no title as of yet
The dark shadow crept along the river’s edge, taking in the quiet, calmness of the full moon and quiet night. The carnival was in full swing now, and can be seen from far up the shore. The shadow follows the trail of a young maiden, walking, seemingly, lost in her own thoughts. She doesn’t notice the shadow until it too late. With one agile swing of a sword, her head rolls into the river.
Detective Val Village looks down at the headless body, and starts her investigation of the scene. There seems to be no witnesses and the only thing that might give any indication is the killer’s foot prints running from the scene. She notices how long the stride is and makes a note. She knows the killer must be a tall man, judging from the stride, and definitely knows how to use a sword. She has never seen a beheaded body, but this was a clean cut, she can be sure.
With this knowledge, she heads to the carnival in search of the sword swallower. This is a small town and knows of no other in it with any knowledge of swords, let alone the skills to have managed what was done to young Penny Wargrave. She enters his tent. He is on stage with a show going on. Village watches in amazement as he swallows a three-foot sword with ease, and the crowd roars with approval.
After the show concludes, she has asked for an audience with sword swallower, and given five minutes-his next show is in fifteen minutes and he must get ready. She asks about his whereabouts the night before and he says, “I was at the carnival the whole day, I don’t get much time in between shows you know”.
Village recounts the finding of the headless woman by the rivers edges and tells, him that he is the only sword bearer in town.
“Ha, I have swords for sale and one person came in and bought my only katana, which I got from Japan on a recent trip. He paid top dollar for it, as he should, because the quality is unmatched.”
Val Village asks, “And who might this person be?”
Sword swallower says, “He not sure of the man’s name because he didn’t require it for the transaction.”
Val is not convinced and asks for a description of the man. “He was tall, and thin, with dark hair and dark eyes, I can’t be sure of the exact color, because it gets dark in here, as you can well see.” Village looks around and sees exactly what he talking about, as it is mostly black, except for the few candles lit in the area, and the light filtering through the stage curtains that he arrives on stage through. Sword swallower says,” I must get ready, my shows starts soon.”
Village suggests looking at his shoes to see if there are any blood marks on it, and he allows it with no sign of blood on it. She tells him not to go anywhere after the show, she would like to talk to him again.
As Village is watching the show, she notices that one of his acts involves a sword box, where he is inside the box for an extended period of time while his assistant drives swords into the box with him in it. Village times the act and notes that it takes 35 minutes from the time he is in put in the box, until he gets out unscathed.
As she was walked up the tent, she noticed a gondola in the water. She went down to the water and looked at the craft. It had been cleaned recently, as indicated by the cleanliness of the inside, which should have been grimy. Upon closer inspection, she notices a spot of red on the rim of the boat, like someone stepped into it with bloody shoes on. She checks the blood, and it’s still sticky, like it’s only been there for a little while, more incentive to go and arrest the sword swallower. This gives her the proof she needs. He is taken into custody with no difficulty. While he never gave a confession, he was convicted of the charges and sentenced to die. He is executed on the garrote.
In the audience of the execution, is a man with a sly sneer on his face. He bought the sword from the swordsman. Feeling cheated because he paid too much, for what he felt was a fake. He took the gondola down river and hid in a bush, waiting a suitable victim to come by. After killing the girl, he took the boat back to the carnival, without anyone knowing better, and disappeared. Knowing that the sword swallower and him were the same shoe size-cause he took a pair of boots from him, he left a print on the boat, knowing someone would find it, and cleaned the rest as to look like someone was covering up the tracks. The final thing to do was wait for the pieces to start falling into place. As soon as he saw Det. Village come the carnival, he knew his plans were going to work. AND THEY DID. For as he watched the innocent man be executed, he was now a killer, and kill more he would.
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