The False Telegram

The False Telegram

by Austin Mitchell

        Before we had the internet we had to send urgent messages by telegram. We didn’t have email or Skype. I was coming from the post office one day when I met Bally Jasper.

          “Destine begged me to send this telegram for her,” he told me.

          The telegram was sent to a man in Kingston. It said that his son was very ill and he should come quickly.

          I knew that Destine had a son for a man in Kingston.

          “I don’t know of any of her children being sick,” I told him.

          He flung down the telegram.

          “What should I do? She paid me to send it.”

          “Go ahead, but you might get into trouble.”

          But I doubted it, people were sending false telegrams every day.

          Bally left for the post office.

          But the man came and realized that he had been tricked. He gave her money that he owed her for maintenance of the boy. He refused to give her anymore. On his way back to Kingston he was held up and robbed of a substantial amount of money he had on him.

          The police started investigating the source of the telegram and arrested Bally and Destine. It was also realized that the man, Grover Reid had recently won a big amount of money at the Race Track and Destine had heard about it.

          I bailed Bally and told the police what I knew.

          Destine denied that she had set up Grover.

          Grover could not identify the robbers as they had worn masks.

          Three months later Grover telephoned Destine that he had won big at the races and was coming to spend some of the money with her.

          Grover was on his way to Destine’s home when a tree across the dirt track barred his vehicle. Four men jumped out of the bushes and pounced on him. Immediately a police car came on the scene catching three of the men while the other ran away.

          Based on the police’s account, the man who ran away, it was Stan Jackson, Destine’s brother. He soon gave himself up when he realized that he had been recognized. Both Stan and Destine confessed to having set up Grover. I later learnt that Grover was intent on finding out who had robbed him that first time. He suspected Stan and had tipped off the police. The End. Please visit the Austin G Mitchell pages at Amazon for a look at my books.