Mystery & Suspense - Daily Short Stories

The Mysterious Highwayman

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Duration:: 40m
Broadcast on:: 23 Jun 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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Whether you're a lifelong learner, a parent seeking bedtime stories for your children, or someone looking to unwind after a long day, we have something just for you. We invite you to try Solgad Media Free for one month. Explore our extensive collection and find the perfect audio content that resonates with you. Join our community of passionate listeners and unlock a world of knowledge, relaxation, and inspiration. Visit SolgadMedia.com today and start your free trial. That's S-O-L-G-O-O-D-M-E-D-I-A.com. "The Mysterious Highwayman" by Sergeant Ryan. The inspector in charge of the Detective Bureau at police headquarters was talking to half a dozen reporters. And at the same time was exchanging a dress coat for one of dark blue, which was not part of a uniform, though suggestive of it. "I don't know any more about this case than you do," he was saying. "I've been to the theater and was eating supper afterward when I got word of it." The report that came to me was that a man named Prescott Carroll had been arrested for the murder of Oliver Brundage. "Olly Brundage, you all know him." The reporters nodded. The name and fame of Olly Brundage were quite familiar to them. He was a young man of good family, a bachelor, a clubman, who managed to move in the highest society without any visible means of support. They also knew Carroll, who had gone out of journalism into literature eight or ten years before, and had won a certain measure of recognition. The arrest was made by a patrolman and detective Heinz of my staff. Continue the inspector. It seems Carroll knocked Brundage down with a sand-club or something of that kind, and was going through his pockets. It was on West 78th Street, just opposite the new church. The prisoner was taken to the station-house, but I sent word to have him brought down here. Brundage's body is at the station now. "That's all I know." The reporters exchanged glances. Then one of them asked, "What's this about a millionaire's pocketbook being found in Carroll's pocket?" "I heard a rumor to that effect," said the inspector, "but I am not prepared to answer any questions." "Isn't it a fact," queried one of the reporters, "that there have been a good many hold-ups in the neighborhood, and that your man Heinz was up there on that account?" "There have been some wild stories in the newspapers," the inspector began, but checked himself as he perceived the lieutenant entering by the door on the left. The lieutenant executed a sort of military salute and departed, without having opened his mouth. "You boys will have to get out of here now," said the inspector. "I'll see you later." The reporters filed out like so many pallbearers. Every one of them looked at his watch, though there was a clock in plain sight on the wall. It was half past one in the morning, and minutes were precious. No one remained in the room except the chief and the man in the dark gray suit, who sat against the wall opposite the door where the lieutenant had appeared. "You know him, Carter, don't you?" asked the inspector. "Three years ago," replied the detective, "I knew him as a brilliant and promising fellow, but he passed out of my sight." Rider A. "I've read one of his stories; it was good, too. Why the devil should he have done this thing?" Carter answered only with a gesture. The inspector glanced quickly toward the door, then, leaning forward in his chair, with his right elbow on the desk, and his open hand against the sight of his face. He waited in the shadow. The brim of Carter's hat was nearly level with his eyes, and as the principal source of light was a cluster of lamps against the wall, and almost directly over his head, his countenance was scarcely visible. The door at the left swung open, and two officers appeared, with the prisoner between them. They paused an instant, so that the man seemed to come along into the white glare of light and oppressive silence. He was tall and of strong frame, but excessively thin. He had wavy, dark brown hair, a high forehead painfully wrinkled above the bridge of the nose, pale blue eyes, with that faded look that one sees in the eyes of tired women, a light mustache, and a well-molded but rather weak chin with a dimple in it. He wore a shabby black overcoat above what seemed to be expensive and fashionable evening dress. Carter, who remembered Preston Carroll as he had been, was shocked at the change in him. He seemed to have lived a dozen years between twenty-nine and thirty-two. There was a straight back wooden chair, which, standing alone in the middle of the big and bare room, had a singular effect of isolation. Carroll looked at it, perceived that it was for him, and sat down with a shudder. At that moment Heinz, the headquarters man who had assisted in the arrest, appeared at the door, while Carter, crossing the room, whispered to one of the policemen who immediately went out. "Well," said the inspector, addressing Heinz, "at ten minutes past twelve," responded the manager, "I was going west along seventy-eight street toward Berkeley Avenue. There was an apartment house on the southeast corner, with an alley behind it which runs halfway down the block, and then turns into the avenue. There's an iron fence with a gate on each end. Close by this fence where there wasn't much light, I saw this man stooping over a body that lay on the sidewalk. I ran up, and at the same time, patrolman Bruce came from the direction of the avenue. We had the man between us, and when he saw that he surrendered. He seemed to be dazed, and we couldn't get him to say anything to us. I recognized the man on the ground as Oliver Brundage. He was alive then, but unconscious. He died before the ambulance came. There was no weapon. Brundage was killed by striking his head in falling. We had the body taken to the station house, and took this man there. He talked to himself on the way. He said, "Don't worry, don't worry, I'll be all right. It's the best thing that could have happened." He admitted having killed Brundage, and that is all we could get out of him. The inspector turned to Carol, and asked him whether he had anything to say, warning him in accordance with the law, that whatever he said could be used against him on the trial. He remained silent for perhaps half a minute, during which interval hines laid upon the inspector's desk a package containing all that had been taken from the prisoner when he was searched at the station house. "Denial is useless," said Carol at last; "I was taken in the act." His manner was indefinably strange. If one may attempt description, it was more like an invalids than a criminal's. This man of cultured mind and delicately sensitive nature seemed to feel neither remorse nor shame. There was evidence of considerable anxiety, but this state was repeatedly interrupted by involuntary outbursts of reassurance, almost of satisfaction. "What was your motive?" asked the inspector. "Robbery," replied the prisoner cheerfully, "I was driven to it by poverty." The inspector looked hastily at Carter, who returned the glance meaningly. Both men perceived that the prisoner's answer was a lie, and that it covered a mystery. This case, which, on a casual view, seemed so clear, being the arrest of a highway robber beside the body of his victim, became, at once, to those experienced men a problem for close and rigid investigation. "I thought you were successful in your profession," said the inspector. "I might have been," was the reply, "but I had bad luck in many burdens. There were people dependent upon me. I never worried about myself. I suppose nobody does. It was about others." He became excited as he spoke, and his self-control slipped away. It was obvious that he did not mean to tell his story, but that it told itself, just as the first words he had uttered in the room had overridden his will. It appeared that he had been married five years before, and that his wife had almost immediately begun to lose her sight, as the result of a malady rare and little understood. Gradually, with that steady debilitation which nature commands, and human torturers vainly strived to imitate, the shadows had closed around her. Carol had beggared himself with doctors. He had become a borrower under the pressure of need that could not be postponed. His friends had turned from him, and some of them, for the sake of spite that grows out of money, had raised up other enemies when their own power to injure him had seemed inadequate. Meanwhile, his strength had declined, and his imagination, too much occupied with images of his own increasing sorrow, had ceased to suggest the pictures which his art required. His earnings had decreased as his needs grew. He had labored under that enormous disadvantage of visible misfortune. He became the lame wolf which the pack ran. Throughout the latter part of this wretched period, his sister and his brother's widow, with two children, had been dependent upon him. His wife, at last, had gone to a private hospital, where the charges were excessive, and the benefits few. The wonder was that the man had not gone mad, laboring with a brain so clogged with miserable thoughts. Yet he did not seem to be insane, though surely on the break of it. Neither Carter nor the inspector interrupted Carol's recital, which he himself finally broke off with an exclamation of despair. "You see, I can't help telling this," he said, "though upon my soul I did not mean to do it." The inspector glanced at Carter and touched his forehead, unperceived by Carol. The detective made a negative sign. "We'll see what we have here," said the inspector, opening the packet which Heinz had brought. It contained a few trifles separately wrapped, because they were obviously the prisoners, and the things that he was supposed to have taken from Brundage. The latter consisted of a handkerchief, some letters, a cigarette case, a card case, and several keys. Another handkerchief, a woman's, and small coin to the value of sixty-four cents, were marked as having been found in Brundage's pocket by the police. "Then you got no money at all," said the inspector. "I got a pocket-book," said Carol, with hesitation. "Do you mean to say that you got this from Brundage?" demanded the inspector, holding up the wallet. "Certainly," answered Carol, "but he did not meet the eye of the questioner. "Do you know whose pocket-book it is?" "They told me at the station-house," said Carol faintly, "that it was Stanton Ripley's." Stanton Ripley was a young man about town, possessed of great wealth, and a barnful of wild oats. The pocket-book bore his initials, and the crest of his family in gold and enamel. It was a plain, light Russian leather book, of the sort that folds in the middle with one large compartment on each side. Carter received it from the chief's hand and discovered that it contained three thousand and ten dollars, one one thousand dollar bill, four of five hundred dollars, and two of five dollars. All knew. "They found this in the prisoner's coattail pocket," said the chief. "Were you aware," he continued, addressing Carol, "that this was in Brundage's possession when you attacked him?" Carol pondered upon this question. "I couldn't have known that," he said at last, in a faint voice. Carter observed that he had taken hold of the sides of his chair, as if to keep from falling out of it, and that a bluish pallor had overspread his face. "Is there anything I can do for you?" asked the detective kindly. "Could I have something to eat?" said the prisoner, in an embarrassed tone. "Of course. If it's too much trouble." "I have already set out for some supper for you," said Carter, looking closely at him. "It occurred to me that you might like it. I wonder it hasn't come before this." Carol expressed his gratitude, and while he was doing so, a policeman entered with several packages. The detective drew up a small table and set forth a bottle of milk and a loaf of bread, at sight of which the prisoner's eyes shone. Behind him the policeman was opening a box, from which he took a steak and potatoes on a wooden plate and a knife and fork. He held up the knife and looked inquiringly at Carter, who nodded, and the utensils were laid upon the table. The prisoner ate well. Many times he spoke aloud in praise of the food, clearly not meaning to do so, for he always checked himself with shame. "Now," he said at last, "I feel first rate. Heavens." The exclamation came suddenly. Carol half rose and then sank back. He pressed his hand across his forehead, which had become wet in an instant. "My wife and my sister," he cried, "how shall I tell them?" "I'm afraid that the newspapers will anticipate you, unless you telegraph," said Carter. He took a pad of blanks and a pencil from the inspector's desk, and laid them before Carol, who, after many attempts, wrote this message. Be prepared for very bad news, yet all for the best. Don't try to understand; don't come here; we'll send money. He puzzled a long time over the last sentence, and finally let it stand. The message was addressed to his sister, Mrs. Hilda Carroll, in a small town in Massachusetts. At the bottom he wrote a request to repeat the telegram to his wife, in care of the physician in charge of the hospital where she then was. There gave the telegram, with money for its transmission, to one of the policemen who went out with it immediately. The inspector, meanwhile, was answering a call upon the telephone which stood on his desk. He received a long report, at the close of which he ordered that the prisoner should be taken into the adjoining room. "Nect," he said, as soon as they were alone, "I've just got word from the man who was sent to Ripley's rooms when the pocket-book was found on Carroll. Ripley has just come home with a bad wound in the head. He seems to have been wandering around the streets, dazed, for quite a long time. He was at his club until eleven o'clock, then he started out for a walk. On Fifth Avenue, alongside the park, at Sixty-third Street, he saw a man step out from behind a tree. As he turned to face the fellow, he got a wrap on the left side of his head, and the next thing he remembers he was on the other side of the park way up at Eighty-first Street, and it was more than two hours later. Where he'd been in the meantime he didn't know. His pocket-book was gone, and his watch. Nothing else was taken. He said he probably could not identify his assailant, though the man looked familiar. He knew Carroll very well, they were in college together. He lent him some money a year or so ago, then they had a falling out, and he hasn't seen Carroll since. He didn't think it was Carroll who assaulted him. What do you make out of this? "Well, it seems somewhat extraordinary," said the detective, "that a man on the verge of starvation should not have used one of those five-dollar bills to buy a meal. It occurs to me that we haven't found Ripley's watch, and I am also puzzled to know why a man who had made a haul of three thousand dollars should take the desperate chance of assaulting Brundage, who is well known never to have any money." "Perhaps Carroll didn't know him," suggested the inspector. "It's as bad one way or another," replied the detective. He wouldn't have risked three thousand dollars and his liberty on the chance of what might be in the stranger's pockets. However, we might ask him about it. Carroll was brought back into the room and was informed of what had been learned about Ripley. He made a strong effort to cover his emotions, but Carter was of the opinion that, for some mysterious reason, the prisoner was not only surprised but pleased. "It is true," he said, "I did not take the pocketbook from Brundage. I took it from Ripley." "Where?" demanded the inspector, who had not mentioned the place designated by Ripley. "In Central Park," was the reply, "I followed him from his club." At this point the prisoner showed his first disinclination to answer questions, yet he consented to hear a few from Carter, and this exchange resulted. "Were you acquainted with Brundage? I knew him by sight and by reputation. When did you see him this evening? When he turned out of the avenue on to 78th Street. Did you recognize him? Yes. Did you speak to him before attacking him? No. where did you get the dress suit?" Ripley gave it to me a year and a half ago when he got me to go to dinner at a club. "Do you mean that he bought it for you?" "No. It was his. He had just had it made. It was one of his freaks to give it to me." "What is that stain?" It was a reddish mark as if from a blow with a rusty iron bar, and it extended across the back of the overcoat about the waistline. The garment was lying on a chair. Carol looked at the stain with mild surprise, and said he did not know what it was. Your dresscoat was torn in the struggle with Brundage, I suppose, said the detective, indicating a ripped seam at the back of the left shoulder, and some further damage here and there. Carol nodded. "You had your overcoat on when you were arrested, didn't you?" "Yes, I just slipped it on after the—the struggle." "Why, didn't you run through the alley when you saw the policeman coming?" "I didn't know there was any gate in the fence," replied the prisoner. This closed the examination, and Carol was assigned to a cell. "It is a singular coincidence," said the detective, "that I happened to be very familiar with the spot where this arrest was made. I waited there some hours, on a recent evening. The gate in the fence could not be overlooked by anyone, and just within it there is a rusty iron bar extending from the gate post to the side of the house. From the appearance of the mark on Carol's coat I should say that he had leaned against that bar. I came very near to doing it myself. So Carol had a neat way of escape, and didn't take it. The inspector drummed with his fingers on his desk, and gently whistled a little tune. "For a case that opens with a confession," he said at last, "this is a beautiful muddle. To begin with, the man is such a purposeless liar. I would hardly say that," rejoined Carter. He knows what he is about. A liar he certainly is, one of the most perverse and incalculable that I have ever encountered. But his statements held to a clear view. Obviously he is willing to say anything which will tend to show that he attacked Brundage for the purpose of robbing him. Now of course this crime is not robbery, though Carol tried to give that color to it, and on a hasty inspiration, too. Or he would not have committed the absurdity of taking the man's handkerchief to say nothing about this rubbish of cigarette and card cases. "You mean that he killed Brundage for some other reason?" asked the inspector. "Did you observe the weather?" rejoined Carter with a smile. "It has been snowing a little, and the pavements are a mess. Brundage's coat shows a considerable struggle, and by all the evidence the two men must have fallen to the ground, one gripping the other's throat. It was then that Brundage's head struck the projection and the iron fence, but the assailant could not have immediately known the result. Without doubt they rolled there together in the dirt, yet there isn't a mark on Carol's knees. That is so, but the elbow and left sleeve of the coat are soiled. Not the overcoat. He'd taken that off." "It is all very singular," said the detective. "I am being gradually led toward a remarkable conclusion, but I am not ready to talk about it yet. I suggest that we put the whole thing off until tomorrow." "The case is in your hands," said the inspector, "if you will be kind enough to take charge of it." On the following day the detective called upon Stanton Ripley at his rooms, which have sometimes been mentioned in print as the most luxurious bachelor apartments in New York. Ripley was under a doctor's care, but had almost ceased to require it. He had a contusion on the left side of his head behind the ear, but was suffering principally from the mental strain, the result of his adventure of the previous night. It was necessary to avoid exciting him and the detective proceeded with the utmost caution. Ripley declared positively that his assailant was not Carol, and after an hour of shrewd questioning he admitted his belief that it was bondage. Then he seemed to regret having made the statement, and he concluded by asserting his ignorance of the highwayman's identity. It became necessary, therefore, to trace Brundage's movements on the previous evening, and this proved to be easy. From nine o'clock until a few minutes before his death Brundage had been in the apartments of a young widow, a Mrs. Haskell, who lived with her mother and sister in that building on Berkeley Avenue, behind which ran the alley that has been referred to. There had been three other guests, a man and two women, and Brundage had put them into a cab just before going to meet his fate. It had unfortunately been his intention to walk across to his home, which was on Central Park West. This negated the idea that Carol could have found Ripley's pocketbook in Brundage's pocket, but where had he obtained it since Ripley was sure he was not the robber? And what motive could have induced Carol to play his singular part in this affair? A study of the locality could not fail to raise the presumption that Carol had been lying in wait for Brundage. The spot was well chosen. Yet Carol was unknown to the Haskells and could hardly have had any means of knowing where Brundage would spend the evening. Indeed, all the evidence that Carter could collect seemed to show that Carol and Brundage had no common interests and no possible grounds for animosity. There were rumors of ill feeling between Ripley and Brundage on account of the fascinating Mrs. Haskell, at whose home both were frequent visitors, but even upon the wild supposition that Ripley had been sufficiently jealous to employ Carol as his bravo, he would hardly have paid him with a watch and pocketbook. Nor would Carol have collected his price with the aid of a sand club. The newspapers saw in Carol a mysterious highwayman. They exaggerated one or two small robberies in the neighborhood into a great list of desperate crimes, and the young author was pictured as one of the famous degenerates of the age. But the real puzzle of the case remained unanswered. Nobody could account for Carol's retention of that pocketbook, for his senseless risk in attacking Brundage while carrying so great a plunder from another crime, for his failure to take an easy chance of escape. In the evening Carter called at the headquarters and found Carol's sister, his sister-in-law, and the latter's two children. The women had come to the city with a vague idea that their presence was required, and without enough money to take them back again they and the children were in tears, and the scene was intensely distressing. It became positively harrowing when the inspector yielded to their entreaties and summoned the prisoner from his cell. Somewhat to Carter's surprise the man was greatly improved in appearance. His bearing was marked by a sad serenity. He beheld the tears and accepted the reproaches of the women with perfect composure, and it was only when they spoke of their immediate need of money that he showed any considerable anxiety. He referred them to a lawyer whom he had retained during the day, saying that he would probably assist them; otherwise he said nothing to them except vaguely reassuring words, and though they said they would come again on the following day, a suggestion which the inspector did not see fit to contradict, Carol bade them farewell with an air of finality. When the prisoner had been removed Carter inquired about his lawyer, and learned that a corporation attorney, practically unknown in criminal courts, had been retained. Carol had given the name and address, and the attorney had been summoned. "To the best of my judgment," said the inspector, "he had never seen the prisoner before." Carol was arraigned and waved examination, as you know, of course. During the evening Carter obtained a bit of evidence not altogether unimportant. It appeared that when Ripley left his club on the night of the crime, a man answering Carol's description, who had been loitering for more than an hour in the neighborhood, had followed him. Two cabmen were the witnesses on this point, and they were perfectly confident, but they said that Ripley had gone to 59th Street instead of Fifth Avenue. Carter called upon Ripley in regard to this contradiction, and was informed that the young man had walked a little way up 59th Street, but had returned. He had not seen Carol following him. About noon the next day, Carter called upon the inspector, who began conversation by stating that he had been devoting a good deal of thought to the Brundage case. "And you have evolved a theory," said the detective with a smile, "shall I tell you what it is?" The inspector shut one eye and scrutinized Carter closely, out of the other. "Go ahead," Con found you, he said. "You'll tell me what it is, and then you'll show me why it isn't good for anything." "On a contrary," replied the detective, "it is very near the truth. In fact, there can hardly be two theories in this affair. I happen to know that one of your men compared the stain on Carol's overcoat with the iron bar I spoke of, as to height from the ground, general appearance, etcetera. The conclusion that Carol knew about the gate and the way of escaping through the alley is thus verified. Why didn't he run? The obvious explanation is that he remained to cover the retreat of someone else. "Precisely," said the inspector, "if the snow hadn't melted so soon we would have found tracks." "You believe," continued Carter, "that this young man, in his half-crazed desperation, had formed an alliance with some thug, that it was the thug who attacked Ripley, that the ease with which Ripley was disposed of sent them both on a mad career of depredation, with the intent of doing one big night's work and then quitting the town." "Well, something of that sort," admitted the inspector. "Then it is the pal who has engaged this lawyer and has supplied Carol's relatives with money." "Have they got some?" "Plady," replied the detective, "and they have gone back to Massachusetts, and I can tell you something more agreeable. Two of the leading medical experts in this city have taken an interest in Mrs. Carol, who, by the way, is a very charming woman, whose needs but never her importunities have burdened our friend, for she is different from the others." "Have you seen her?" "Yes, this forenoon. She does not yet know of her husband's misfortune. It was deemed unwise to tell her. But would you believe it? Those experts, who were so much interested by the accounts of her case published yesterday in connection with this affair, tell me that she has a good chance of recovery, that the treatment hitherto has been all wrong, and that she may fully regain her sight?" "I'm glad of that," said the inspector. "The experts are great men," said Carter, "but they are not philanthropists. They are sure of their money. By the way, have you seen Carol today?" "Yes, and the change in the man is wonderful. Upon my word he has gained pounds of flesh, and he looks positively handsome. His mind is relieved," responded Carter. "You remember how he never worries about himself? That is the truest words he spoke to us. Worry for others has driven him half-crazy. Money worry. And now it is over. He sees the electric chair before him, and is cheerful. I was near forgetting, he continued after a brief pause, that I have recovered Ripley's watch. Some of my men searched the west side of the park from 77th Street, northward, this morning, and they found it where somebody had thrown it over a wall. A portrait on the inside of the case, at the back, has been scratched with a knife. But the job was done in the dark. The face is still recognizable. It is Mrs. Haskell's." "Why, in blazes?" "My friend, it is clear as a bell. I wish it was my discovery that Carol's coat showed every mark of a fight with Brundage, in which, singularly enough, his nether garment seemed not to have shared. Do you mean that he changed coats with the real assailant?" gasped the inspector. "Beyond a doubt!" The inspector sprang up and seized his hat from the rack on the wall. "Let's go down to the tombs," he said. Carol is there. In a private room of the famous prison, the prisoner in the Brundage murder case brought from his cell he knew not why, found the inspector and the detective waiting for him. "Mr. Carol," said Carter kindly, "the cat is out of the bag." The prisoner started violently, and his face flushed. "You were in desperate straights," the detective continued. "You knew not where to turn for help. You had quarreled with Ripley, who once had befriended you, and yet, in your emergency, you could think of no one else. You dressed as well as you could, in a suit that he had given you, and yet, when you came to the club, your shabby overcoat kept you from asking for the man you wished to see. When he came out, you followed him, hesitating to speak. For miles along the street, in the winter night, you kept him in sight, while he, with a foolish burden of jealousy on his mind, did not see you. At the corner of Berkeley Avenue and 78th Street, he stopped. Presently he turned back, and you stepped within the iron gate to let him pass. Then Brundage appeared. Before you realized what was happening, the sharp struggle was over. He had gratified his jealousy far more fully than he had planned to do. Brundage laid dead on the sidewalk, and Ripley bending over him, groaned in agony. A sudden grotesque and terrible thought leapt into your mind, to exchange burdens with Ripley, to take his deadly sin, and give him your care that would rest so lightly on this crisis. With what insane relief he accepted your offer, what promises he made in those few thrilling moments, we can readily imagine. He had taken off his overcoat that he might be more free to punish his rival. His clothes showed the struggle. As your two suits were identical, the change in coats was a natural suggestion. The purse with the money was forgotten, but Ripley, after he had escaped through the alley, heard it, and his story of robbery was the only invention that could meet the situation. The rest comes naturally, including your queer lawyer that Ripley recommended. "Curse you!" cried Carol, leaping to his feet. "You have ruined me." "In return, let me promise my help," said Carter. "I pity you, driven mad by cares as you have been. There is no reason in the world why you cannot bear your burdens when you have had rest, with an easy mind. I can promise it to you." Carol sank back into a chair, and began to weep hysterically. The inspector viewed him with professional self-control, yet with some signs of sympathy. "Shall I send a man for Ripley?" he whispered. "I have attended to that," responded the detective. "He is on his way to headquarters by this time." "Man's slaughter, I suppose," muttered the detective. "I'll bet a hat he doesn't get over five years." The End of The Murderous Highwayman by Sergeant Ryan. Hey there, it is Ryan Seacrest with you, you want to make this summer unforgettable? Join me at Chumba Casino, it's this summer's hottest online destination. They are rolling out the red carpet with an amazing welcome offer, just for you. So don't wait, dive in now and play hundreds of social casino games for free. Your chance to redeem real prizes is just a spin away. Can you join me? Are you ready to unlock a world of captivating stories, soothing sounds, and enlightening lectures? 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