Chapter Three
“The less you reveal, the more people can wonder.”
The numbers loomed in front of me. Whatever was behind this door could unravel this entire mystery, tell me where Miss Pie’s forbidden lover was taken to. Was she really ponynapped, though?
This was the only lead I had, and the door was the only barrier between mystery and truth.
Hesitantly, after minutes of internal debating, I inserted the key and pushed the door open. The first thing I noticed was the abnormal cleanliness of the place.
Somepony REALLY wants to keep their tracks covered.
Curious, I stepped into the room, hoping to maybe find something that would point me in the right direction. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, though. The wallpaper was kept up extremely well, meaning it must have just recently been fixed.
“That, or the princess couldn’t stand the peeling of the walls and had to take matters into her own hands,” I muttered, focusing my attention on the room’s only bed.
It rested perfectly in the center of the wall, with only an end table beside it. Unlike most of the furniture I had seen while walking to the room, the bed looked new, as did everything else in the room. It certainly didn’t surprise me, though; if I were a princess rooming in a shady inn, I’d make a few “renovations” to the room myself.
As I was glancing over the contents of the room, there came a knock at the door. I looked up and let out a small sigh of relief upon seeing that it was only Lemonheart.
“So sorry to protrude. I was simply checking in to see how you’re accommodat- Oh my, what in Celestia’s name happened in here?”
He hobbled into the room, a look of astonishment on his face. Clearly, he hadn’t checked the place since “Miss Webster” had departed. I wasn’t surprised; by the state that the rest of the building was, he rarely checked on anything. His head moved slowly from wall to wall, eyes wide and mouth gaping; he was taken aback by the state of the room, that was a definite.
“So,” I asked him, “you know nothing of what happened in here?”
He looked at me, still shocked. His mouth moved as if to form words, but nothing came. He simply stood there, gawking at me. Finally, after a few minutes of struggle, he closed his eyes and shook his head. “N-nothing,” he stuttered. “Last I knew, this room looked very similar to every other room in the inn. All of this is entirely new to me.”
“Figures,” I muttered. It was a disappointment to witness. The inn-keeper couldn’t even keep track of who went in and out of the place, let alone check the rooms whenever somepony left.
“I’ll just be going then,” Lemonheart said in a soft voice. He backed out of the room slowly, looking at me as he did so as if expecting me to ask him something else. Upon seeing that I wasn’t going to speak, he turned to shut the door when I stopped him.
“One moment,” I called.
His cheery voice responded to me with a simple, “Yes?”
“What do you know about D. Webster?”
“And that’s all you know?” I asked, looking at the inn-keeper from behind a journal.
He nodded swiftly, a look of placid honesty upon his face. The information he had on this “Webster” character was very little and vague. From what he had seen of her, she was wearing a black cloak, which covered up most of her figure, making it to where he could barely tell what color her coat was. She also barely spoke to him, and when she did, it was short and quick. Other than that, he knew nothing about her, apart from the fact that “D. Webster” was a cover name.
“Well,” I said, closing the notepad, “that’s all that I’m going to need from you. Thank you for the cooperation Mr. Lemonheart. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to head to my room for the night.”
I stood and headed in the direction of the hall, leaving the stout stallion to his own vices.
Why in Celestia’s name would the princess come all the way down to this rugged inn alone? More so, why come undercover?
It had been hours since I arrived back in the room. Sleep eluded me, my mind constantly racing with questions about Miss Sparkle’s whereabouts. The one thing that stumped me the most was that she was seen here just recently, or at least, that’s what I got out of Lyra and Lemonheart.
“It just doesn’t make SENSE,” I exclaimed, kicking the end table out of frustration. It wobbled slightly. Unsatisfied with the outcome, I knocked it over with some magic. It landed with a soft thud, a small cloud of dust kicking up from beneath it.
But Dash said that they had known about Sparkle’s disappearance for weeks, so...who’s telling the truth here?
“Pacing isn’t going to help, you know.”
The voice startled me, causing me to jump slightly. I didn’t hear the door open, nor did I hear somepony walking down the halls. In a flash of light, the bystander appeared in front of me, a small grin on her face.
“Hiya there V. Long time no see.”
Miss Shy: one of the quietest ponies I had ever met. We had been acquainted before my detective days began, back when she was head of the MPD. She ended up stepping down from the position at some point, saying that she had finally had enough of the stress. From then, she went off the grid, working with freelancers and private eyes here and there as an on/off cop. She and I were still fairly good friends at the time, and she had offered her services to me more than once. Of course, it was only natural for her to take the position of the “bad cop” -- it was in her DNA. Most ponies knew who she was; they knew the name, the mane, the innocent smile, they knew it all. More often than not, she was referred as “the quiet bitch who wouldn’t hesitate to hurt you”. And they were right, she wasn’t the nice, innocent pony that most made her out to be.
“What are you doing here?” I questioned, still shaken by the sudden presence of another in the room.
“Hello to you too,” she sarcastically scoffed. “Anyway, I’m here for the same reason you are: to find this Twilight figure. Saw your name on the sign-in sheet and figured I’d pop in to see if I could be of any assistance. That, and you never really could solve a case on your own; you’re too soft.”
“Well aren’t you a funny one as of late. Look, I don’t know how you found out I was here or how you even caught word about the case, but I don’t need your help on this one.”
She raised an eyebrow in response, shrugged, and said, “Alright, if that’s how it’s going to be, then I’ll be at Carousel Bootyque if you need any further leads.” With that said, she walked out the room and into the hallway.
“Oh,” she said, peeking back into the room, “and I know you need my help. You should stop being a stuck-up lesbian and accept it.”
Before I could say anything in response, she disappeared. She wasn’t wrong, though, I needed her help. I was always the soft one when it came to solving cases, usually letting any suspects or witnesses go without a scratch. Maybe I was just a “stuck-up lesbian” as she put it, but regardless, I didn’t want her help; at least, that’s what I kept telling myself.
I looked back at the overturned end table and sighed. With a quick thought, the wood case floated back into place. I looked over it to see if anything had happened to it, and minus a few scratches, nothing was broken. Besides, this place was a dump, what difference would it make if I wrecked it?
Chuckling at the idea, I threw myself onto the bed and looked up at the ceiling. This Twilight character wasn’t going to be easy to find. She seemed to be one step ahead with every move I made, and I didn’t like it; I was one who enjoyed having control over the outcome, even if it meant pulling a few strings here and there.