And A Merry Christmas To You!

I was given a drawing of a man hanging from the ceiling in the center of his room. The room was empty other than an ax, with nothing for the man to have stepped on to hang himself. The door was firmly locked from the inside by a steel rod system. The big question? What happened? I was given 40 minutes to be creative.

On this bitterly cold Christmas morning, little did Mr. Jenkins know that he would never read the newspaper he had just gone out front to get. As he entered his lonely apartment through the steel door, he turned to close it, and bending to pick up one steel rod, felt a rough jute rope slip over his head. "Where's the money old man? We know you got it stuffed somewhere around this stinkin hole. We are gonna teach you a nice little lesson for messin' with us. We risk everything to get our merchandise from stupid fools like yourself and you made a big mistake taking our profits like you did."

Mr. Jenkins didn't even put up a fight. These circumstances, strangely enough, did not even surprise him. He had known that sooner or later his greed would catch up with him. How long could he hide out like this anyway? Six months he had been successful in keeping a low profile until this last week when his intuition had told him that eyes were following him. What he would do to have taken back that day when he had followed the burglars to their warehouse and watched them operate. What on earth possessed him to grab the money-packed suitcase and run? That one hoodlum's face staring at him in disbelief had been his living nightmare ever since. Here before him stood three completely outfitted Santa Claus', the most menacing one holding a sharp ax up to his eye-bulging face.

The rope from one of the Santa's sack bags was pulled tighter around his neck, and now Mr. Jenkins found it easier to drift into unconsciousness rather than answer any of the questions being mentally pounded out of him. That was the last picture in his mind just before the breath was cut off as the three men climbed the rearranged furniture to reach a steel post in the ceiling and hook the already dead Mr. Jenkins tightly to it. Cutting the rope off at the ceiling, the three Santa's began to rummage through the place.

"Wait! Hey Joe, I say we give our friend, Sergeant Riley down at the police headquarters something queer to unnerve him. That smart ass cop has been on to us lately. I say we really throw him off. What do ya say?" The ugliest of the three wasn't called "Brains" for nothing.

Trip after trip to the truck in the alley, the three worked quickly cleaning out the apartment. When that was done they all thought out a sure way to baffle and make a fool of Riley. One cleaned the fingerprints off the ax and placed it directly under the dead man while the other two thugs got the remaining rope and pulled the other two ropes out of their sack bags. Noosing and tying each rope individually around each rod and threading it through the appropriate holes on the door, they lastly drew each rope through the broken peephole in the door and exited the apartment, closing the door behind them. One at a time each steel rod which were locking devices, were pulled into place. The ropes were pulled off the ends of the bars and out through the peephole and their job was done. The three knew an excitement having accomplished such a fete. The three gathered up their ropes and sacks and off they went with a "Ho Ho Ho".