Weave a tale around this abduction: What was taken? What is the ransom price: money; possessions; skills/talents?; Will you obey orders, or bring in the cops/friends/PI?; Will you go renegade to retrieve it yourself?

It was mystery to me. Great grandfather’s clock was taken, gone, missing and in its place the note.

WE KnOW You wIlL MIsS this heIrloOm

know cULLinG THE coPs

WeLL beE In TOUch…

Several things sprang to mind. Who? How? And why the bad spelling?

Immediately a suspect sprang to mind. Murcus McGurk. A cold-blooded abductor if ever you saw one.

Last spring he had stolen the shirt off my back as I dozed under the mulberry tree in the back yard. A dastardly character to be sure.

McGurk lived across the way from me, was unemployed, poorly educated, though that was his fault not the school he allegedly attended for he didn’t attend very often.

He lived a squalid life, in a squalid house with a squalid woman oddly named Glorious.

She was a poor miserable soul; she had to be to find Murcus attractive in any way. Mostly you never saw her as she was very much a recluse but she had a thing for clocks and I know she secretly coveted my old clock.

Her house was a clock house, the noise of ticking clocks would have driven me mad, as it was the old clock I had no longer worked as when it did the thing would chime every fifteen minutes and at 2am that was welcomed by me in particular.

But Murcus and Glorious lived in blissful happiness in a house that would have driven most crazy.

One thing that the McGurk’s disliked was visitors. Especially a visitor aiming to blame them for something they would no doubt deny. I was thinking of a strategy when another note appeared under the front door.

ThE CLoCk is SaFE

nO hArm wIll CuM tWo it

We LoVE cLoCks

And It IsNt US mcGurKS what

piNCHEd IT

ransom

note

COMiNG

My suspicions were now confirmed the dumbest criminal minds were involved here.

I rang the cops who eventually turned up and after a coffee or two agreed to front the McGurks.

Murcus sensing his time was running out sent a final note:

PAY us $5000 or the cLOCk

Gets IT.

Money in a bROWN PaPer baG

DrOP it OVER thE BaCK fenCE

Go INSide And No LOOKIng.

COUnt To 20, 30 No 50 Before LookiNG….

ClOCK will BE at Back door.

tHaNks murCUS anD glorious

Needles to say, the cops raided the McGurk’s and rescued my clock. As they carted Murcus and Glorious away they were heard arguing:

Murcus: I told you not to make so many spelling mistakes.

Glorious: I didn’t that was your idea.

Murcus: How do you think they got onto us?

Glorious: You idiot, you could have thought of a better drop off spot than the back fence, he’s always spying on us over the fence.

Murcus: And I had all that money in my hand.

Glorious: And Hawaii looked a real possibility…

And so they argued as they were driven away, my clock returned and my monopoly money returned to his box.

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2016/10/20/tale-weaver-90-ransom/