Hello, I'm Merlock Comes and I'm here to tell you one of the most amazing mysteries I've ever solved. It was the stormiest night of the month and I was in my office, sitting on my red leather chair, puffing smoke through a pipe, reading the funnies when suddenly there was the loudest noise I have ever heard. Almost like a gunshot. No, louder than a gunshot. The noise shot a trembling shiver down my spine and all through my body.
The reaction was almost immediate. I sprang straight up in the air about a foot. My pipe left my mouth as I was in the air. I landed face first on the velvet carpet. I felt okay. I stood up and looked outside. There was a bright gold light on the courthouse. Then the word came to me - FIRE! The corner of the courthouse was on fire.
At first I thought it must have been lightning until I saw the car. It was parked in front of the courthouse until suddenly it careened out of its place making a screeching sound as it left. I only got a glimpse of it for a split second but as it drove away I could see that the trunk was filled with one gallon tanks. Just filled with them! There must have been at least forty of them. In two seconds the car was gone. I knew that the fire engines would be here any second, so I decided to sleep on the case.
By morning there were still two fire engines and three police cars. I knew I couldn't just leave the case up to those overweight donut-loving policemen to try to figure out. I would need to solve it on my own.
The only clues I had were the loud boom and the car with the tanks. I began to walk down the street in the direction that the car went and that's where I got the other clue. One of the tanks. Because the trunk was so full, one of the tanks fell out. It was red and in the middle of the street. I walked over to it and read the label. It read, "One gallon of gasoline." That's when I started brainstorming. What would somebody do with dozens of tanks of gasoline. Then I read the rest of the label, "Caution: do not use too much. May explode in flames." Then I knew it, why the courthouse exploded in flames. Somebody was either drunk or didn't like the courthouse and brought dozens of tanks of gasoline and poured it all in a hole or some kind of large bucket, then they probably used a match and threw it in the container and drove away. But that's just it. Who?
I walked over to the policemen, showed them the tank and told them the story. Then I asked, "So, how are we going to find out who it was?" Then the police chief said, "Well, if you're telling the truth then all we need to do is get some of the fingerprints off the tank and find the guy." And that's just what they did.
So, yesterday when I was about to read the funnies, I looked on the front page and read, "Drunk man arrested for setting fire to the courthouse. Thanks to Merlock Comes, the man who committed the crime is now behind bars." So that's my story of how I became a famous detective and a hero.
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