John had absolutely no idea what to do with this threat. Who in the world in Mauville had the courage to send something like this? More importantly, was there something much bigger going on here? The wordings of the message, “Don’t meddle in things that do not concern you…”, indicated there was.
‘Should I carry on with my investigation then? If, by some miraculous chance, this is true then who is to say I won’t be next?’, John thought to himself.
‘Oh come on John, get your act together. You’re a detective for crying out loud. This is part and parcel of the job. You know how to protect yourself if the situation arises. You became a police officer for a reason, remember that.’, the voice in his head, which John deemed to be his wife’s, told him off.
‘Thanks, honey…’, John responded to the voice and went off to bed.
The next morning John quickly went to the mayor’s house to see if he could come up with ways to recreate the locked murder scene. He was surprised to see Joanna there, sitting on the front.
“Joanna?”
“Ah, John. Sorry, I just couldn’t sleep a wink last night and I came up here early. I just can’t understand who would want to do this to him. And there’s this nagging feeling at the back of my head that’s been bothering me ever since I came here yesterday.”
“What’s that, Jo?”
“The locked door. How in heavens did the murderer do it? I heard someone saying they had to break the door down to enter the place, which meant the door was locked from the inside, and all the windows were shut too. It’s like the murderer is mocking all of us, saying, ‘Well? Haven’t I teleported out of there then?’”
“I looked around the whole damn place yesterday, I couldn’t find a single thing except for a piece of piano wire lying next to the body. There aren’t any pianos in the house, so why would he have any in here? I didn’t see any other stock of it in any of the cupboards either.”
“Piano wire? That’s… Interesting. I’ve read my fair share of mystery novels and I have come across locked room mysteries which involved piano wire, but it was always just one door inside the house, not the main door itself. Where were the keys, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“They were next to the ashtray in a bowl. When I came in, there were some things on the floor, which I assumed was knocked down by Murray and the others when they barged in through the door to check on him. It was scattered all over the place though.”
“Isn’t that a bit suspicious? I mean for all you know; it was already like that when they came in?
“Now that you mention it… Perhaps it could be. Come in, let’s try to figure it out. I get the feeling you want to help too?”
“Yes, John. All those novels seem to have given me an inquisitive mind. I do want to solve this.”
They go in to the house with a refreshed sense of mind. They see the scattered items on the floor, John left it as it is when he left yesterday, and seem to notice a pattern. It formed a path.
“Don’t you see it too, John? It looks like a path for something.
“Let’s follow it.”
They do and find out that the small arrangement of scattered items formed a pathway to the backdoor.
“Oh. OH! I got it, John!! It’s a path for the key to be carefully put back in.”
“I just had the same thought right now.”
“The way it is carefully placed. Like each item directs the key to its destination. This was in no way caused by knocking over stuff, this was a premeditated mechanism. No doubt about that.”
“The murderer tied a piano wire from the bowl and with all these markers on the floor, directed it to the backdoor and looped it back, then locked the door, tied the key to the loop with some additional wire and pulled it from the small flap on the backdoor and then simply cut the wire. The key has a hole through which the wire can be put through, so this can be done. I’m guessing the wire which I saw next to the body must have been the additional wire which was tied to the key that fell off. I don’t think the murderer realised that it would.”, John fills in the rest for Joanna.
“I don’t think anyone in Mauville is capable of doing this. It has to be someone else far away from here.”
They get out of the house and part ways soon after that. John decided against revealing the threat letter he received to Joanna and thought it would be better that no one else knew about it.
**
Later that night.
“I’ve already dealt with one of you, you’re next, Andrew. Now tell me, who else was involved in it?”
Andrew never heard anyone come in nor did he realise somebody was there till he had a knife to his throat. His wife was at the pharmacy and he was on his couch chair watching TV.
“I have no idea what you are talking about”, he responds calmly.
“Wrong answer, Andrew. You have one more chance.”
“Let’s talk this out, shall we? I’ll tell you all I know.”, he replied now with a sense of fear and urgency.
“Your wife will come in ten minutes. You have time until then.”
Ten minutes later, the wife comes in and finds her husband on the couch with his arms crossed on his chest and a big slash on his throat. Andrew was no more and Mauville Town now had a serial killer on its hands.