THE PERFECT MURDER by Roy L.Mangum

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 939.

For 22 years Mark Melcher had walked from his office at exactly 5 o'clock. Methodical Mark was. For 22 years he had been greeted respectfully by men and women with whom he had grown old. Dignified Mark was. For 22 years Mark stopped to pat the heads of children and give them candies. Kindly Mark was. “Wouldn't hurt a fly,” as Bob Barlow, the sheriff, often said. Mark was Willowville's best loved citizen. People often came to him with their troubles.

Emily Holden was a very pretty girl of about 22. The schoolteacher and a very good one. Even the pupils liked her. She had come to Willowville early in September and by Christmas she was dead in love with Andrew Fellows.

Old Man Fellows – he wasn't so very old – was the richest man in town and a head of the school board. So, naturally, he saw Emily a lot. She went up to his house now and then to talk over school matters and it was easy to understand that she was gone over him. Not just in love, but crazy about him – like some women get over men.

Once Emily Holden went into Mark Melcher's drugstore one day and got behind the counter and began to talk on something awful. Mark listened to her story and while she was telling it his eyes got to look frightful. ”Oh I have been such a fool!” cried Emily. “But I loved him so and he promised to marry me. And now he threatens to tell something he says he knows about me. Something he says is terrible. Oh what shall I do, Mr. Melcher?”

Mark put his arms around Emily and held her close and cried. Soon he pulled himself together, went to the bank and cashed a very big check. Then he came back and gave Emily the money. “You go, he said, to this address,” – he gave her the name of somebody in New York- “ and tell the lady there all about it. Tell her Mark Melcher sent you. And don't you ever come back to Willowville, Emily.”

Emily insisted she wouldn't take the money, of course. But Mark just took her in his arms and kissed her tenderly and made her do this. Then when she was gone, he got behind his counter again and waited. He had made up his mind to kill Old Man Fellows, to confess and let them hang him if they wanted to. Soon Old Man Fellow came in for some eyewash he usually bought. “Got a new kind, Andrew,” Mark said slowly. “Smells nice, too.” He went behind the counter and got prussic acid, the pure staff. Then he let Old Man Fellows smell a bit of it. “Smells like peach blossoms, nice, isn't it” said Old Man Fellows.

“It's nice'” said Mark, “and just as good for the eyes as it smells. I've only got this much, but I'll let you have it, the same price.” Old Man Fellows smiled. Mark did, too, for he knew that a single drop of it inside the eye would kill Old Man Fellows almost as quick as lightning. Old Man Fellows paid the money and started to leave. Mark turned in and said good-bye to his friend.

Early the next morning the news spread like wildfire. Mrs. Thompson, Old Man Fellow's housekeeper had found him dead as a doornail when she went upstairs to see what had kept him so long before breakfast. Near her master she found a little bottle. At 5 o'clock that afternoon Mar Melcher closed his store and went to the sheriff's office. He was going to confess, to make peace with God, even if they hanged him for it. “Bob,” he said to the sheriff. ” I've come to give myself up. I killed Andrew Fellows.” The sheriff started to laugh, but one look at Mark's eyes stopped him. Wild-looking and glassy they were – like crazy people's eyes The sheriff asked Mark to sit down and went outside to whisper something to his deputy. “Mark Melcher ‘s going crazy,” he said. “He thinks he's killed Old Man Fellows. Can you believe it? Why, Mark wouldn't hurt a fly! Too bad! They were friends for twenty years. Guess it must have shocked him very hard”.

The news spread like wildfire too. Mark Melcher had gone crazy over Old Man Fellow's death. Wasn't it shame! And such a fine man! So sympathetic he was worrying himself crazy over his friend's death because he had sold him some poison. As if he could have known that Old Man Fellows was going to commit suicide, as the police said.

He got to wandering about Willowvile, telling everybody that he had killed Old Man Fellows. People listened, shook their heads and said”Too bad, Mark, too bad.” Soon Mark would wake up at nights and scream. His housekeeper left him and they put Mark to the sanatorium. Everybody thinks that it's too bad and they can't imagine how Mark got the idea that he had killed Old Man Fellows.

But people of Willowville don't know to this day that Emily Holden was Mark's daughter, that he had never been married and that Old Man Fellows was the only man on earth who knew these things.

VOCABULARY WORK