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4

Neither Willie nor I can reconstruct this game in all its details but I'm sure the following covers the essential features. Say four to six couples would usually play. Accordingly, eight to twelve slips of paper would be put into a hat and each participant would draw one. The catch was that all the slips were blank but one. On this one was the word MURDERER. Whoever drew this slip became the murderer and the rest were potential victims. None of the latter knew who the murderer was. The game had to be played in as near total darkness as possible. After the drawing to select the murderer, the lights were turned off throughout the house, all drapes and shades having been drawn. A pre-selected amount of time was allowed to pass during which period, everyone was free to seek out a hiding place where he or she was least likely to be located by the murderer. So there was a rapid scurrying about throughout the downstairs in area (I believe we limited to the game to the first floor) as people sought their hiding places. Then, at the end of a minute or so, the murderer was free to begin searching for his victim. Generally, all the movements of the game were carried out along floor, generally by crawling or wriggling as quietly as possible. The potential victims would hide under tables, behind the piano, in closets, maybe curled up on the sofa or chair, in fact, just about anywhere. The idea of the game was for the murderer to locate a victim, tap him or her on the back (or elsewhere), and say, "You're murdered!" The victim then had to give the murderer time to get away, say by counting sixty to himself, and then yell, "I've been murdered!" Then the lights were turned on, people emerged from the hiding places, and a "trial" was held to determine the murderer. As I recall, this was a very informal affair with everybody talking and questioning everybody else because at this point, the whole object of the game had already been accomplished and the participants were anxious to get going on the next hunt. It may be that the "district attorney" was also selected by drawing a slip out of the hat in the initial drawing. But the main objective of the game was to provide an excuse for the sexes to make whoopee with each other in the dark. The murderer was in a position to prolong the game almost indefinitely by mauling a victim but failing to speak the fatal words, "You're murdered!" Also, anyone could pretend to be a murderer and seek out victims for attention. A favorite tactic was to tickle others, thus making them laugh or plead for mercy and thus give away their identity, for, in total darkness, you might think you made contact with one person only to find it was someone else, which could be good or bad depending on the circumstances. A favorite hiding place under the grand piano and because of the size of the location, several might wind up under there together and have local frivolity there while the murderer was elsewhere--although you couldn't be sure he wasn't one of you. It was quite a game with a lot of angles and we had a very hilarious time whenever Maybelle threw a murder party.