Murder at Winterbrook

5. The Trap

          The clock ticked at ten-thirty and both the police and forensics were in the move of examining the perimeter. The body of the woman in red was being transferred to the nearby hospital by a team of the ambulance. Kingsley and I were controlling the situation and Mort and Blake have already left the place up and went up the wooden house on the gradual meadow.

There were new faces that showed up there whom Mrs Russel introduced to the duos.

"This is Gerome Franklin, my brother." Mrs Russel introduced him, finally along with a small smile which showed up on her soft mascaraed face, "He learnt the news and frequently came here by train."

Indeed, Gerome Franklin was charming along with the blue-coloured big-buttoned overcoat and ginger-brown Chevron moustache and slightly curled hair on his square-shaped white-skinned face, filled with brown-coloured eyes and S-shaped eyebrows. His forehead was always uptight, and his dry dark-red lips were firmly tightened together. He was a very silentious man and would stay sat on a chair on the corner, contemplating on the wall in front of him and think about something, something of mystery...

Blake and Mort shook hands together with the charmante Mr Gerome and he, in his turn, would regain his position on the chair tranquilly, morose-looking along with both his hands holding his square face.

"Strange!" Mort whispered, amazed by the actually weird-looking behaviour of Mr Gerome who was now scratching his sweat-dripping frowned forehead.

"Strange!" Blake agreed, nodding his head slightly with approval, resting his eyes suspiciously on Mr Gerome.

Suddenly, a gentle tap came from their shoulder and when they turned their face around, another unknown face appeared, it was another middle-aged-looking man smiling broadly to them. He said in a highly jubilant-looking tone, "Hi, I'm Danny Watts. A close friend of Mr Edgar." He paused for a moment or two, casting a look of his happy face on them then recommencing, "I'm a huge fan of you, Blake and your assistant, Mort. I'm really, really inspired by you that today I could confront my own dangers ahead of my short life."

"Oh, I see," Mort said, doing a handshake with Mr Danny Watts.

"You are Mr Edgar's close friend, you say." Blake spoke, frowning frantically, he too did a handshake with Mr Danny, "Did you met him these few days?"

"Well, actually, yes. We met at a certain wedding of a cousin in the church that was where I last have seen him." His smile dropped off of his loosened face then moved directly to Blake, "But I guarantee you that you will a hundred per cent for sure solve this case. It's perhaps declared as murder, I think so, isn't it?"

"Yes, murder," Blake said, low-voiced.

"Well, I wish you good luck with your procedure." Mr Danny said, tapping Blake gently on the shoulder and moving off, "May that you solve it, hopefully."

"Erm... by the way, have you anything you suspect about car reaching here all broken up!?" Blake questioned, belatedly.

"What car?" Mr Danny turned his face around with puzzlement.

"Well, the car in the garage where Mr Edgar was found dead, sitting on the front seat itself," Blake said puzzled that he was not informed of it. 

"What? Edgar died in his car in his garage?" Danny returned. 

"You were not aware of it or what?" Mort asked, a puzzlement twinkling in his eyes.

"Well, I've come just recently, and I've neither got no information about the corpse in the car nor have I the time to grab a newspaper. But I know something about the car."

"What?" Blake said.

"That the car was crashed two days ago when he informed me about it at the wedding in the church."

"What?" Blake said again not believing the words that were not able to get into his ears.

"Well, yes, that was it, the car was already broken up before these events to come." Mr Danny told, surprised that Mrs Russel did not tell them so.

Blake turned his face to Mort was a frenzy of fury, then he snapped in disapproval, "Well, then the letter telling us about the truth or mistake was all false, a distraction, a trap to go off-subject from the murder!"