By: Katelyn Tijerina
We raced to our apartment and laid the hieroglyphs upon the table. They all related to a singular murder, The hieroglyphs spread out among many crime scenes all identical, a body lay in the middle, with a knife protruding. The day after a piece of paper with more of the same writing had been sent to Mrs.Jones’ husband, frightened she called upon the police. There were five different sets of hieroglyphs, Olivia peered over them in thought as I rushed around trying to come about paper. I acquired such and dipped my quill in ink, writing out the alphabet to attempt to connect the hieroglyphs to letters.
“Obtain an idea or two?” said I, My partner shook her head in disappointment
“All I can notice is a couple are repeating so those must be vowels and this one,” said she pointing at a hieroglyph “Is in every single word- if that’s what they are” I made my way to the bookshelf and selected one, containing the different letters and words of our English language.
“It is most probable the letter is E, if it is a phonetic language that is”
“What brings you to that conclusion,” Asked my companion
“Well right here” I showed her the text to which I was pulling from “The most used word in English “E”, it’s a vowel, It ought to make sense being in every word,” I explained, she nodded with a distracted gaze. Picking up my quill I sketched out the shortest hieroglyph, five letters, containing an E. I ran through what we knew of the case out loud, for Olivia often wanted to hear my thoughts to help process her own.
“Each person received a hieroglyph, they each died a day after that, this is different, however,” said I “none of the other victim families had seen the hieroglyphs before their death yet somehow, Mrs.Jones does. Do you think she’s lying?” I feared
“What motive would there be?” Something changed in my friend’s eyes and she stood up a little taller “Unless she knew about hieroglyphs and they were directed at her”
“It’s a theory” I felt she was wrong but did not want to override her exclamation in the slim chance it was. “This word, all we know is of the E in the middle but it could be any number of things, we must narrow down our search” on my paper I laid out blank spaces for each hieroglyph and entered in where the E would be in each word.
“It could be a sort of threat, or simply a name, and trying all combinations will be to time taking.”
“But what else is there to do?” I cried She did not answer “E…E,” said I pacing the room in dismay “E- wait” I exclaimed, “Jones has married what if this short word is her surname?”
“I’ll go interview, of all who were involved” Olivia threw on her coat and was off
I struggled over the words attempting different combinations, there were multiple words for each hieroglyph in which were possible. I attempted to solve the puzzle by turning it over in my head, I sat by the fireplace, keeping my mind fierce with brandy looking over the hieroglyphs more times than I’d care to mention.
Olivia slammed the door opened, I looked over to find that she had blood covering her shirt, scarf, and coat respectively, she wore a crazed smile across her face and her blue eyes looked wild.
“By God!” Cried I
“It is done,” said she indisputably
“How do you mean?” I came to her aid undressing her from the bloodied clothes, She shook me off, leaving only her wearing a post-white shirt and pant. She undid the neck button from her shirt leaving it relaxed and lit her pipe, letting out a heavy sigh. She put her head back and refused to talk for many minutes.
“My dear Olivia you must speak to me of your actions and of whose blood has covered your garments,” said I vehemently She chuckled lightly
“Bring me those old papers you were shuffling with” I complied eagerly to hear of her story “Oh, and your quill” I to handed it over, in the space which I left blank she filled in the letters Anderson, Eckerman, Kennedy, and Stein
“I was right- names”
“Yes, and do notice, they are in alphabetical order with the murders”
“Why you’re right! Pray do tell your story” my companion sighed and began up
“As one does I started at the beginning. I interviewed everyone who was on scene and much didn’t come from that until I started up gossiping with one of the housemaids. Stein- Mrs.Jones surname. It fit perfectly with the five-letter word you were previously trying to decipher” Her blues eyes shone in excitement as she relived the tale “I figured the other codes must be names and I immediately set off to try and discover all that was related to a Ms.Mary Stein, assuming that all the names were connected rather than a simple serial killer”
“Yes, well that would make sense, all people who died had a look of fear drawn upon their face, it is possible for them to have seen the code and either not tell of it or immediately die after,” said I
“Pray do not interrupt” I assented “Well, through old records and other sources of which you know, I discovered that all these names except for the woman had something in common-they all meddled in politics. The woman stood out to me as most unwoman-like -save ourselves- do not interest themselves with the work of men. All these politicians were starting to advocate for women’s rights, why it was not in the news and why we did not hear about it was startling. I found a case where all these men and a Mr.Stein had attempted to stop a woman from getting punishment for dressing as a man to get a job, she was doing quite fine before they figured it out, I might add.
“My god!” I cried astonished, Oliva nodded along
“Yes and there was one other man who encouraged this; Mr. Wilder, next on the list” I listened with great interest “I found where the man lived and waited out, I supposed the murderer would not wait any longer than he had to and I was right. He came at night and I caught him in the act! My god, it was exciting, I grabbed him as he was aiming at Mr.Wilder, he seemed startled at first but pushed me against the wall roughly but I recovered quickly enough, you can see I got a scratch here and there” said she pointing to a small cut under her eye and -moving her shirt away- another on her stomach “but not before I got his blood all over my coat, I mean really if he would’ve just given up I wouldn’t have had to use my knife”
“You killed him!” I cried shocked at the ruthlessness
“No, just enough to slow him down, I got him to the police and brought Mr.Wilder as a witness, he was of surprisingly little help when it came down to it, he was nothing but pray. Then I headed here in a wagon and am as you see me now” I sat contemplating the wild story
“But what was the reason?”
“Other than, it seems hate for the woman on trial, and it seems for all of the gender, really none. It baffles me why these men see us as both property and a threat”
“Why then, did none of the other victims come to the police and why did Mrs.Jones?”
“Ah, now that is the question. After a little questioning from this man -who happened to be named James Beddos- He claimed that women were trying to take over the country and that the code he used was of their making. On the hand of Mrs.Jones, she probably suspected that we would not connect her to the business or perhaps she was simply less fearful as the men”
“Why I feel I have done nothing, I am as useless as Mr.Wilder” I cried
“Now don’t insult yourself like that my dear, you could never be as useless as a man”
