Mystery: A Father Daughter adventure

Note: This is a short story whose idea sprung out of “Tell a Tale” contest of Acro-Chronicle.

“But I am not a kid anymore! I have read all the Nancy Drew’s and Famous Five’s you bought me. I want to read the real deal, the things that made you a real detective..”, sighed Isha to her Father. Isha’s dream was to become a famous crime-solver like her Dad, who worked in the Local Police Department. Her childhood had been full of exciting stories that he told her. In the night she dreamt of evidence, suspects, hidden clues, catching a culprit red-handed. Nothing satisfied her as much as a good mystery.

Her dad always said, he owned “The greatest collection of Detective novels”; which Isha had never laid eyes upon. She wanted them badly. According to him, she had to “earn it”. But then as he started working late, the stories came to an end. Tomorrow she was turning Fourteen. She begged her dad to gift her his prized collection. “Good night, sweetheart”, closing the door, her father left, as Isha reluctantly curled inside her bed sheets.

Isha woke up the next day. It was her birthday! As she jumped out of bed, she saw a white card neatly kept beside her. In big bold printed letters, it read:

START 1) “A good detective picks up every mystery that comes his way and takes charge.” IBR

It was another one of their games, she thought excitedly. Since she was little, her Dad left little notes and clues for her, where she had to figure out something. But they hadn’t played in a long long time. She was happy, as well as scared. But this was a mystery and she was going to solve it! As she trotted to her table, her toolkit was ready and everything she needed was there: Pencil, Diary, Magnifying Glass, and Torch. As she picked them up, something fell out of it. Another card!

2) ”A good detective goes where the evidence takes him.” SFM

Evidence, she thought hard, looking around. She looked at the three inscribed letter at the end. Nothing coming to her mind. She thought of making a note of the letters. Taking out her diary, she opened the first page. The page before was torn out, she observed, which she was sure she never did. As she ran her fingers on the page, she noticed creases. Aha! These were handwriting imprints. With her pencil Isha started shading the page. In the stories she read, this was a common tactic detectives used. The letters emerged:

STAIRS

She figured it out! Thrilled, she ran towards the stairs. Down the stairs there were 3 rooms. Now, one thing to note was how big her house was; searching every room, nook and cranny, would take her the whole day. She had to figure this out. As she scanned the area, she saw yellow light peeking out of the Tool Room, which was very unusual. She went inside. This room was where her Dad kept all his tools. It was rarely used, poorly maintained, as as she remembered had no light, they had to bring torch here to find anything. There! A white card pinned to the board. It read:

3)”Every detail serves a purpose. A good detective asks questions.” CIF

Details. After 5 minutes of careful inspection of every sheet and tool, Isha gave up. There were so many details in this room, how could she possibly find anything. She swung her head up in desperation. She was blinded by the light of the bulb. “Why the light? Why now?” She switched the bulb off, and it grew pitch black. Her heart skipped a beat. The pinned card was now glowing neon green. With torch in her hand she hurried to the board. The neon sign read:

MATH BOOK

Isha raced to her room. Her heart beating like that of a hummingbird. Rummaging through her school-bag, she flung open her maths book. There it was, in between the pages, it read:

4) “A good detective, in the end, takes all the separate pieces, puts them together into something that makes sense.”

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ PSR

Isha stared at the blanks on the card. Putting pieces together, she repeated to herself. It struck her! She filled the blanks with her pencil.

IBRSF MCIF PSR

The alphabets on the end of each note, they were pieces to a big final riddle. It was a secret code. Isha focused her brain, recollecting how the detectives in the stories cracked these enigmatic codes. She tried rearranged them, searched in the dictionary, searched for abbreviations, even pronounced the words differently; nothing worked. She could feel she was missing something. She looked at the open pages of the Math book. It was the chapter “Linear Equations”, with the heading “Substitution Method”. And some scribbling on the corner of the page.

“Hint: Caesar will help you solve it.”

It was her Father’s handwriting. It was another clue. Closing her eyes, she pondered, How could Julius Caesar help her break the code? Her eyes opened as she remembered. Caesar’s cipher! Substitution Method! Her Father had recited the story of Julius Caesar who hid his message in secret code, so that only he and the receiver would be able to read it. The way it worked was he would shift 3 letters ahead, writing D for A, E for B, so on. To decipher you would shift the message 3 letters behind. She smiled to herself, as she shifted the message 3 letters back.

Huh. Isha sighed. It was still gibberish. Did she miss something? She considered again the clues. The trick was to substitute the alphabets by 3. The 3 was called the Key, that the sender would only tell the receiver. The key could possibly be anything between 1 and 25. Isha hadn’t considered the key being different than 3. Caesar used 3, so she used 3. But then what could it be? Isha needed a number. She didn’t encounter any number in the clues. “Put the pieces together.” She thought hard.

It was her Birthday. Her Fourteenth birthday. Fourteen. 14. She hurriedly scribbled, shifting the letters of the original message 14 behind:

UNDER YOUR BED

This was it! Thump. Her heart beating wildly in anticipation, Isha ran. She kept a large cardboard box under her bed, which right now was full of old books of her previous school year. Thump. She arranged it a week ago. She pulled the box, and saw another identical box sitting behind it, which wasn’t there before. THUMP. She opened the flaps. From the corner of her eyes on the covers of a dozen or more books, she could read: “Agatha Christie.., Arthur Canon Doyle.., Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes..”. THUMP! And a white card neatly tucked:

To my good detective, Happy Birthday You earned it ;) THE END.