The movement of footsteps echo up the corridor. I wait as the sound comes closer, and closer. Wait a minute. I’m getting ahead of myself. First, my name is Brian o’ Conner. I am a detective and I solve mysteries that no one has ever solved before. How many mysteries have I done, you ask? I’ve done countless numbers of mysteries: murder, treasure, or just mysterious.
Well, you see, one day, while I was sitting at my desk thinking how awesome I was and how I could solve any mystery, a lady comes up to my desk and tells me that she had a mystery for me.
“Well, what’s the mystery?” I asked her.
“Who’s Shakespeare?” she asked.
That caught me by surprise. “Um, is this part of your mystery? Because if it isn’t, I think you should head over to the library across the street to know who Shakespeare is.”
She stamped her feet quite loudly. “Of course this is part of the mystery,” she said.
“So why do you want to know who Shakespeare is?” I asked her.
“Because I think Shakespeare is haunting my mansion!” she cried.
“Oh really? Very well then. I’ll take on your case.” I replied.
“Oh thank you,” she said. “My name is Anne Despern. The ghost always comes at midnight.”
I gave a start. Why midnight, I asked myself. “Thank you Anne. I’ll solve this case as soon as I can.”
She gave me her address and left, while I sat at my desk, pondering the mystery. Who was Shakespeare, really? Is there something no one knows about him? And why is his ghost haunting Anne’s mansion at midnight?
After dinner, I went over to Anne’s mansion and she let me in. It sits on top of a hill. She won the mansion in a lottery, she explained. She showed me where everything was, where my room was on the first floor, where the kitchen was, and then said good-bye and left to go to her cottage where she was presently staying.
“I’m just scared of that old mansion right now,” she explained. “I feel safer in my own cottage.”
As she left, I noted the imprints her shoes made on the ground. Not that I suspected her, but any detail helps.
I brought in all my stuff I thought I was going to need for the night and waited till midnight. Precisely at 12, the moaning started, coming from the third floor. It sounded like the zombies’ moans on Monster Madness on TV. I lit my lantern and brought my bag with me as I crept out of my room. As I snuck towards the staircase, a light caught my eye. It was coming from the corridor ahead of me. I hid behind a marble pillar as the light came closer. The sound of footsteps echo up the corridor. I wait as the sound came closer, and closer. Then, right before it could turn the corner, I stepped out from behind the pillar.
The woman standing there was so frightened that she dropped dead into a faint.
“Oh for God’s sake,” I muttered. I pulled her over behind the pillar, and poured cold water from my bag onto her.
She woke up, spluttering, “What!? What!? Darn it! I had the ghost right there, and then YOU had to show up and scare the cr** out of me!”
She sounded so vehement that I apologized immediately. “Sorry. I didn’t know there was someone else that Anne hired to solve this mystery,” I said.
“Who’s Anne?” she said. “I’m looking for the-“She coughed suddenly.
“Looking for what?” I asked suspiciously.
“Nothing,” she said innocently. “I got something in my throat. Anyways, my name is Susan McDillan.”
I knew there was something she was hiding something, but I left it alone. Instead, I asked, “How did you get in then?”
“I was already inside,” she said. “I was living in the attic.”
Suddenly there was a loud moaning above us and she shouted, “Quick! Catch the ghost!” and was gone before I could ask her anymore questions.
“Hmmmm. Very suspicious lady,” I thought.
I moved up to the second floor and then I heard Susan scream. I rushed to where the sound came from and found her lying in the bathtub, dead. She was stabbed in the heart with a knife. I decided to leave off the search for today if there was a murderer in the house and returned to my room, barring the door behind me.
The next morning found me standing in front of Anne’s door, trying to wake her up.
“Anne,” I called. “Are you in there?”
Anne opened the door. “Can’t a lady get sleep around here?” she asked. Then she saw me. “Oh detective, I’m sorry. I thought it was the mailman. He always tries to irritate me.”
“I have a few questions for you Anne,” I said. “Do you know who Susan McDillan is?”
She gave a start. “Why would you ask that?” she asked, nervous.
“I found her in the mansion with me, and then later in the night she was stabbed though the heart. Do you know anything about her Anne? Anne?” I asked.
I saw that Anne had fainted on her doorstep. “Oh for the love of God why do women do this,” I muttered as I got Anne inside her cottage and onto her bed. When she woke up, I was standing in front of her bed.
“Now,” I began, “would you mind telling me what this is all about?”
She began,” Susan is a sister of mine. We grew up in the town of Brodson, but at age 16, she left. I haven’t heard a word from her until now. And now she’s dead,” and she started sobbing. I sat down next to her.
“Now now,” I said. “It’s ok. Don’t fret yourself all about her. I’ll find the person who did this.”
“I want to ask you something,” Anne said.
“What?” I asked.
“Do you,” Anne asked,” know if there is any treasure in that mansion that Shakespeare might have had? That might have been why the murderer killed her,” and she broke down again.
I left her sobbing there and left her cottage, pondering what was going on. Who was the mysterious murderer? Why did he or she kill Susan? Is there really a ghost? Or is it just a plot to try to get a treasure that might or might not be there?
The next night, I stayed alert until the moaning started. Then I pulled out a gun from my bag and crept out of my room ad headed to the third floor. There I found the bedrooms, all covered in cobwebs. I stepped into the last room on the third floor, and something caught my eye. It was the way that everything in the room was covered with cobwebs, but the candle holder wasn’t. It was standing by a bookshelf. I walked over to it and noticed footprints on the ground in front of the bookshelf. They looked exactly like Anne’s shoeprints. Why were Anne’s shoeprints doing here? As I was about to pull the candle holder, I heard a voice behind the wall.
“Our plan is almost complete,” the voice was saying. “I have almost moved all the treasure out of the room and then we can frame the detective. Soon, we will be rich!”
A voice sounding like Anne’s said, “Good job Larry. We will soon be out of this stinking town! Then no one will know who we are!”
I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was about to pull the candle holder when someone put a hand on my shoulder and whispered, “Wait lad.”
I whirled around and met the eyes of the head policeman, Herman. “You’ve saved us a lot of trouble capturing these two,” he whispered. “We’ve been wondering why people who go into this mansion searching for the treasure never come back out again. Now we know.” I looked behind him and saw a full squadron of police officers.
“What treasure?” I asked. “I haven’t heard about any treasure here.”
“That’s because you haven’t read the newspapers yet,” he replied. “The newspaper says ‘treasure hidden inside mansion’. Thanks to you, we have these two killers.”
He gestures to the police officers, and they armed themselves. Then Herman pulled the candle holder and the bookcase swung up. Inside, there was a hidden room with 2 people in it. They were each carrying bags.
“You!” Anne yelled. “I knew you were too smart for us. But he wouldn’t listen.”
“I did what I had to do!” the man yelled. “But you’ll never catch us now!” He stomped on the ground and a trapdoor appeared underneath them. They fell into it, and the trapdoor closed.
“What are we going to do now?” I asked.
“Don’t worry,” Herman said. “We studied the blueprints of this place, and we know exactly where they’ll come out. I have two squadrons there to stop them already.”
“That’s good,” I said. “It’s good to know that those two don’t escape after killing a lot of people.”
So the two killers were arrested and the treasure found was donated to the entire town of Darson, and the town prospered. But a small portion was given to Mr. Brian, the detective who made all of this possible.