Story

Here's a story I recently wrote....Hope You'd like it:-)

Short StoryMurder at 12 Midnight Stree
-By Namrata Jaykrishna

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh”…came the shrill scream. It was about midnight in London and 12 Midnight Street was lit up brightly with lights. A passer-by or two might stroll on the silent lonely street.

Next morning, the dead body of Elizabeth Parker, 31 years of age, single, was found lying in the garden of her very own residence. She lay there on her back; there was a rope around her. It was clear that she had been strangled.

Just then, a plump, short woman entered the house. She looked youthful, possibly in her late 20’s. As soon as she saw the body of Elizabeth Parker, her eyes filled up with tears.

“Elle étais mon seul vivant relatif” she wept. Even though she spoke in French, her accent sounded strangely English.

“Did you know her?” asked Fiona gently, she was a very highly acclaimed private investigator in London who had solved many a tricky mysteries. She had been summoned for the case. The moment the maid, who came in the wee hours of the morning to clean-up the house found her in the garden she hysterically spoke to the emergency number who then sent for the Police. Inspector Woodrock knew it was a case for Detective Fiona. After a lengthy inquiry, Fiona found out that the lady was no other than Elizabeth’s sister, Madonna. She lived in France and returned to visit Elizabeth as she did every year or so. She was 22 years of age married to a
gentleman called Naemh originally from France.

Later on, she entered the house to check.The furniture was in disarray, which suggested that there had been quite a fight before the murder. At last, while leaving they checked the room and found a crumpled paper lying on the desk. Fiona opened it. It had one word on it. It said “rolyatracso”. That was it.

Now Fiona thought “What could this be? Was the dead trying to say something or was she reading too much into a jumble of words?”She put the chit into her pocket. “?”She tried to solve the cryptic clue the victim seemed to have left behind. It was clear Elizabeth was probably scared or unstable to leave a message that could easily be decoded. Fiona decided she had work to do! Back in her office she worked all night on it while sipping strong coffee to keep her awake.

At the crack of dawn, Fiona disappointed, got up to wash her face and as she looked up into the mirror her eyes lit up with hope She quickly brought the crumpled piece of paper to the mirror and read it aloud. “Bingo!” She seemed to have finally unraveled the message. How silly of her not to have thought of it as mirror image before.

It appeared to say “OSCAR TAYLOR”.

Fiona had no clue as to who was Oscar Taylor. So the next morning, she began a little Investigation of her own. The 1st place Fiona investigated was Elizabeth’s self- possessed office, which was a cavernous, wood paneled room. It was apparent from its appearance that Elizabeth used to spend a great deal of her time in this room. It was a very personal room that was full of memories from Elizabeth’s past: Pictures from different periods of her life, drawers full of envelopes that had letters in them. These letters were written on paper that was yellow and crinkly. The handwriting on it was not even legible, so Fiona gave up searching for Oscar Taylor in the letters. Besides, there were far too many of them for her to analyze anyway. Once she was through with the letters, she felt a slight wave of disappointment flow through her. There were no other concrete clues that she could hope to find in the office. So she decided to try elsewhere for ‘Oscar Taylor’. On her way out, Fiona gave the pictures on the wall a passing glance, did not think too much about them, and forgot about them a few seconds later.

After getting out of the office, she sat down on a bench in the park and tried to think of a better way to find out about Oscar. “There has got to be an easier way”, Fiona thought to herself. She knew there was a way.

There was always a way to achieve something if you tried hard enough, it was a lesson she had learnt from her college years. After thinking hard for one long hour, the thought hit her like a stone! “Of course! The library! All the city’s records are kept there. There has got to be something about Mr. Taylor there”, she felt satisfied with this idea and took the first bus to the
library.

The search at the library was a lot more rewarding. She found the details of four ‘Oscar Taylor(s)’. After compiling her results, her list contained a chef, a professor, a lawyer and a criminal.
Fiona’s obvious reaction was to blame the criminal and decided to mark him as her main suspect. She went to house and interrogated him very thoroughly about his activities in the past few days. However, he told her that he had moved away from the life of crime and that he had a family now, which he supported by doing an honest job. Fiona still was not convinced, so she went to the police station and asked for all the reports that the police had on this particular Oscar Taylor. They gave her all that She asked for, and sure enough, there had been no illegal activity by him in the last 6 years. This final piece of proof seemed to convince Fiona and she
had no doubt that he was indeed a changed man. Therefore, that eliminated the criminal from the list of suspects. One down, three to go…

Later that afternoon, Fiona decided to head down to the state university to meet Oscar Taylor (the professor). She had already made an Appointment with him. She went into his office and told him that she was there on an investigation to find out who killed Elizabeth. Nevertheless, the moment Fiona said ‘Elizabeth’, the professor’s ears seemed to twitch, Fiona noticed this, but did not say anything. The professor heard everything that she had to say and then he started to cry. Fiona thought that she had finally found the man who was responsible. Because she thought that, he was crying due to the fact that his crime had been revealed. However, this was not so, he was crying from grief, not from guilt. He told Fiona about how wonderful a student Elizabeth was and about how well they got along during her College years. She was his favorite student, he told Fiona. And that there would be no way that he would ever try to hurt her, let alone kill her.

Fiona thought about this for a while, and decided that the professor was innocent. He was an old and distinguished man. On top of that, he had no motive to kill Elizabeth. This was disappointing for Fiona. One prospective suspect had to be eliminated. Two down, two to go…Fiona’s next stop was the restaurant where Oscar Taylor (the chef) worked. She thought this would be a good idea as she had not had lunch and that it would be good to talk this matter over lunch.

Once she reached the restaurant, she called the chef and kindly asked him if he could spare a few moments to have a chat with her. The chef was a kind man, and he agreed. So they sat down and Fiona told the chef all about her investigation, when she was finished the chef told her that it was a pity that Elizabeth (or ‘Liz’ as he knew her) had died, because she was one of the restaurant’s most regular customers and she was very friendly to everybody around her. It did not seem to Fiona that the chef was a man who could have caused harm to Elizabeth. So she dismissed him as a suspect as well. Three down, 1 to go…Her fourth, and last witness was the lawyer, she had learned from the city archives that he was Elizabeth’s attorney. Mr. Taylor (the lawyer) did not seem to be very rich nor did he charge a very high amount for his services.
This made sense to Fiona, as far as she knew, Elizabeth was not poor but she was certainly not rich. The lawyer agreed to meet Fiona at 7:30 in the evening. It was rather late for him to meet her in the office, se he invited her over for dinner.

When Fiona entered the house, she saw that the table had been laid out only for two. And she was certain that Mr. Taylor was married and had a wife who lived with him. However, Fiona decided to stick to business, so she explained the matter to the lawyer, who seemed to take things very well. Throughout her entire oration, he did not say a word, did not move and nor did he show any emotion. When Fiona had told him all she had to say, all he replied was, “Too bad, she was a nice lady.” This was completely unexpected; Fiona just sensed that something had gone wrong. None of the other Oscar Taylor’s had been so rude to her. She knew that the lawyer did not like Elizabeth. Nevertheless, she was very surprised to have received such a reaction from him. He was still standing over her with blood red eyes, “Get out of my house! And don’t you ever think of stepping in here again!” she didn’t want to make things worse, she was on her way out when she heard a faint wailing sound coming from a room in the house. She could just barely make out the words “Elle étais mon seul vivant relatif”. Fiona stopped dead in her tracks! She had heard these words before. Madonna had said them when she saw the body of Elizabeth. Fiona turned around and demanded Mr. Taylor to tell her who was crying. He did not reply, just stood there frozen with shock.Fiona turned around and walked to the direction of the door. She slammed it open and could not believe what she saw in front of her! It was Madonna herself! She was crying and wailing in French in the house of Oscar Taylor!

This was all too much for Fiona. She knew she had to act fast or she might lose her only lead in the investigation… she went out for some air and immediately dialed the police to come and fetch Oscar and Madonna. The police were swift in their arrests and Fiona was able to work out all the details of Elizabeth’s murder.

Madonna was indeed Elizabeth’s true sister, but on one of her trips, Mr. Taylor had approached her and told her about the large sum of inheritance that Elizabeth’s heir would get. In addition, as Madonna was her only surviving relative, she would inherit it all. Therefore, Madonna and Oscar planned to kill her, and they did. They went into her room and with a thick rope, they strangled her. She scribbled the message while dying. She could hold it no longer and collapsed. Initially, Madonna did a fantastic job of pretending to be grief stricken but eventually she cracked and felt terrible about being part of the murder of her of sister. But in the end, Fiona and her masterly methods of investigation proved too much for them.Madonna was put into jail and so was Oscar. Elizabeth’s wealth went to charity, which was not according to the Elizabeth’s will, in which she wrote that her only beneficiary would be her only sister, Madonna.