Tale Of The Four Spiders

About the Book

The sheriff of Boone County, North Carolina, Bobby McClure and his wife Ann are celebrating their silver wedding anniversary with a vacation in England and Scotland. After their arrival in London, Ann volunteers to be a medium for the world renown illusionist and hypnotist Senor Fontini who is performing in an after-dinner show at their hotel. While watching the show, which includes a demonstration of memory erasing, Bobby McClure is reminded of an incident that took place ten years earlier when two of his deputies were seriously injured by four speeding motorcyclists. Senor Fontini and his wife join the McClures at their table later in the evening. Egged on by Mrs. ‘Fontini’s’ curiosity, Bobby McClure reviews the incident, which ended in suspicious but unexplainable circumstances, as the four motorcycle-riders were found dead three days later in the jumble beneath a bluff high up on a nearby mountain. An investigation by a grand jury failed to establish the circumstances under which the motorcyclists had died. Under the influence of the day’s impressions, Bobby McClure offers his listeners a hypothesis of what happened, incorporating memory erasing on a hiking party that had visited the bluff on the day of the incident, and whom he now thinks were responsible for the deaths of the motorcyclists. From his description it is obvious that he suspects that the Fontinis were present at the scene and did the memory erasing. The Fontinis listens gracefully to his hypothesis, but show no inclinations of admitting that they had been involved in any way. Ann, believing that her husband is out of order, finally persuades him to stop his insinuation. On their flight home, Ann returns to the case, first mildly criticizing Bobby for his breach of etiquette against the Fontinis. Bobby, however, doggedly continues to defend his hypothesis as not only the best, but as the only possible scenario that can explain the demise of the motorcyclists. In the end they come to terms, not only on what must have taken place, but also on the motivations that drove the various parties, and why it would have to remain ‘the perfect crime.’

About the Author

Kjeld Lopdrup was born and raised in Denmark. He received his M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Denmark (DTH) in 1952. Mr. Lopdrup became an American Citizen in 1963 and was employed for thirty-seven years by E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. He is married to Gunild Lopdrup and they have two children, Kim and Eva. Mr. Lopdrup has previously published ‘The Grandparents’ Storybook, Volume 1’ and ‘The Grandparents’ Storybook, Volume 2.’