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The mogul looked across the desk at the young writer named Esmerelda. She had been recommended to him as magically creative. “Do you think you can devise a murder mystery that can’t be solved?”
“If it can’t be solved, what is the point?” she asked.
“The point is that I will offer a ten thousand dollar prize to the reader who solves the mystery. That should sell millions of books, and I won’t have to pay the prize.”
“I’ve heard you are a super entrepreneur, “she said.
“That’s why I’m rich,” he said.
She chuckled. “I can’t write such a story,” she said. “But I know of one. It is a rare book, published in 1888. It is called, Don’t Sleep With Me.”
“Is it an unsolvable murder?”
Her blue eyes twinkled. “You will have to be the judge of that.”
A week later, the mogul settled back in his comfortable leather chair and began to read. The book was in good condition for its age. On each page, the text was outlined in a frame of flowers and vines. Since it was a private printing and the author was obviously deceased, he had no qualms about reprinting it--should the story serve his purpose.
He read for thirty minutes. The book was incredibly boring. It was about a female con artist in the 1880’s. She was an exceptional beauty who traveled the countryside selling a Magic Elixir to the farmers. The potion came with a booklet of folk remedies, but she wouldn’t sell her last copy. She promised to return with a copy for the farmer. Moreover, she said she would mix-up a cure for whatever ailed him.
The attention of a pretty woman sold the booklet by the gross. The con was the booklet cost $3 in advance.
While waiting for the mystery of an unsolvable murder, the mogul became weary. He was not aware that he dozed off. Ten minutes later, he felt a tickle on his neck. He scratched it and felt something sticky. He stirred awake. In the next instant, his eyes popped as big as walnuts, and he gasped in horror.
Six vines had crawled from the book and inched up his chest. They were in the throes of twisting around his throat. He lurched back in the chair and knocked the book to the floor. Almost at once, the vines slithered like snakes back into the book.
When he collected his wits, he summoned Esmeralda.
“This is the most dangerous book ever written,” he gasped.
She smiled and her eyes sparkled. “Only if you don’t obey the title.”
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