THE PONSONSBY-SMYTHE MURDERS
It was a dark and stormy night!
A vague sense of foreboding had long hovered over Mal-du-mere, the ancestral home of the Ponsonsby-Smythes. Built by the first earl, Admiral Horatio Ponsonsby-Smythe, reputed hero of the indecisive battle of Diddlepott’s Pond, it had brooded over the surrounding moorlands now for nearly four centuries. But it was only of late that the servants sensed a heightened uneasiness among the manor’s more other-worldly residents; there had been several sightings of the Headless Accountant in the East Wing, and the shrieking of the Avon Lady in the Great Hall had been heard the midnight last. In the long history of the Ponsonsby-Smythes, such apparitions had always presaged events dire and bloody. But at this time of the year the master, Sir Ethelred, the 13th-and-a-half earl of Poxworthy and noted amateur chiropractor, was fully occupied with tending to his prize-winning petunias, and plotting of how to best his bitter rival, (and sixth cousin on his mother's side), Sir Reginald Froebisher-Jones, at the upcoming county flower show. So the servants kept this knowledge to themselves.
On that fateful, dismal night, Sir Ethelred was alone in his study, pondering whether to send his manservant out into the tempest and down to the village to fetch that jar of marmalade he had forgotten to pick up. "A bit of exercise'll do him good!", he concluded, and was about to ring for his ancient retainer when a shadowy figure emerged from the darkness of the corner opposite and began to advance towards him. Despite sporting a false nose and an orange mustache, he was immediately recognized by Sir Ethelred as a personage from his own rather disreputable and best-forgotten past. “Blast you, you bounder, what the devil did you do with my puce antimacassars?!?”, Sir Ethelred bellowed, (a query that remains unanswered to this day), just before the intruder plunged an antique silver-inlay dagger into his chest. Whereupon Sir Ethelred, along with any hopes he had to take first prize in this year's show, crashed to the floor, as dead as the proverbial doornail.
The unfortunate demise of Sir Ethelred was the occasion of a great deal of idle and regrettable conversations among his former neighbors. The only clue to the crime was an obscure message, perhaps written by the murderer, that was found scrawled in blood in foot-high letters across the walls and ceiling of the room where the body was found that read, "For a good time, call Zelda!". This was accompanied by a phone number, which, upon investigation by the local constabulary, turned out to be long disconnected.
The second murder occurred shortly thereafter. The Lady Agatha, the late Sir Ethelred's elderly maiden aunt, was in her bedroom reading, as was her wont, an extremely pornographic novel when she was disturbed in these endeavors by a odd scratching emanating from the vicinity of the doorway. Arising, she went to investigate and, well, what happened over the course of the next several minutes is just too distressing to relate here. We will simply record that her body was found the next morning, in various parts, throughout the room and at considerable distances up and down the hallway outside.
The third murder went almost unnoticed, until someone happened to observe that old cousin Eustace had not been seen up and about lately. A thorough search of the estate turned up no trace of the aforementioned cousin, and he was never seen nor heard from again.
And this is how things stood when a most peculiar event happened….
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It was a dark and stormy night!
"Dash it all!", Sir Hubert complained, to no one in particular, as he scowled at the computer screen where his unfinished detective story, "The Ponsonsby-Smythe Murders”, sat blinking balefully back at him. He was coming to the realization that the plot had developed a mind of its own and he hadn't the foggiest notion of where it was headed!!
In an attempt to get his creative juices flowing again, he reached for the port but found the bottle empty. About to ring for his butler, he remembered that he had earlier sent him to the village on that errand. It was at that point that he saw an odd figure, with a false nose and an orange mustache, emerge from the opposite corner and advance quickly toward him, carrying what appeared to be a silver-inlay dagger….
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