Two
magicians and one crime.
Drury Lane is a street in the
zone of Covert Garden in London, between High Holborn and Aldwych. This story
happened in the
century, in 1881. In Drury Lane was situated
the Royal Theatre. At four o´clock, there was a spectacle of escapism in the
Royal Theatre. The escapist who presents the spectacle was called John Padlock.
The crew wasn´t very proud of him because in the same theatre, but in the
night´s timetable, there was an illusionist called Parinelli, who was the most
famous illusionist in London. Nobody stayed until the end of Padlock´s
spectacle. He was so angry because of that, so a journalist published in a
newspaper that Padlock said he will kill Parinelli.
Dorian Spoor, a private detective,
was in his house of Fleet Street. Miraculously, it was a shiny day in London,
as usually. A young lady knocked at the door. Spoor went into the door and
looked at the young woman. She was tall, but no more than Spoor, she had honey
coloured eyes and hair. They went into the house and went into the living room,
where there was a woman called Aylin Adams. She was as tall as the young lady,
but she had brown hair. A great difference was that Aylin was wearing trousers
that in that time it was inappropriate. The young lady started speaking:
-Are you the famous
detective, Dorian Spoor?-Spoor nodded, and
then the lady continued-I´m Katherine Jonson,
the assistant of Parinelli. I´m frighten because Parinelli has received a
letter of a murderer. He´s in great danger, but he doesn´t believe that. And
may be the murderer is a magician who was in love with me, but I prefer
Parinelli
-Ok-said Spoor- Tonight we´re going to go to the theatre and at the end of the spectacle,
we will see that letter.
That night, Spoor and Aylin went
to the theatre. They sat in the stall and they were waiting while the people
were arriving when suddenly, they heard a scream. All the people stayed quiet
and Spoor ran to Parinelli´s dressing room. He knew that something was wrong
there. When he arrived there, he saw a blood´s road going toward the window. In
the room was Katherine in a chair. She was pale. Spoor said to Aylin that she
should give to Katherine a cup of tea. They went out of the room and Spoor
stayed alone. He looked at the things in
the table. He saw that all the things were in the correct order except one
thing: a pen. There was also a paper that was broken in the corner. Then he
looked around the room. Parinelli seemed to be a great person and had no
enemies. He saw a box and he opened it. In the interior, that was covered with leather,
there was a big red stain; it seemed to be a blood stain.
Meanwhile, Aylin was asking
questions to Katherine: “I was in my dressing room when a man came with a piece
of paper for me. I read what put in the paper and it put “Help”, so I went to his
dressing room and I found the blood road.” In the letter, Parinelli didn´t seem
nervous, only in one script was different. At that moment, the inspector Wiliam
Dumbar came into the room. He knew that Parinelli had disappeared and he wanted
to ask Katherine some questions. Aylin said that she could answer all his
questions, but the inspector didn´t let her answer. He wanted Katherine to
answer all the questions. Katherine was still pale. Spoor entered in the room.
He saw the inspector and said to him:
-You have arrived on
time as always.
Then he started to make Katherine questions:
-How was he physically? -I don´t know, his face was covered by a mask; he burnt his face in one
of his tricks. But I know he had long hair. -I´ve read in the newspaper that John Padlock wanted to kill him.
The inspector said that John
Padlock couldn´t kill Parinelli because he had been all the day in the police
station because he was drunk and he made bad things. Suddenly, Spoor asked to
the inspector to bring Padlock to the theatre. One hour later, they were
together in the theatre. Spoor started speaking:
-This has been an easy-going
case. It´s obvious that the murderer is John Padlock. But why? He has killed
himself, because he was Parinelli. I think he needed some money so he start
doing illusionism tricks but with other identity. Unfortunately, this other
identity was more successful than the other and Katherine went with Parinelli
so he was out of control and he decided to wipe out Parinelli. And I knew that
because in the letter, Parinelli isn´t nervous, but a script was wrong, because
Parinelli and Padlock didn´t had the same handwriting so copying a handwriting
it´s too difficult. And we didn´t knew Parinelli was you because he had the
face covered by a mask. The long hair was only a wig. And for the blood´s road
you only need a paint bucket.
At the end, Padlock went to
prison and Aylin and Spoor went to their house walking because at that time
there weren´t underground or buses. They saw a flock of birds and Aylin said:
-Is it compulsory to
don´t smash anything?
-You look like a
child, Spoore.-And they arrived at home in a
sunny day in London.
