The Mappleshire Mysteries

 

🕰️ The Mapleshire Mysteries

Episode Two – Stranger in a Yellow Coat

By Elijah Cornagie

The Story

The rain had not stopped for three days in Mapleshire. It fell in soft, mournful sheets, washing the cobblestones of Main Street until they gleamed like black mirrors. From her window at the Rose & Thistle Tea Room, Mrs. Agatha Merton stirred her tea with deliberate precision, her eyes fixed on the woman outside — the one in the bright yellow coat.

“She’s been there for hours,” Agatha murmured. “Just… standing.”

Across from her, Inspector Colin Braddock glanced up from his newspaper. “Standing where exactly?”

“By the old apothecary. Same place where poor Mr. Bellamy was found last week.”

Braddock folded the paper neatly, the way a man does before bad news. “And you’re certain it’s the same woman?”

“Oh yes,” said Agatha. “Hard to miss a coat like that.”

I. The Stranger Returns

By the time Braddock stepped out into the rain, the woman was gone. Only a faint outline of boots in the puddles marked her passing — and a curious smell of lavender.

Later that evening, at Mapleshire Station, a train arrived carrying Clara Denholm, a journalist from London. She had come to cover the string of “mysterious misfortunes” that had plagued the town: first the fall of Mr. Bellamy from the clocktower, then Mrs. Hargreaves’ disappearance from her boarding house, and most recently, the fire at Holloway’s old clock shop.

All three scenes shared one detail: a witness swore to seeing a woman in a yellow coat.

“Coincidence?” Clara asked, notebook in hand.

“Mapleshire doesn’t believe in coincidences,” Braddock replied.

II. Tea and Theories

The next morning, the tea room was crowded. Mrs. Merton, Clara, and Braddock sat together as Father Dunley, the parish priest, joined them, removing his dripping hat.

“She came to the church last night,” he said quietly. “Lit a candle for the dead — all three of them.”

Agatha’s spoon clinked sharply against her cup. “Then she knows something.”

Clara leaned forward. “Did you see her face?”

Father Dunley hesitated. “I thought I did… but when I looked again, she’d vanished. As if the candlelight itself swallowed her.”

III. A Name in the Rain

That evening, Braddock walked the length of Mapleshire’s cemetery, the rain whispering through the trees. He stopped before a gravestone freshly cleaned, a single yellow petal resting atop it.

“Eleanor Marsh – 1899–1925.”

He froze. Eleanor Marsh had perished in a storm twenty years ago — saving three townsfolk from drowning when the river flooded.

Behind him, he heard the soft rustle of fabric — and caught the faint scent of lavender once more.

“Inspector,” said a calm, distant voice, “the dead don’t rest easily in Mapleshire.”

He turned, but there was no one there. Only the glimmer of yellow, fading into the rain.

IV. Epilogue

By morning, the skies cleared. No one saw the woman in the yellow coat again.

Yet, each of the townspeople who had spoken her name found a single yellow petal by their door — and a lingering fragrance of lavender in the air.

Mrs. Merton swore it was a warning.

Inspector Braddock thought it was closure.

Clara Denholm called it “The Ghost of Justice.”

But Mapleshire… Mapleshire simply went on ticking, as if time itself had secrets it refused to share.