarah said desperately. "We're turning on each other."
"No," Mrs. Chen said firmly. "This is what we need to do. Examine everything. Question everything. That's how Christie's detectives work." She adjusted her glasses. "Let me present the facts as I see them. One: someone in this group has been planning this for months, possibly years. Two: they used our book club as the perfect setting for their revenge plot. Three: they wanted to punish someone for voting to expose rather than take direct action five years ago."
"Four," Ade added, "they had the resources and knowledge to coordinate attacks and deliveries across six countries."
"Five," Carlos contributed, "they knew enough about each of our cases to compile those detailed files."
"Six," Yuki said quietly, "they're still here, watching us suspect each other. Enjoying it."
"Seven," Priya added from her bed, "they think they're dispensing justice, just like Justice Wargrave in the novel."
Sarah was pale but determined. "Then we need to think: who among us has the means, motive, and opportunity?"
"We all have motive," Carlos pointed out. "We all suffered injustices."
"But only one of us was betrayed by that vote," Mrs. Chen said. "KenyaKnight. The question is: which one of us is KenyaKnight?"
"I have a way to find out," Ade said suddenly. "The cryptocurrency wallet used for the packages. I've been tracing it. The initial funding came from... wait, this can't be right."
"What?" everyone demanded.
"It came from an account linked to a charity. The Chen Wei Foundation for International Justice."
Everyone turned to look at Mrs. Chen.
The elderly professor sat very still, her face unreadable. "Interesting," she said calmly.
"Mrs. Chen?" Sarah's voice was barely a whisper. "Is it you?"
Mrs. Chen smiled slightly. "The Chen Wei Foundation was my husband's. He died seven years ago. Someone has been using it without my knowledge." She paused. "Or has made it appear that way."
"That's exactly what you would say if you were guilty," Ade pointed out.
"True," Mrs. Chen acknowledged. "Just as it's exactly what I would say if I were innocent and being framed."
"We're going in circles," Carlos said frustrated. "Every accusation can be turned around. Every piece of evidence could be real or planted."
"Just like in the novel," Yuki observed. "Everyone suspected everyone until..."
"Until the real killer revealed themselves," Sarah finished. "So maybe that's what we need. A confession."
"Why would the killer confess?" Ade asked.
"Because," Mrs. Chen said thoughtfully, "in Christie's novels, the killer often wants to be known. They want their cleverness appreciated. Their justice understood."
She looked directly at the camera. "So I'll ask directly. KenyaKnight, if you're listening, if you're one of us, why don't you tell us why? Make us understand. You've already won—Wainwright has confessed, justice is being served. Why not claim your victory?"
For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, a new message appeared in the chat: "You want to understand? Then you need to remember what real injustice feels like."
Suddenly, all their screens went black except for one. A video began playing—grainy security footage from what appeared to be a parking garage. A young woman was walking to her car when someone approached her from behind. The attack was brutal and quick. The woman fell, and the attacker arranged her body to look like she'd slipped and hit her head.
"My sister," Priya gasped from her hospital bed. "That's my sister being murdered."
The video changed. Now it showed a man in a suit switching evidence labels in what looked like a police evidence room.
"That's from my case," Ade said, his voice hollow.
More videos followed—each showing the real crime or cover-up from their respective cases. The book club members watched in horrified silence as their personal tragedies were laid bare.
When the videos ended, their screens returned to normal. But now there was a seventh square in their video call. The image was dark, the person's face hidden in shadow, but the voice that spoke was familiar.
"I didn't want to do it this way," the voice said. "I wanted us to work together five years ago. To take real action. But someone among us chose exposure instead, chose to trust a system that had already failed us all."
"Who are you?" Sarah demanded.
The figure leaned forward, and the light caught their face.
It was Carlos.
But Carlos was also still in his square, looking as shocked as everyone else.
"No," the Carlos in his original square said. "That's not... I'm here. That's not me."
The shadowy Carlos laughed. "Of course you'd say that. But one of us isn't who we claim to be. One of us has been playing a role from the very beginning."
Mrs. Chen studied both images carefully. "A deep fake?" she suggested. "Or twins?"
"Or," Yuki said quietly, "one of the Carlos images has been a recording this whole time."
Everyone stared at the two Carlos squares. They were both moving, both reacting, both seemingly real.
"This is impossible," Sarah said.
"No," Mrs. Chen said slowly. "This is brilliant. Create enough confusion, enough doubt, and we'll never know what's real." She addressed both Carlos images. "But you made one mistake."
"What mistake?" both Carloses asked simultaneously.
"You showed us those videos. Real footage of real crimes. Footage only the perpetrators or the authorities would have." She smiled grimly. "And I know for a fact that the video of my student's disappearance came from police files that were sealed. Only someone in law enforcement could have accessed them."
"Or someone who hacked them," Ade pointed out.
"Or," Mrs. Chen continued, "someone who was given them by someone in law enforcement. Someone like an international lawyer working with police across multiple jurisdictions."
"KenyaKnight," Priya breathed.
"Who is actually in Kenya right now," Mrs. Chen added. "Where Martin Wainwright just confessed. Where the soapstone figurines were carved. Where someone has been orchestrating all of this."
One of the Carlos images flickered and disappeared. The other Carlos—the real one—slumped in his chair. "Thank God. I thought I was going insane."
But the shadowy figure remained. "Very good, Mrs. Chen. But you're only half right."
The shadow figure finally moved fully into the light.
It wasn't Carlos. It wasn't any of them.
It was Martin Wainwright himself.
"Hello, book club," he said with a bitter smile. "Or should I say, hello to my jury."
"You're KenyaKnight?" Sarah gasped.
"I was," Wainwright admitted. "Started that forum to find others who'd been failed by the system. I thought if I could gather enough people, enough evidence, we could force change. But I was also the one covering up crimes for my clients. The perfect hypocrite."
"Why?" Mrs. Chen asked simply.
"Because I needed the money from those coverups to fund the forum, to help victims," Wainwright said. "I told myself the ends justified the means. But when the vote came to expose everything, I realized what that would mean. Not just my clients going to jail, but me too. And all the good work stopping."
"So you shut down the forum," Ade said.
"And planned this instead," Wainwright continued. "I knew if I could recreate Christie's perfect crime scenario, make you all suspects and victims simultaneously, the truth would have to come out. The pressure would force confessions—mine included."
"But Priya—" Sarah started.
"Is fine," Wainwright said. "The attack was staged. She's an actress I hired. The real Priya Sharma died in a car accident three years ago."
Everyone turned to stare at the woman in the hospital bed. She sighed and pulled off the bandages, revealing no injuries underneath.
"My name is Aisha," she said. "I'm an actress from Mumbai. He hired me to play Priya, to join your book club, to be the first victim."
The betrayal hit the group like a physical blow.
"But we trusted you," Sarah said, tears in her eyes. "We were friends."
"I know," Aisha said softly. "And I'm sorry. But he promised me this would help get justice for real victims. My own sister really was murdered, and the killer was never caught. I thought if I helped him..."
"You thought wrong," Mrs. Chen said coldly. "You violated our trust. You made us suspect each other."
"Which was the point," Wainwright interrupted. "In Christie's novel, the isolation and suspicion reveal truth. And it worked. Look at what we've accomplished. Real evidence of real crimes has been revealed. I've confessed. Justice is finally being served."
"At what cost?" Carlos demanded angrily. "You terrorized us. You made us think we were in danger."
"You were never in danger," Wainwright said. "It was all theater. The packages, the messages, even the figurines—all designed to create the perfect mystery for the perfect audience."
"But why us specifically?" Yuki asked.
"Because you were the ones who cared enough to join that forum five years ago. Who still cared enough to spend every Tuesday discussing justice and crime. You were my ideal jury—diverse, international, connected only by your love of mystery and your experience of injustice."
"And now?" Mrs. Chen asked. "What happens now?"
"Now, I go to prison," Wainwright said simply. "The authorities have everything. All the cases I covered up, all the evidence I hid. It's over."
"And us?" Sarah asked.
"You go on with your lives. But with the knowledge that justice, real justice, sometimes requires extraordinary measures."
"You're insane," Ade said flatly. "You traumatized us for your own ego trip."
"Did I?" Wainwright asked. "Or did I give you what you always wanted—the chance to be part of a real Christie mystery? To use those little grey cells for something that mattered?"
Before anyone could respond, there was a loud banging in Wainwright's background. "Police!" voices shouted. "Open up!"
Wainwright smiled. "Right on time. I told them where to find me after I sent the confession." He looked at each of them through the camera. "Thank you for playing your parts perfectly. The Tuesday Night Murder Club—has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"
His screen went black as the police broke down his door.
The remaining book club members sat in stunned silence. Five people in five different countries, processing what had just happened.
Aisha/Priya was the first to speak. "I know you hate me right now. But everything else I shared with you—about the books, about my life—most of that was real. I did love being part of this group."
"Get out," Sarah said quietly. "Just... leave."
Aisha nodded sadly and disconnected.
The five original members remained.
"I don't know what to say," Carlos said finally. "I feel violated. Manipulated."
"We all do," Mrs. Chen agreed. "But he wasn't wrong about one thing—we did solve it. Together."
"Using Christie's methods," Yuki added softly. "Observing, questioning, never taking anything at face value."
"Fat lot of good it did us," Ade said bitterly. "We were puppets in his show."
"Were we?" Mrs. Chen asked. "Or were we detectives solving a real crime? Because of what happened tonight, multiple criminals will face justice. Those videos he showed us—they're evidence now."
Sarah was quiet for a long moment. Then she asked, "Do we continue? The book club, I mean. After this?"
They all considered the question.
"I think," Mrs. Chen said slowly, "that would be letting him win. Letting him destroy something good."
"But how can we trust each other now?" Carlos asked.
"The same way we always have," Yuki suggested. "By choosing to. By showing up every Tuesday and sharing our thoughts about books and justice and life."
"It won't be the same," Ade pointed out.
"No," Mrs. Chen agreed. "It will be different. We'll be different. We've been through something together—something terrible and strange, but something that bonds us."
"Like the survivors in a Christie novel," Sarah said with a weak smile. "The ones who make it to the last page."
"So we continue?" Carlos asked.
One by one, they nodded.
"But maybe," Ade suggested, "we skip 'And Then There Were None' and move on to something else. I've had quite enough of that particular story."
"Agreed," everyone said in unison.
"What about 'Murder on the Orient Express'?" Mrs. Chen suggested. "A crime where everyone is guilty but also innocent in their own way."
"Too close to home," Sarah said. "How about 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd'? A nice, straightforward mystery with a proper detective."
They debated for a few more minutes, the familiar rhythm of their discussions slowly returning. The trauma of the evening wasn't forgotten, but it was being woven into the fabric of their strange, international friendship.
As they were about to sign off, Mrs. Chen said, "You know, in a very twisted way, Wainwright gave us a gift. We'll never read Christie the same way again. We've lived it."
"That's one way to look at it," Carlos said dryly.
"Next Tuesday then?" Sarah asked. "Same time?"
"Same time," they all agreed.
As the screens went dark one by one, each member was left alone with their thoughts. In Beijing, Mrs. Chen made herself tea and picked up her well-worn copy of Christie's autobiography. In Lagos, Ade poured himself a scotch and stared out at the city lights. In London, Sarah checked all her locks twice before settling down with her cat. In Mexico City, Carlos began writing notes about the evening, the academic in him needing to document everything. In Tokyo, Yuki started sketching, her way of processing trauma.
They were separated by thousands of miles, by cultures and languages and time zones. But they were also connected—by their love of mystery, their experience of injustice, and now by their survival of a madman's recreation of fiction.
The Tuesday Night Murder Club would meet again next week. They would discuss Christie and crime and the nature of justice. They would be more careful, more aware of how easily trust could be manipulated. But they would continue.
Because that's what survivors in good mysteries do—they go on, carrying their experiences with them, using their knowledge to see the world more clearly. Even if that world now seemed a bit more dangerous, a bit more like something Agatha Christie might have imagined.
The only difference was, they now knew that sometimes, the fiction wasn't so fictional after all.
And somewhere in a Kenyan prison cell, Martin Wainwright sat writing his confession in longhand, page after page of crimes and coverups. He thought about the book club, about how perfectly they'd played their parts. He'd given them a mystery and they'd solved it, just as he knew they would.
What he hadn't told them was that this was only the beginning. The forum he'd started five years ago had more members than just them. Other book clubs, other groups, all discussing justice and crime and the failures of the system.
He wondered which group would be next to receive mysterious packages. Which book they'd be discussing when everything changed.
After all, Agatha Christie wrote over sixty detective novels.
That was a lot of mysteries still to recreate.
He smiled and kept writing. The game, as they say in classic mysteries, was afoot.