Spyglass Mysteries: #1 Death At The Merryworth Manor

Chapter 17: Started With Blackmail

Saturday, May 24th

12:00 am. Midnight

My brain awoke me with the simple question of, was that all? Afterwords I kept thinking about the case. If Arthur really did see Mr. Wills during the blackout, besides him, the killer would have been the last to see him alive... or was he. Besides his murder, Mr. Wills wanted help with a threatening letter. The one Mr. Wills gave us was fake as far as I knew it. With all this lying and fake evidence. I couldn't get back to sleep. There was still too much left unsolved. I slipped out of my room and sat at the desk in the office. The light shining through the window behind me told me the moon was still out. I left the lights off, but turned the desk lamp on. The will sat where I left it, I unfolded it and began to read it. The letters were small and hard to understand. I could make out Arthur and Stephens names on the will, but the rest confused me. Stephen had mentioned he was receiving the house after Mr. Wills moved. The house as far as I could tell, was in the will. I dug through the desk drawers looking for the letter from Mr. Wills. The drawer slammed with a thug. I twitched at the loud noise. A light flashed on the walls and Jeremy walked into the office. After seeing me, Jeremy rubbed his forehead and sat in the chair in front of me.

"Having trouble sleeping again?" asked Jeremy.

"This case," I answered.

"I know what you mean. We barely have anything. Just a theory and two dead bodies."

"I want to look over all the stuff at the beginning, but I can't. All this lying and dead bodies makes it hard."

"Being a Detective is no easy life. You remember how it was before. Always having sleepless nights on a big case. One of us would always find you out here, looking through the evidence with that puzzled face," said Jeremy, pointing to me.

I quickly wiped the expression off my face, only to have it grow back.

"So what do we know about Mr. Wills?" I asked.

"He was having trouble with someone threatening his family. He came to us because he believed the police was too much."

"He left us a fake letter."

"Yes, that is weird and Mrs. Grace telling us the real letters were hand written, smudged a bit."

"So why a fake letter then?" I asked.

"Don't know."

"Then, Mrs. Grace talks about having her purse stolen only just to have her credit cards stolen in the pocket book."

"And Richard was shot."

"Either this family is very unlucky or they have something more darker than we first thought."

"You sound like me, making theories from nothing," said Jeremy.

"Is that bad?" I asked.

"No, its' better than that. It means you're asking the right questions."

"What about this will?" I said, handing it over to Jeremy, "I don't understand anything from it."

"Its' clearly states Stephen gets the house... but Arthur... theres' nothing about him in here."

"Really? Someone who worked for the family for years... nothing!?"

"So where is our lead now?" I asked.

"Back at the beginning, with the start of the fake letter."

"Mr. Wills never told him family... but maybe one of them knew anyway."

"See, asking the right questions."

"But that leaves only four suspects."

"It always was four... just now we have a bit more to work on. Go on and get some sleep, in the morning we'll head back to the manor and get a full story on the threatening letters."