"Yes. It's true. I did it. I didn't want to do it, I had no choice."

"Mrs. Peacock doesn't pay very high wages - pittance in fact. I've always coped though. But recently both Mrs. Peacock and Dr. Black have been flaunting their money about. Wasting their money on expensive trinkets. I thought that I could put the money to much better use. I'd know how to spend it. That's why I decided to blackmail Dr. Black. I didn't really want to do it - he's always been quite nice to me - but I had to teach him and Mrs. Peacock a lesson. Anyway, he had tonnes of money, he wouldn't miss the small amounts I was asking for. I've known Dr. Black for a good few years, and being a cook I always hear the latest gossip from his servants. It wasn't hard finding something to blackmail him about. I couldn't believe how easy it was. Too easy."

"I couldn't help coming here tonight in that expensive dress and pearl necklace. I couldn't help flaunting my money a little. But I think that was my mistake. Dr. Black was on the look out for the blackmailer to let something slip. He hinted at that when he said that he was hoping the night would go with a 'Bang'. I understood all too well what he meant. He was going to make the blackmailer pay for what they were doing."

"That's why I was acting strangely. I was worried. I knew he'd figure it out sooner or later and then he would be after me. When I knelt on the dagger that Mrs. Peacock had dropped in the Study, something in the back of my mind told me to pick it up - just in case. It was lucky that I had, because when I went back to the Lounge after leaving Mrs. Peacock, Dr. Black was there waiting for me."

"He had worked it out well enough. My dress had been a mistake. He knew that I was the blackmailer and he had remembered that Mrs. Peacock and I had headed for the Lounge and so had come to find me there. He threatened me with his revolver. He said that I would regret betraying him. I had no choice. I had to use the dagger."

"Afterwards, my mind was racing. What could I do? How could I hide it? Then the idea came to me. I could frame it on Mrs. Peacock. She had taken the dagger, I could pretend that she had used it to kill Dr. Black. She deserved it - it was her fault after all. So I stuffed the dagger in the chair that she had been sitting in, I hid Dr. Black's body in the cellar - away from the lounge where people had known that I was - and I ran back to the Lounge. I only just made it back there before Reverend Green looked in on me. I pretended to have fallen asleep from the wine. Ha! Me get tipsy from a couple of glasses of wine? I drink enough to have a pretty high tolerance level."

"It looked like I may have got away with it. I tried to hint to you that Mrs. Peacock might have been the blackmailer - but somehow you saw through it. I suppose you too spotted the fact that I was wearing clothes that were too expensive for my means. Ofcourse, that on its own would never be enough to convict someone of murder - I'd just say that I had got the money somewhere else. But I think I may have made a few more mistakes - putting the dagger in the chair instead of next to it, forgetting to pick up the revolver from the lounge floor, trying to persuade you too readily that it was Mrs. Peacock that had done it - and no doubt several other mistakes."

"Oh, well. Nobody's perfect. It was worth it though. For once I got to see what it was like to be rich - and Black saw that he shouldn't take his money for granted. It's just a shame that I now have to pay for it."

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