Daily Short Stories - Mystery & Suspense

The Mystery Of The Semi-Detached

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Duration:: 11m
Broadcast on:: 21 Jun 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping king supers, where you'll find over 30,000 mouth-watering choices that excite your inner foodie. And no matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices, plus extra ways to save, like digital coupons worth over $600 each week. You can also save up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with fuel points. More savings and more inspiring flavors make shopping king supers worth it every time. King supers, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. Welcome to Soul Good Media, where your journey into a world of endless audio possibilities begins. Imagine a place where you can discover thousands of captivating audio books. Immerse yourself in tranquil sounds for sleep and meditation, and explore timeless stories and lectures that expand your mind and enrich your soul. At SogadMedia.com, we believe in the power of stories to transform lives. 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 Soul Good 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 soulgoodmedia.com today and start your free trial. That's S-O-L-G-O-O-D-M-E-D-I-A. . The Mystery of the Semi-detached by E. Nesbitt He was waiting for her. He had been waiting an hour and a half in a dusty suburban lane, with a row of big elms on one side and some eligible building sites on the other, and far away to the southwest the twinkling yellow lights of the Crystal Palace. It was not quite like a country lane, for it had pavement and lamp posts, but it was not a bad place for a meeting all the same. And further up towards the cemetery, it was really quite rural, and almost pretty, especially in twilight. But twilight had long deepened into night, and still he waited. He loved her, and he was engaged to be married to her, with a complete disapproval of every reasonable person who had been consulted. And this half-planned destined meeting was tonight to take the place of the grudging sanctioned weekly interview, because a certain rich uncle was visiting at her house, and her mother was not the woman to acknowledge to a money-dunkle who might go off any day, a match so deeply ineligible as hers with him. So he waited for her, and the chill of an unusually severe May evening entered into his bones. The policeman passed him with a surly response to his "goodnight." The bicyclist went by him like grey ghosts with fog horns, and it was nearly ten o'clock, and she had not come. He shrugged his shoulders and turned towards his lodgings. His road led him by her house, desirable, commodious, semi-detached, and he walked slowly as he neared it. She might even now be coming out. But she was not. There was no sign of movement about the house, no sign of life, no lights, even in the windows, and her people were not early people. He paused by the gate, wondering. Then he noticed that the front door was open, wide open, and the street lamp shone a little way into the dark hall. There was something about all this that did not please him, that scared him a little indeed. The house had a gloomy and deserted air. It was obviously impossible that at Harvard a rich uncle. The old man must have left early, in which case. He walked up the path of patent-laced tiles and listened, no sign of life. He passed into the hall. There was no light anywhere. Where was everybody, and why was the front door open? There was no one in the drawing room, the dining room, and the study, nine feet by seven, were equally blank. Everyone was out, evidently. But the unpleasant sense that he was, perhaps, not the first casual visitor to walk through the open door, impaled him to look through the house, before he went away, and closed it after him. So he went upstairs, and at the door of the first bedroom he came to, he struck a wax match, as he had done in the sitting room. Even as he did so, he felt that he was not alone, and he was prepared to see something, but for what he saw he was not prepared. For what he saw, laying on the bed in a white loose gown, and it was his sweetheart, and its throat was cut from ear to ear. He doesn't know what happened then, nor how he got downstairs and into the street. But he got out somehow, and the policeman found him in a fit, under the lamppost at the corner of the street. He couldn't speak when they picked him up, and he passed the night in the police's cells, because a policeman has seen plenty of drunk men before, but never one in a fit. The next morning he was better, though still very white and shaky. But the tale he told the magistrate was convincing, and they sent a couple of constables with him to her house. There was no crowd about it, as he fancied there would be, and the blinds were not down. As he stood, dazed, in front of the house, it opened, and she came out. He held on to the door-post for support. "She's all right, you see," said the constable, who had found him under the lamp. "I told you you were drunk, but you would know best." When he was alone with her, he told her, not all, for that would not bear telling. But how he had come into the commodious semi-detached, and how he had found the door open, and the lights out, and that he had been into that long back room facing the stairs, and had seen something. In even trying to hint at which he turned sick, and broke down, and had to have Brandy given him. "But my dearest," she said, "I dare say the house was dark, for we all went to the Crystal Palace with my uncle, and no doubt the door was open, for the maids will run out, if they're left. But you could not have been in that room, because I locked it when I came away, and the key was in my pocket. I dressed in a hurry, and I left all my odds and ends lying about." "I know," he said, "I saw a green scarf on the chair, and some long brown gloves, and lots of hairpins and ribbons, and a prayer-book, and a lace handkerchief on the dressing-table. Why, I even noticed the almanac on the mantelpiece." "October 21st. At least it couldn't be that because this is May, and yet it was. Your almanac is at October 21st, isn't it?" "No, of course it isn't," she said, smiling rather anxiously. "But all the other things are just as you say. You must have had a dream, or a vision, or something." He was a very ordinary, commonplace, city-young man, and he didn't believe in visions. But he never rested a day or night until he got his sweetheart, and her mother away from that commodious semi-detached, and settled them in a quiet, distant suburb. In the course of the removal, he incidentally married her, and the mother went on living with them. His nerves must have been a good bit shaken, because he was very queer for a long time, and was always inquiring if anyone had taken the desirable semi-detached. And when an old stockbroker with a family took it, he went the length of calling on the old man, and imploring him by all that he held dear, not to live in that fatal house. "Why?" said the stockbroker, not unnaturally. And then he got so vague and confused between trying to tell why, and trying not to tell why, that the stockbroker showed him out, and thanked his God that he was not such a fool as to allow a lunatic to stand in the way of his taking that really remarkably cheap and desirable semi-detached residence. Now the curious and quite inexplicable part of the story is that when she came down to breakfast on the morning of the 22nd of October, she found him looking like death, with the morning paper in his hand. He caught hers. He couldn't speak, and pointed to the paper. And there she read that on the night of the twenty-first, a young lady, the stockbroker's daughter, had been found with her throat cut from ear to ear, on the bed in the long back bedroom, facing the stairs of that desirable semi-detached. The end of the mystery of the semi-detached. When you need mealtime inspiration, it's worth shopping king supers, where you'll find over 30,000 mouthwatering choices that excite your inner foodie. And no matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices, plus extra ways to save, like digital coupons worth over $600 each week. You can also save up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with fuel points, more savings, and more inspiring flavors make shopping king supers worth it every time. King supers, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. Hey there, it's Solomon from Solgood Media. A lot of our listeners have asked how to get ad-free access to our podcast. You asked and we answered, we're offering an exclusive one-month free trial to our ad-free streaming platform, packed with over 500 audiobooks, meditation sounds, and engaging podcasts. No strings attached, just pure listening pleasure. Sign up today at solgoodmedia.com and dive into a world of stories and sounds that inspire and relax. Don't miss out on this limited time offer, it's your gateway to unlimited audio enjoyment. That's solgoodmedia.com, S-O-L-G-O-O-D-M-E-D-I-A.com. Check it out, we hope to see you over there.