Mystery Elements In Josh Pachter's Invitation To A Murder

Attention Restraint Has a Strategy
According to Scott Foresman Advanced Dictionary, anticipation is the act of anticipating; looking forward to; expectation. A suspense author has done their job when their reader is anticipating every action their character performs. Mystery elements create suspense in various short stories. In“Invitation to a Murder” by Josh Pachter, “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl, and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle create uncertainty as a result of the mystery elements they contain. “Invitation to a Murder” by Josh Pachter uses these elements to highlight a planned crime where a group of criminologists act as a jury for an indirect murder.
Firstly, the mystery short story “Invitation

to a Murder” by Josh Pachter has an effective use of mystery elements that give the story a great deal of suspense. Eleanor Abbott sends out invitations to a murder to criminologists who come and restrain her from giving her frail husband, Gregory, medicine. She insists that they killed her husband and the witnesses act as a jury, in conflict about what to do until a verdict arises. The first element of suspense in “Invitation to a Murder” is the passage of time. As the hour where Eleanor promises she will kill Gregory winds down, a great deal of time interval quotes make the reader sit on the edge of their seat, thinking about how she will possibly kill Gregory. The time passes, “At 10:30, Huber jumped up… At 10:40, Eleanor suddenly stood… At 10:50 Maunders and Fox stood up together” (Pachter 132). As you can see, these time intervals slow down the story, making the reader dying to read more and find out what happens next. The second element of mystery in this story is inference gaps. At the end of the story when the jury of criminologists have come to a verdict, there is an inference gap that adds confusion to what Branigan will do to Eleanor. As the story comes to a close, Branigan executes his decision, “But when Branigan moved to the table of weapons in the center of the room and picked up the amber bottle and came toward her, she understood” (Pachter 135). It is up to the reader's imagination and their understanding of the story to decide what happens next, leaving the viewer unsure and wishing the story went on another page. The final mystery element is foreshadowing. At the beginning of the story, police officer Branigan receives a strange invitation sent to invite him to a woman’s murder of her husband. The creepily clean wedding like post card invitation that explains the impending murder that Eleanor will commit upon Gregory. Having the invitation experience as the first scene of the story makes the reader confused and unsure about what role the invitation will take in the story. “Invitation to a Murder” and “Lamb to the Slaughter” both are unique short stories because of their female murderer, which is different as typically, the killer is usually male.
Next, the suspense short story “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl uses mystery elements to efficiently create suspense.

The first example of mystery elements in “Lamb to the Slaughter” is dramatic irony. Housewife Mary Maloney is startled by her husband’s bad mood and shocking news, so she turns into a murderer by killing her husband with a frozen lamb leg. She begins cooking the weapon, goes to the store to buy vegetables which creates an alibi. She comes home to call the police who bombard her with questions as she pleads her innocence. Later, at the end of the story, Mary Maloney served the lamb leg she used to kill Patrick to the police officers and they are personally disposing of the weapon and simultaneously trying to find it. This adds suspense because the reader knows that the lamb is the murder weapon but the police do not, leaving the reader unsure if the police will discover the truth about the meal they are eating. The second mystery element that adds suspense in “Lamb to the Slaughter” is inference gaps. At this point in the story, Patrick just returned home from work and is about to explain why he cannot go out to dinner and his depressed mood. After much confusing behavior from Patrick, “And he told her. It didn’t take long, four or five minutes at most, and she sat very still through it all, watching him with a kind of dazed horror”(Dahl 113). This adds suspense because the reader is not directly told what the news is and so their mind is left spinning,

trying to collect clues while at the same time being dubious of their hunch what they might have discussed. The final suspenseful mystery element in “Lamb to the Slaughter” is the red herring. At this point, the police arrived at Mary’s home and are bombarding her with questions and she personally presents a red herring. Mary explains her alibi “Briefly, she told her story about going out to the grocer and coming back to find him on the floor” (Dahl 116). Mary Maloney’s personally created red herring leaves the reader on edge about whether the detectives will recognize her guilt or come to the false conclusion that an unknown criminal killed Patrick Maloney. Similarly to “Lamb to the Slaughter”, the murderer in “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is driven by marriage.
Furthermore, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used mystery elements to add suspense to this short story. This story is about a woman named Helen Stoner who is convinced she is going to be killed by her stepfather, Dr. Roylott, as she is hearing a whistle in her room at night which is what her sister, Julia, heard right before her death. She gets help from Sherlock Holmes and they investigate the room and spend a night there. Dr.Roylott eventually gets killed by his snake. The first element of suspense is the many possible suspects. At this point in the story, Helen has explained her case and Watson and Holmes have traveled to the plantation and started their investigation. Upon asking many questions, they find something interesting about who lives at the plantation “‘Were there gypsies in the plantation at the time?’ ‘Yes there are nearly always some there’’’ (Doyle 114). The quote adds suspense because the reader is left unsure if Dr. Roylott committed the crime or if the gypsies did. The reader is led in the wrong direction, so they are confused because in the back of their mind, they remember the gypsies. The second example of mystery elements in this story is the accumulation of clues. As Holmes and Watson investigate the room, they find a collection of clues that help them get an understanding about what is to come. The clues that accumulate include the bed bolted to the floor, the saucer of milk and the strange ventilator that connects Julia’s room and Dr.Roylott’s room. These clues create suspense because they cause the reader to lean to one explanation or another causing them sit to on edge to see if their hunch is correct. The final mystery element that adds suspense in this story is hidden evidence, when the detectives are at the plantation, they come across another strange clue about Dr. Roylott’s pets. Helen explains, “‘I think that I mentioned to you that the Doctor kept a cheetah and a baboon”’(Doyle 113). This information seems unimportant at the time, but later in the story it leads Holmes to think in the direction of Indian animals, leaving the reader unsure and confused. The addition of mystery elements in this story turns a routine detective case into a nail biter that leaves the reader on the edge of their seat.
Thus, an effective way that suspense is created in short stories is the addition of mystery elements.

Josh Pachter’s “Invitation to a Murder” uses passage of time, inference gaps, and foreshadowing to add suspense. Dramatic irony, inference gaps and red herrings create suspense in “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl. “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle uses mystery elements of many possible suspects, accumulation of clues and hidden evidence as catalysts for suspense. All three authors cleverly created anticipation in their work with mystery elements that kept the potential to hold captive their reader’s attention until the very last

word.