The Hillsburgh Mystery

Scarlett held the book she had been staring at all day. She didn't know why but it seemed like the more she looked, the blurry it became. She had lost all interest whatsoever in the book.

She took a long sip from her hot coffee placed on a high stool beside her.

"History repeating itself." Scarlett shook her head. "It's a pity they couldn't find who the culprit was."

"Oh dear, the rain is about to begin." She scurried away closing all the windows and untying the curtain drapes.

"Scarlett, Scarlett." Violet said walking through the door and staring at the book and coffee placed on the stool. "Seems like you're having a good time while a homicide just occurred." Scarlet turned around to face Violet who took a seat opposite her.

"When and where did this happen?" Scarlett said shocked to the bones and taking a seat.

Violet shrugged at her question. "Well.. I really don't know but her body was discovered about thirty minutes ago."

"Her..? You mean it's the body of a female?" Scarlett was startled for a woman being murdered was very uncommon.

"Yes yes." Violet nodded.

"How did this happen?" Scarlett said leaning backwards on the chair with her finger tips joined.

"It's unknown yet that's why you need to come over, it's a thirty minutes drive to that place."

"How was the body discovered?"

"A woman reportedly came over to the station to file a report about her step-daughter whom she found dead on arrival from her trip."

"What else do you know?"

"Well I guess that's all the information I could get for now." Violet shrugged.

Scarlett stood up to take her jacket from the stand. "Hmm, this is going to be interesting, we better get going."

The drive to Hillsburgh was rough as the rain kept falling without showing mercy. Violet's shaky hands were on the steering with Scarlett at the passenger's seat.

Scarlett kept glancing at her watch every minute. "Aren't we there yet, we've been driving for almost forty minutes."

"I guess we've already arrived." Violet said parking the car beside an ancient looking one storey building painted in lemon colour.

"So why's there no crowd or am I missing something?" Scarlett said drawing an umbrella from the back seat and alighting the car.

Violet disembarked from the car and drew an umbrella too. "Oh that, we managed to get the crowd away as this was a very critical case. Now let's get inside as the detectives are awaiting our arrival."

"Detectives you say? How many are they?"

"Just two, detective Craig and Jade, but no need to worry, they haven't touched anything yet."

"Oh.."

The living room was big with the dead body sprawled out on the floor. Her hands were spread on the floor at both sides. Craig and Jade stood at one of the two large windows discussing what could be said very critical. There was a dining just opposite the entrance. The room was dim with just a reading lamp standing on the centre table as all the widows were closed with the curtains running down.

"I see you've already arrived." Craig turned his body to face them fully. "About one hour thirty minutes ago, a woman came to file a report about the mysterious death of her step daughter. She was said to have travelled on a three days vacation but found her step daughter dead on arrival."

"Where did you say this lady is?"

"She's upstairs, we asked her to wait there while we do the investigation."

Scarlett squatted beside the body, it was a young teenage girl, Scarlett could deduce she was older than fifteen but less than twenty. She wondered what she did to deserve this. She kept taking her eyes close the the body making careful observations. She seems to be through after a while.

"I think I'm done now. I'll like to have a talk with the woman-"

"You mean Mrs. Adams?" Jade shot in.

"Yes, if that's her name."

"Excuse ma'am, we will like to have a talk with you if you don't mind." Scarlett said looking at the woman who didn't have any expression written on her face. She was young fair and of average height, one could classify her a very elegant and classy lady. Scarlett couldn't tell what was going through her mind as she looked like an expert in hiding her emotions.

"Sure." Mrs Adams said gesturing with her hands for them to take a seat.

"So you made a statement saying you came back from a three days vacation and found your daughter's b.. "

"Step daughter." Mrs Adams corrected.

"Okay, your step daughter's dead body on the floor. How was the door when you came in?" Scarlett asked.

"Uhm, to that I can't tell how but the door was locked. There's only one main entrance to this building and it was locked, perfectly locked. I can bet we are the only ones with keys to this building as the door lock came with only two keys."

Scarlett was taken aback by her statement for if the door was locked and they were sure the key weren't with anyone else.. Or maybe they were. "There's not a hundred percent possibility that the keys were with your daughter. Maybe I think we should search her and check if she still had her keys or had them misplaced before drawing any further conclusions. I'm afraid Violet you'll have to help us in that."

"Okay, you should have observed that her keys were not on her and so they should probably be in her room. Mind if you tell me how I can get to her room?" Violet seems happy she was given a chance to get to help in this mystery.

"You walk down the passage and the last door on the right, that's her room." Mrs. Adam said with an eager tone.

"Can you tell me the circumstances preceding this death? Before you travelled, where there any suspicious activities you would like to draw my attention to? I mean every single suspicious activity no matter how unrelated and unlikely it should look like."

Mrs. Adams leaned forward with her hands clasped together on her thigh. "To say I have noticed any suspicious activity would be a lie. You see? This house is a very hidden one with only the bungalow about fifty feet away as the closest thing to us. The house is occupied by a bachelor who leaves at dawn and returns at dusk. This happens every day with exceptions of course on Sundays. I don't know anything else about him as we both mind our businesses only." Mrs Adams let out an exasperated sigh. "But how do you suppose she died? Do you think a murderer would have done this? I mean no possible evidence and no injuries."

"She died by poison no doubt and there is.. an evidence. I'll show you later when Violet is back." Scarlett said. "What's her name? Is she some sort of a highschool teenager?"

"Yes" Mrs Adams said with a blank expression. "And her name is Clara."

"Clara." Scarlett said repeating after Mrs Adams.

"Eureka!" Violet cried running into the room with a small piece of paper. "I found this on the floor of her room."

Scarlett and Mrs Adams stood up to check out what was written on the paper it contained an address, 'No 35 Starlings Street.' It was obvious that whoever wrote that made a possible attempt to conceal the writing as the words were intentionally bent and too big for a normal writng. "And I think it should have fallen from the murderers pocket or hand as the case may be. I also found the keys to her room which means the murderer would have not gotten in through the door. The windows are all closed too with exceptions to her bedroom window."

Scarlett walked over to the window. "Can we go over to the girl's room to see things for ourselves?"

They walked down the passage that led to the room and found the window wide open. Scarlett and Violet walked over to the window and peeped outside.

"This is no mystery, whoever the murderer is must have entered through the window by climbing this ivy." Violet said pointing at the ivy whose branch had grown so close to the window. "Here, you'll see see that there is sand on the window frame which indicates that whoever did this had placed foot on the window in a bid to come inside. But the question is, why didn't she scream when she saw someone climbing the ivy going straight to her room? Why didn't she close the window fast? Even if she didn't notice she should have heard the sound. How did whoever did this manage to convince her to go downstairs with him or her or manage to convince her to take poison? How did–"

"Easy Violet." Scarlett said going closer to the window to have a closer look. "All these questions will have their answers revealed in due time." She turned over to face Mrs. Adams. "And what did you say is the name of the high school she was attending?"

"It was a public school, Hillsburgh high school."

"What do you suggest we make of that little piece of paper we found?" Scarlett took the paper which was already crumpled from Violet's hand. "No 35 Starlings street."

"Violet, we'll have to go there tomorrow to find out what this address has to do in relation to this homicide. Meanwhile let's go outside to check if we'll find any foot prints."

Scarlett kept walking briskly outside with Violet trailing behind her. They made a turn to go to the other side of the building where the ivy stood tall which was obviously where the murderer had passed.

"Gosh, the murderer is so smart." Scarlett cried.

"What's wrong?" Violet said walking over to Scarlett's side.

"He knew the rain was about to fall and carried out his operations just before the rain fell so the rain could disfigure his footsteps."

"Oh" Violet sighed. "We have to be careful then as we are dealing with someone who is very smart."