Example - Murder Mystery

Erica held the letter up to the firelight.

“I can't see anything through the bloodstain. It starts off with some sort of beg for forgiveness, but then the rest is obscured”
“What could he have done that he felt the need to beg forgiveness from anyone?” Colonel Grey sipped his sherry and settled deeper into his seat. “He was a respected pillar of society.”
“And a great patron of the arts.” Angelo put his face in his hands. “Oh God! What am I going to do now? Without his support I'm going to have to go back to waiting tables instead of focusing on my art.”
“Do we actually know the letter was from him?” Cheri held out a hand.
“It looks like his handwriting, but the sign-off is unreadable.” Erica handed the letter to Cheri.
Cheri studied the letter, turning it too and fro, and looking along it in an attempt to make out any indentations in the paper. “Where did you find it?”
“The conservatory.”
“Would you show me?”
“Sure.” Erica stood and nodded towards a writing desk in the corner. “You may want to grab a torch from the second drawer down. With the lights out, the conservatory is pretty dark at night.”
“Anyone else coming?” asked Cheri.
“I’m quite comfortable here thanks.” said the Colonel “I look forward to hearing what you find.”
“Angelo?”
Angelo fidgeted and shook his head.
“Fine. It looks like it’s us two then.” said Cheri.

“You were right about needing the torch.” said Cheri sweeping the beam around the room. “Where did you find the letter?”
“Over there on the coffee table.”
Cheri knelt down and played the torch beam over the coffee table and the small amount of dried blood where the letter had been. “This is weird. There’s virtually no other blood around. It almost looks like the letter has been placed here after it got blood on it.”
“Did you hear that?” Erica cocked an ear.
“What?”
“It sounded like …. Look out!” shouted Erica.
Cheri jerked aside as a pair of roof tiles smashed through the conservatory roof filling the space where Cheri had been with broken glass and concrete.

Divider

Locations:	The conservatory
Challenges:	The bloodstain obscures the writing
Characters:	The poverty stricken artist
Objects:	The fire-iron
Locations:	The kitchen
Locations:	Beside the fireplace
Events:	Someone shouts a warning
Challenges:	Roof-tiles are loose
Endings:	It had been a gamble but it ended up working out right
Endings:	The wine used to toast their success had a bitter almond aftertaste

Back to the StorySoup Main page

Divider

This story snippet is the Copyright of the Author, Hamish Trolove.