Minute Mysteries [Detectograms] 54 – Ripley · Verses Across
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Minute Mysteries [Detectograms] 54Chapter 53
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Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Minute Mysteries [Detectograms] 54
Chapter 53
RipleyEnglish
Murder in the Swamp
‘We’d better walk along the edge,’ said Professor Fordney, as they started down the only path leading through the swamp.
‘I never thought of that. I was on the porch when Barton left,’ said Bob, as he trudged along. ‘Ten minutes later, I heard a shot. I ran down the path and found him about five hundred yards from the house, bleeding terribly from a wound in the head. I dashed back for the first-aid kit and bandaged him as best I could. He died shortly afterwards. Then I returned and telephoned you.’
Reaching the body of Barton, he explained, ‘I turned him over so that I could dress his head.’
‘He must have been shot from over there, because those three sets of footprints are yours and the other one Barton’s,’ said Fordney, after a careful examination. ‘Let’s look in that underbrush.’
Walking into it a few yards, he said, ‘Here’s where the murderer stood, all right. See those powder-marks on the leaves?’
While removing the branch, Fordney cut his finger.
‘Better sterilize that, Professor.’
Back at the cottage, as he was about to pick up a mercurochrome bottle from the kit Bob had used, he observed a spot of blood on the label. Walking over to the basin, he saw Bob in the mirror above it, furtively slip a pair of scissors into the kit.
Turning slowly around, he said, ‘I’ll have to hold you on suspicion of murder.’
