Oftentimes, the most difficult part of a mystery, both for the suspects and for the author, is the nerve-racking and overly tactful lacuna between the discovery of the corpse and the arrival of the representatives of official detection. In sum, nobody knows what to do. Now, all that can be changed, by following the simple directions given below.

Etiquette for Murderers with Time on Their Hands

1. Ditch your DNA.

2. Faint (If this does not eliminate you as a suspect, at least you'll get a much needed nap, particularly if the title of the book is Murder Most Tiring).

3. Offer to comfort all the other suspects to the point where they begin to look at you as if the wrong person bought the farm.

4. Surreptitiously set fire to the blackmail notes in your pocket. Lean indifferently against a Doric column to extinguish the blaze.

5. Be really annoying and keep repeating that you don't see why you have to hang around. Whine that you're going to miss a dental appointment.

6. Casually expose everyone to your second-hand smoke and your biting remarks on the dead person's character and sexual habits, thus rendering yourself both the least likeable and the least likely suspect. Either that, or you're just an idiot.

7. Leave. The cops aren't there yet, so what's stopping you?

8. Pretend you like the vicar.

9. Offer to make tea, but don't overcharge.

10. Offer to make drinks so that, by the time the cops do arrive, all the suspects will be so sloshed that it won't matter that three of them saw you stash the blunt instrument up the back of the vicar's coat when you were buddying up to him.

11. Start thinking of the wages of sin and about prison showers.

12. Remove those surgical gloves, Stupid!

Submitted by Polly Whitney, who would choose option #7.