A Wrong Cup and a Poor Man

创作灵感：我从小就喜欢阅读推理小说。在泛读各种名篇之后，不免产生创作的冲动。借着此次机会，我创作了本文。初中的学习让我英语水平上了一个层次，能写出它来，我自己也有些惊讶，但由于初次尝试，笔法还较为幼稚，文章构思和布局可能还需要改进，人物描写也有些苍白。但我精心准备的核心诡计一定会让人眼前一亮。如果还有机会，我会尽力弥补不足，写得更好。

故事概要：本篇故事是通过“我”的好朋友Perry在一次聚会上的遭遇，向读者展现了一个精心策划的谋杀案，最终通过推理和分析，真相才得以大白，而结果却出人意料......

深圳实验学校中学部初三（五）班 许丁丁 指导老师：汪洪浪

After supper, I walked along the street near my home. Suddenly I found Perry, my old friend, was walking in front of me. His house was far away from here, so why was he here?

I walked more quickly to catch up with him. I patted him on the shoulder and greeted him cheerfully, "Hi，Perry！Long time no see!"Perry turned his head surprisingly and said, "Oh, you frightened me! Long time no see, Arnold!"Then we walked together. Perry seemed to be unhappy but he didn't tell me at first.

After a long time, he stopped walking and said hesitantly, "Arnold, did you read newspaper recently?""Yes." I said, "What do you mean?""A bad thing happened to me."Perry said,"A man called Masson died in a get-together. I was there at that time. The police thought I was the murderer and they caught me. I wasn't bailed out until this afternoon. But I did nothing at all! What bad luck! My boss must be angry with my absence."He shook his head and sighed. Poor Perry，he always had bad luck.

We walked for a few minutes. There was a bar beside the street. Perry stopped and said, "Arnold, I know you are interested in my case. And I really need your help. You are clever, aren't you?"Then he went into the bar and I followed him.

"Last Sunday, I was called by an old colleague, Coffey. He invited me to attend a get-together. I wanted to refuse because I didn't like him at all. But he told me he had invited my old friend, Borrow. I used to work with Borrow when I was young, and he often helped me then. I'd like to meet him, so I accepted Coffey's invitation. 

Then I went to Coffey's house the day before yesterday. There were six people in the house in total. They were Coffey, Borrow, Masson, Harvey and me. We were sitting at a round table. Oh…"Then he took out a piece of paper and drew something on it. After a moment, he passed the paper to me. "We sat around the table like this. Masson was the man who was killed. He and Harry are Coffey's colleagues. I heard Harvey didn't like Masson because his boss wanted to let Masson take his place. Coffey Borrow I (Perry) Masson Harvey."

"Why did he sit near Masson?"

"Oh, let's continue. Then Coffey's servant Ezekiel gave us some juice. These things used to be done by Coffey's wife but she went out that day. Ezekiel was going to give everyone a cup of juice, but Masson and I refused. I don't like sweet things.

After a moment, Coffey complained the juice wasn't sweet enough so he put some sugar cubes into his cup. He also ordered Ezekiel to put some into the rest juice. After that, Borrow wanted another cup of juice. Ezekiel took the juice container between Borrow and me. But just then, he struck the container down carelessly. Borrow had no problem, but some juice spattered on my clothes and my empty cup. I had to wipe it with handkerchief at once. Ezekiel was frightened and Coffey nearly shouted to him. Coffey's temper was always bad. Ezekiel had to make juice again at once, but he made a mistake again, putting the juice into Masson's cup by mistake. Masson and Coffey were both angry. I was sympathized with Ezekiel, so I advised to exchange the cups between Masson and me. Masson used the cup to drink some tea then, and moments later, he died. The police came, and Coffey became crazy. We went to the police station, and the strangest thing happened. They found poison on my handkerchief. The poison was the same as the poison in Masson's cup. They said I put poison in my cup and gave it to Masson. How can that be?" Perry stopped, and drank out his wine glass.

I noted something important down, and then I asked Perry who had motives. "Motives?" said Perry. "I think a lot of people had them. For example, Harvey, Masson always said his bad words to his boss. He is really a bad man."Then I asked some more details about the case. We said goodbye at 9 o'clock.

The next day, I called Myles. He was my classmate when we were in university, but he was policeman now. 

"Hello! This is Myles Kroll," he said.

"Hello! Myles, this is Arnold Frazer."

"Oh！Arnold! How are you?"

"Fine." I said. We talked about some simple things at first, and then I asked him about Masson's case.

"Why are you interested in this case?" he asked. 

"One of your suspects, Perry Merton, is my friend. I believe he is innocent. Can you help me?"

Myles thought for a few minutes and said, "OK, my friend. But you must promise not to say this to anyone. I believe you and your clever brain."

So I went to the police station.

In the police station, Myles told a lot of the case to me. 

"Do you know why your friend is innocent?" Myles smiled.

"Because of Harvey?" I guessed.

"Harvey is innocent, too," Myles said， smiling. "Everyone said that he never touched the cup, except your friend, Perry. He hated Masson, so he didn't like sitting close to Masson. Guess again."

"It must be someone who has motive." I said.

"You are really clever," Myles laughed. "It was Ezekiel. We knew that he and Masson were classmates a long time ago. They were both excellent then, but Masson always hit him because Ezekiel was in a poor family and Masson's family was rich. Masson usually frightened him, too. And he made everyone stay away from Ezekiel, too. Ezekiel was sad, and he lost confidence from that time, and he quit school because of his poor family after one year. It is a good motive，isn't it? And Ezekiel is also the most convenient person to kill Masson."

We talked about some other things then. I didn't tell Myles he had not solved a big problem. Why was poison on Perry's handkerchief?

felt tired so I went to bed early that evening, and I soon fell asleep. I had a bad dream. A robber wanted to kill me. I ran and ran. At last I went to a dark corner. The robber didn't find me and killed the other man who looked like me instead. I suddenly woke up.

Did the murderer kill Masson by mistake?

Yeh, it is possible. The cup was Perry's at first.

Did someone want to kill Perry？And why Perry's handkerchief had poison?

Suddenly I understood. The problem was the juice. Perry used the handkerchief to wipe the cup. So the cup and his handkerchief both had poison, but why did the other person who drank the juice have no problem?

Because of the sugar cubes, I thought. The murderer was Ezekiel? He put the sugar cubes into the juice, but how could he know the juice would spatter on the cup in advance? Or the murderer was the other person？

I thought for a whole night. The whole affair was now out in the open.

The murderer wasn't Ezekiel but Coffey.

At first, he ate the sugar cubes because he wanted to show the cubes had no problem. Then he ordered Ezekiel to put some into the juice because it made him look innocent. But Ezekiel was so careless that he struck the juice down. Coffey became angry because his plan was broken. Masson's death was out of his plan, so he became angered at last.

I called Myles excitedly at once. Perry and Ezekiel were innocent now.

Two days later, Myles called me to congratulate my success.

"Your brain is brighter than before, Arnold. I should call you Arnold Holmes afterwards." We laughed together.

"By the way, do you know the real aim of Coffey?"

"Maybe Borrow?" I guessed.

"Good! Borrow was Coffey's business enemy. He knew Borrow always drank two cups of juice at a time, so he made this plan. To realize this plan, he asked his wife to go out, but Ezekiel broke his plan, and his poison killed his best friend, Masson. They are both bad men, but they are also poor, aren't they?

"I don't think so, Myles." I said, "Because I know the poorest guy in the world. Poor Perry can't go home now because of the reporters and his angry boss. His bad-tempered boss is waiting for him because of his absence. The absence is caused by another's mistake. Anyway, he is in big trouble now."