The Seven Keys of Sara Seldon
by
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Lieutenant Robert Campbell had his feet spread slightly apart and his back turned to block the full fury of the rain coming almost horizontally from the west. His muscular shoulders and broad back, unmoved, took the brunt of the storm. A wide-brimmed hat protected his graying hair and kept his face dry, except for those rare moments when a gust of wind caught the steady stream pouring off the brim in front of his face and sent it full against his chin. In spite of this, his cigar, planted firmly left in his mouth, glowed rhythmically as he thoughtfully and steadily inhaled and exhaled. A body lay almost directly at his feet, face up. The face was that of a woman, in her mid-thirties, with blond hair and pale blue eyes that stared back, unknowing and unaware, as only the dead can stare. "Close her eyes, damn it," Campbell growled. The medical examiner, a small wiry man in his early sixties, grinned and did as he was bid. "I’d have thought you’d be tougher than that, Bob, given your job." "No! Never!" Campbell snarled, severely discontented. Robert Campbell was a man who liked women, alone or in groups, good-looking or plain, and the dead woman was anything but plain. Looking down, he said, "hair like a flame." He noted the body lay downhill. The heavy rain created an inch-deep stream flowing past the still form, catching the golden hair and fanning it out like sunny flames leaping from a log. The young woman had died of a massive fracture caused by a blow to the back of her head. Her blood had flowed into her hair, mixed with the steady stream the rain caused, darkened it close to the scalp and then gently faded into the natural golden color, just like a flame, as he had observed. For some reason this angered him deeply. The medical examiner sighed and rose to his feet, tilted his head upward somewhat to meet Campbell’s eyes, and said: "Devastating blow. Just one I think. A hammer, probably. A lot of force was put into it. Killed her instantly, I’d guess. The wiry old man shrugged. "A pretty woman. Pity!" "Yeah," Campbell said, his cigar moving left and coming to rest in the far corner of his mouth. "Yeah. We’ve got the weapon. It was beside the body. It’s a multi-purpose tool, a shingle hammer, ax on one side, hammer on the other. Small head on the hammer. A lot of force you say?" "Yes. A stout blow." "Man or woman?" Campbell asked. The medical examiner thought it over. "Either, I’d say. Given a good swing, either!" "That’s no help." Campbell said. The medical examiner let his shoulders rise and fall. "No, I suppose not. I’ll know more in the morning. Is it okay to take the body now?" "Yeah, why not? How long dead?" The medical examiner scratched his head thoughtfully. "Can’t say exactly. This damned cold rain fouls things up. March came in like a lion after all. I’d say on the outside two hours, on the inside no more than one." While the body was being removed, the Lieutenant allowed himself a perusal of the death scene. The woman’s car, door open, lights still on, but fading as the battery ran down, had been parked at the exit guarded by twin gates of wrought iron. She had shut off the engine before going to open the gates. That was odd! The car lights still burned which, with the engine not running, did probably limit it to nine on the outside. The young woman had been struck down, with great force, almost immediately after completing the job of opening the gates. But there had been a struggle. Sara Seldon had fought for her life and lost. The deep scuff marks in the fine gravel told the tale. The gates in question were anchored to two square stone pillars. The road was marked by a sign, which said: PRIVATE ROAD The house, the home of Mrs. Althea Vane, stood at the top of a small rise some hundred yards or more up from the gates. A neighbor, coming home late, had seen the car lights and stopped to investigate. Satisfied that the young woman was dead, he called the police from his car phone. Or so he said. The woman’s driver’s license and credit cards identified her as one Sara Seldon, and noted that her residence was the Vane house. The car was registered in the name of Althea Vane. No lien holder was indicated. One other item in the woman’s purse, left on the right seat of the car when she had moved off to open the gates, interested the Lieutenant. It was an elegantly engraved business card and said: Dr. Simon Malcolm Fraser The back of the card contained an address and a telephone number. Both were familiar to the Lieutenant. "I’ll be a double-dyed son-of-a-bitch," Campbell snorted aloud upon reading the card. "I knew it. I knew it! Have a murder anytime or anywhere and that foxy old bastard has a hand in it. There’s no damned escape!"
NO TRESPASSING
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About the Book
After their adventures with murder in The Borgia Blade and A Little Pinch of Death, retired professor Simon Fraser and his young assistant, Tom McElrath, are sent on a treasure hunt to find the meaning of the seven keys left behind by the murdered Sara Seldon. The keys arrived one day in a package along with a note from Sara that she probably would be murdered, and challenging the astute professor to find her killer. Sara died that very night, brought down by the blunt end of a shingle hatchet. As usual, young Tom’s brother-in-law, Lieutenant Robert Campbell of the Ben Nevis Homicide Division, is sorely tried by the secretive nature of good friend Simon, who never tells all he knows until he’s certain of a satisfactory conclusion. Thanks to membership in the Detective Club, the awe-inspiring Greek fortune-teller and seer, Millicent Zacharias, takes a formidable hand in the subsequent chase. She sees things in the Eye of Imhotep that "ought not be seen," all of which confounds the pragmatic Lieutenant and his logical friend Prentice Dodd, to the continuing amusement of the more open-minded professor.
About the Author
I suppose all authors suffer under the illusion that they have something to say that other people might want to read. It’s an irrepressible disease, which does not fade over time, but grows stronger with any appreciation. My mysteries were written to entertain my sister at a time when she happened to be home-bound and who, like me, is an inveterate mystery fan, particularly of the works of Agatha Christie and Rex Stout. Too, my mother, another serious mystery enthusiast, was always going to sit down and write a mystery story of her own concoction, but never did. I promised her, when I was young, that if she didn’t, I eventually would. She didn’t. I did -- five of them, as a matter of fact. That ought to have been enough to assuage the writing infection, but it wasn’t. I’m currently in the middle of the generation of One Murder for Money.