First Mystery

I've always loved mysteries! It started with Nancy Drew when I was a kid and went from there. Early favorites were Agatha Christie's English mysteries, Dick Francis's jockey-hero puzzles, Dashiell Hammett's slender, ice cold and crisply written detective tales, and Josephine Tey's brilliant Daughter of Time. More current mystery writers I appreciate include the hilarious Janet Evanovich and Carl Hiaasen, and Alexander McCall Smith's gentle and lovely No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. There are dozens more writers I could mention, but needless to say, with this kind of reading history, my comfort with the mystery genre is not all that surprising.

So, for your amusement, resurrected from the flood waters of our basement, is the first mystery I ever wrote. If memory serves me, I wrote it when I was maybe 14 and very melodramatic. It has no grade on it, so I obviously wrote it for my own pleasure.

Enjoy!

Untitled

I saw her walking down the street,
I almost died of fright.
My heart was going wild
This really wasn't right.

She walked along so slowly,
A smile upon her face,
A drop of blood laid on her cheek,
A sign of death it traced.

I heard her say "Hello John,
It's been so long a time.
Whatever came between us?
I believe it was some crime.

It was you who did the nasty job,
Of that at least I'm sure.
It was a foggy night like this,
The diamonds were your lure.

You set them on the table
And forward I did come,
And when I was a foot away
You shot me with your gun.

I laid there on the bloody floor
And you stood o'er me laughing;
Now that you committed crime
You found it rather smashing.

You hurt my feelings, John my love,
But seeing that it's done,
It's now my turn to laugh with glee
For I have got the gun.

Bang, you're dead! Why you're trembling dear.
Did you think I pulled the trigger?
Don't slip away, Johnny my darling,
I've only to move my finger.

Should I shoot you through the head or heart?
I must take careful aim.
Did you know that is is rather fun?
It's almost like a game.

When you shot me it was quite a mess
So I must take my time.
It really is a shame, you know,
To be shot down in your prime.

They called you 'John the wonderful,'
They called you 'John the great.'
It's sad but now they'll have to call you
Young John Brown, the late.

I'm dead, you know that very well,
But still my ghost walks on,
And so I swear on this cold gun
that you'll be dead by dawn."

Next day did the headlines read:
"We say with quite a quiver.
John Brown now lies in his grave,
He fell into the river."
Copyright 2010