//------------------------------// // Beyond The Crime Scene // Story: The Misdemeanor Private Detective Agency // by Myriad of Failure //------------------------------// Inevitably, we retreated back to the office to compare notes. In the harsh light of day, the house looked even more run-down. The rays of the Sun glared into the cracks and chips of paint, illuminating every flaw and imperfection. At least at night you could pretend it was haunted by the ghosts of neglect. Now it just looked sad and diminished, like a forgotten pot of stew, left to boil dry. Once inside, I removed my sunglasses - it was easily dark enough not to need them - and even if it had been a bit bright, I really didn't want to see the full extent of the mess. Rubbish and other unidentifiable objects were crumpled beneath my hooves as I shuffled towards the coffee and mugs. The kitchen was in an equally atrocious mess, and had become too unhygienic even for the cockroaches. With that in mind, I boiled the water thoroughly before tipping the scalding liquid onto the instant coffee granules. A teaspoon of sugar for Conundrum, and a plain black coffee for me. Taking the mugs in the hooked thumbs of my wings, I waded back through to the office. My boss had managed to pull out our pin board into the middle of the room, and was adding what precious little information we knew. Leaving the coffees on a desk, I came over to observe the display. Having never investigated a murder before (though maybe Conny had, and chose not to tell me), I had very little idea of how to go about this. String had been pinned between the suspects, each of which had been constructed from a cartoon drawing coloured in with crayons, with the relationships between the ponies tied to each section of string. A timeline had been also jotted out and stuck up. Photographs of the crime scene gathered in one corner of the board, taken on our first day of investigating. Possibly, if we had known it, the murder weapon would have been pinned up too. As an awkward compromise, the unusual blood trail had been photographed and joined its fellow images. "So, young Nocturne, what did you find out?" Conundrum asked, as he levitated out another piece of string. "Not much - just that both Good Conduct and Featherlight were in the kitchen when Gently Articulate was stabbed." I sighed and took a swig of liquid fire. "Both their stories are the same." "Yes... she told me that..." He took out a quill and noted it onto our timeline. "Would you draw out Perfect Eloquence's mare-friend?" Dutifully, I snatched a crumpled sheet of paper, gripped a pen in my mouth, and drew out the vague outline of a pegasus. With this complete, I rooted around for the crayons - which had been scattered around the room - and filled in the outline with yellow and brown. Conundrum took this and placed it beside the sketch of Perfect, connecting them via string. Moving up to the board, I made a length of string link Dust Trail and Bold Enterprise, labelling it with ex-employee and ex-employer. Noticing my hoof-work, the unicorn settled onto his haunches to view the whole picture. "I also found something else," he explained slowly, levitating over his own mug, but not taking a sip, "I went back to Articulate's office and tried to open that draw - the one with all of his work in - and managed to unlock it." We both smiled gleefully at this; Conundrum due to professional pride; myself delighted to hear that the old stallion still knew a few tricks of the trade. "And while I have no idea where this key is, I did find several documents concerning the illegitimacy of The Exclusive Collection." "How bad?" "Several thousand bits in stolen art," his smile turned sly as he looked at me, "I managed to stuff them back in before the other detectives saw me." "I bet the widow didn't want us to find them," I mused, "when she said she didn't know where the key was - she was hiding the evidence." "Now you cannot blame a fine mare for wanting to prevent her late husband's name being tarnished." Conny returned his gaze to the board. "We can accuse her of withholding vital information..." I suggested, raising an eyebrow to my employer. He skilfully ignored me and drank his coffee. "You know, sir - this could be the clue we need..." He took a second before replying, "I say that they shipped over a cursed artefact, which Lady Grace took interest in and had installed in the house. Because of the nature of the curse, it doomed the perpetrator of the crime to a randomly occurring, bloody death, which fell to Articulate. On the night of the party, it decided to take effect, killing the stallion, and leaving his widow suffering from crippling guilt. Leading her to shamefully hide his business practices, and destroy the artefact." "... Actually, that might work..." "Really?" "No," I laughed, adding, "but if it weren't for the fact that curses aren't real, then maybe you'd be right. Without the curse though, the whole plan falls down a bit." "It would explain why no murderer was named, and why nopony can find the murder weapon." "It would explain nothing else." I shook my head. "I don't think we should get hung up on the murder weapon problem - why would the murderer leave it at the scene of the crime? If it had been planned by an employee of The Exclusive Collection, they could easily have found the window to his office, levitated the weapon through the open latch, and disappeared before anypony could know they were there." I blinked for a second, feeling the cogs turn into place in my brain. "... That might be it." "Articulate would have noticed a floating, glowing knife in his study," Conundrum said slowly, as if explaining the problem to a foal, "don't be so ridiculous, Nocturne - nopony would wait to be stabbed." "But he wouldn't have seen it!" I insisted, closing my eyes and recalling the scene when I had been there, "Standing in front of the desk, facing towards the blood spot, you'd have had your tail to the window!" "So it could have been somepony else entirely..." Conny tapped a hoof against his chin, pretending to be deep in thought. After the amount of time he deemed appropriate, he nodded sagely. "The only problem is, who else?" I got up from the floor and began to pace, keeping my eyes fixed on the board. "A worker for The Exclusive Collection, a foreign priest on a quest for vengeance, a competing business pony? There's such huge possibility." Conundrum had started twisting his scarf around his hoof, but other than that, showed no other signs of concern. "We could easily narrow it down - there will be a record of workers, and possibly even a list of all registered art traders." "And Dust Trail might know some thing - though she did leave a couple of years ago..." A wicked glint entered Conundrum's eyes as he shot me a look. We were finally getting into the real investigation. By lunchtime we had managed to discover that The Exclusive Company records were kept at their headquarters at Baltimare, and while there wasn't a complete list of art traders (illegal or otherwise), Conundrum had managed to photograph most of the documents he'd found - even those he hadn't had the chance to read through. With that in mind, it was agreed that one of us would need to go through the documents, and the other would need to travel to Baltimare. Somepony also needed to try and see Dust Trail again. Seeing as I had already met Dust Trail, it would probably be best for me to see her first. Conundrum, being the boss of this agency, decided that he should get to travel to Baltimare to make sure the documents were searched properly (I suspected that he wanted a bit of a holiday as well), I also didn't have the money to afford a train ticket, and still needed to piece together my rent money by tomorrow evening. Conundrum had refused to let me travel to a different city to avoid this. Even if I did leave, it would probably just mean that all my stuff would have been thrown into the street to collect on my return - minus whatever furniture passers-by had taken a fancy to. With this deadline over my head, and Conny making his own merry way to the train station, I hurried off in search of Dust Trail. If we found anything of use, we'd have to send letters to each other. Slow, but with no other option, it was how we were going to have to work. In reality, I knew it was unlikely that I'd ever get the money together in time - I just hadn't had time to start thinking about that possibility. With the police continuing to occupy the manor, I had to let myself in through a window (specifically the one I had been through this morning) to find Perfect Eloquence. Stepping onto the wooden desk, I looked around the room, wondering if I'd missed the mare between the blue camouflage of carpet, chairs and bed. Nope; no Perfect Eloquence. Funny - she hadn't left the room since the murder, so what had caused this sudden venture? Clearly, this called for a stealth mission. Crouching down on my hooves, I pretended to be a little filly again. A leap from the desk, a barrel roll to the door, a quick wing flick in the latch, and I was out into the hall. Here, I sidled up to the wall and snook through the house. Obviously, in the midday sunshine with a midnight blue coat, I was probably the most noticeable thing in the whole manor - but that wasn't the point! The trick is to act as if you know exactly what you're doing, and then nopony can question why you're playing ninja. Or at least, that was the theory behind it... Theories never work in practice. Just as I was cartwheeling down a corridor, my hoof struck around a corner, impacting with something soft and surprised. Unable to stop my trajectory, I rolled into what I could only assume was a pony. Ignoring the squeals and protests, I let myself go with the momentum. Sadly, the fun was stopped by a dull, sturdy wall. Opening my eyes (with had been closed to avoid flailing limbs), I could observe the ceiling, a pair of hind-legs, and a short white mane. Beneath me, a mare was lying dazed. Taking advantage of this, I rolled over and pinned the mare's shoulders to the floor. Not that I really needed to - it wasn't like she'd even started trying to get up. I bent down close to her face, noticing for the first time who it was - Corduroy's icy assistant. "What's your name?" I hissed, keeping my voice low. Luckily her eyes were still, or else she'd have instantly recognised my slitted pupils. "F-frost Spark!" She squeaked back, scrunching her eyes up tighter. "Please don't kill me!" "What are you doing here?" "I-investig-gating the m-murder!" Frost Spark whimpered. "Just don't kill me - please - I'll do anything!" "And why would I kill you?" I drew out the sentence, keeping my voice in the realms of gender-ambiguity. "Y-you're the m-murderer, aren't you? You k-killed Gently Art-ticulate!" She turned her teal head to the side, resting a cheek against the wooden floor. "I st-tumbled into you, and n-now you've got to k-kill me!" I took a second to consider where I was going with this. To be honest, I hadn't really had a plan until now, but for some reason it seemed important that I think of one. It was only a matter of time before she bothered to open her eyes. "I'll be a g-good mare from now on!" the officer wailed, taking advantage of my silence, "I'll be n-nice to Quick Spell - and I'll give t-to charity - and I'll stop stealing c-cookies from my n-nephew!" "Why in Equestria do you think a murderer would want you to be a nicer pony and live a better life?" I asked before I could think about what I was saying. "And you're an evil pony if you steal cookies from foals." Her skinny frame shifted underneath my hooves. "I know! I'm such a horrible mare!" Her fore-hooves covered her eyes as she wailed hysterically. "I only took this job to laugh at other ponies' misfortune!" "Okay..." I had dropped the threatening voice - it didn't seem worth it. "I'll just be leaving you now... good luck with the whole being evil problem..." With that I released her faster than an apple farmer drop-kicking a pear, and bounded down the rest of the corridor. Opening my wings, I glided around the corner and froze. Freeing is never a good idea when you're several feet off the ground, and I was left to fall those few feet and skid across the floor. To be more specific, it was my wings that were frozen. Literally. Looking over my shoulder, I saw the pair of leathery wings encased in ice blocks. Frost Spark, the unicorn, clearly needed to think of some more imaginative types of magic. Suddenly, realising that there was an actual problem now, I jumped to my feet and ran down the hall. Where to hide, where to hide? Annoyingly, this entire hall had either statues on one side, or full windows on the other. No doors, no cupboards, no closets - but there were curtains. A split-second to go, and I threw my self behind a navy curtain. I couldn't move my icy wings, and instead had to hope that they weren't on display. Or, if they were, that they were the same colour as the curtains. Heart pounding in excitement, I blocked it out in favour for the sound of galloping hooves. "Oh, come on!" I heard her exclaim. "Damn spell must have missed!" Smiling to myself, the sound of her hooves retreating filled the corridor. She hadn't seen me. Nevertheless, my smile soon faded when I remembered that my wings were encased in ice. Looking back, a few solitary water droplets ran down their surface, but otherwise no serious thawing was taking place. That was going to make leaving this place a bit harder than I had hoped. The ice nearest my body was starting to disintegrate, so I was able to move the bulk of the wing. However, with the weight of the ice, I couldn't hold them up any more - so I left them to drag on the floor. Unlike pegasi wings, bat ponies tend to have a larger wingspan, and a harder time folding their wings up neatly - so wings would often drag on the floor. In a cave, this was far less problematic; you would either be hanging from the ceiling with them wrapped around you, or you'd be flying. In rare circumstances, when ponies become too old to do these things, wings double up as an extra set of legs to help you walk. Incidentally, I could do none of these thing, so left them to make scratches in the fine parquet flooring as they dragged behind me. Trotting along like this, I decided to ignore the problem for the time being - at least until I'd found Perfect Eloquence. Maybe she knew a good thawing spell - or where I could find a fire. Fires were usually in short supply in the middle of Summer; normally, ice was too. A staircase later (one in the opposite direction to the way Frost Spark went) and I was wandering around the ground floor, trying to avoid more of the police. I had the vague idea that Perfect would be down here, or somepony who knew where she was. By this time, I'd nearly forgotten why I'd wanted her in the first place. It was then that I heard her voice, snapping angrily at somepony. The noise came from the reception room we'd first met Lady Grace in. The entrance was incredibly exposed, so I was left to jump between curtains when I thought the coast was clear. Once I was close enough to hear the entirety of the conversation, I held my position, tucking my wings in as close as I could bear. "We ask that you come quietly, Miss Eloquence." "There is no reason for me to - I'm not guilty - there's nothing else you can ask me!" The sound of stomping hooves filled the room, but the voice of Classic Corduroy cut through the bustle, "Officer Glass, please escort Miss Eloquence to the cart." More thunking followed this statement, instead being broken by the wailing of a certain mare. "I've been attacked!" "What do you mean, Offi-" "I was going up to Eloquence's room and was attacked! I think it was the murderer!" Voices suddenly blossomed through the room, sparking and igniting. She must have forgotten that Eloquence was their murderer. Orders were given, and several ponies ran out of the room, ready to search the house. At the end of the streaming hooves, I could just make out the slam of the door and a click of a lock. Certain that everypony had left, I exited my curtain and stole across to the door. Testing it, I found it locked. Without the hooked thumb of my wing, I wasn't able to unlock it. Placing my lips to the keyhole, I hissed, "Perfect Eloquence - are you in there?" "Who's there?" Her voice replied boldly with nopony to supervise her. "Is that you, Dusty?" She asked again, her voice dropping as she came closer to the keyhole. "No - it's Nocturne. I was hoping you might know where I could find Dust Trail." "Oh," her excitement faded, not even trying to disguise her disappointment, "I think she's staying at a hotel for now. Are you going to help me out?" "Er - no - they locked the door, and my wings have been turned into ice-cubes." "Oh... wait - ice-cubes?" "I'll tell you the story later." I glanced around before pressing my muzzle to the keyhole again. "Which hotel is she in - I need to ask her some questions." "I think it's called The Salt Block - she said it was cheap and run-down and served good hay fries. She doesn't really want visitors." "Thanks! I'm sure she'll love to see me again." I hissed sarcastically and dashed off, already hearing hooves coming down the hall. Confidently, I opened the front door, walking straight out into the sunshine. Finally there was a small congregation of clouds in the sky, along with the multi-coloured blurs of pegasi. If we were lucky, we could be in for a spot of rain. Two police-colts stood on either side of the door, different stallions to the ones who had thrown us out earlier today. I could feel their eyes on me, but neither said a word and merely watched me stalk down the front path to the gate. Under the Sun, the ice was already starting to become less solid - not that this stopped my wings from scattering the gravel path. Once out of the gate, I set off for the opposite side of Canterlot. From what I could remember from my time in the Guard, The Salt Block was a seedy little pub with a few rickety rooms above the bar. It had cheap prices, but you could never be entirely sure about what was in your drink. We only went there when we were extremely broke. So - you know - most of the time. It was a long walk between the two, but I figured it would give my wings time to thaw out. If they didn't, and I ended up being attacked in that run-down place, I could always resort to clubbing somepony with them. The façade of The Salt Block was no better than it had been when I used to frequent it; with over half of the letters missing, a board over several smashed panes of glass, and the sign of a hoof holding a mug of cider had been turned upside-down. Now it looked like the drink was being poured out rather than being drunk - probably the safer option. I pushed open the door with a wing, trying to re-establish feeling with its icy prison having surrendered to the Sun. Both wings were unsurprisingly numb, wet, and stiff. The door creaked; one of the hinges had rusted and broken. Only a select few were sat inside at this time of day, accompanied by the barmare - an ageing, grey-maned matriarch who used to be stunning (about fifty years ago). She pursed her lips at me, looking like she'd sooner tell me that I had forgotten to wipe my hooves on the non-existent mat, rather than serve me a drink. A rustle of murmurs ran through the pub as I walked in. "Is there somepony called Dust Trail staying here?" I asked once I got up to the counter, not dwelling on the dirty looks the patrons were giving me. "Might be," the barmare croaked, "why d'you want to know?" "Is she here or not?" I insisted, leaning a hoof on her counter top, "All you have to say is yes or no." "And all you have to do is tell me why you want her." We glared at each other. I was waiting for her to blink so that I could win the staring contest, but she was probably waiting for me to grace her with an answer. She could never have won the staring contest - I was still wearing sunglasses, so she could never know that I was taking extra sneaky blinks. She would also never get a reply; I had already guessed that Dust Trail was here - why be so reluctant to tell me, otherwise? A stool scraped behind me as a pony got up. Their hooves came over to the bar, slowly and deliberately. Then a hoof rested on my shoulder. Clearly our contest would have to be postponed. "And what makes you think you can go around demanding to see ponies?" A small smile teased my lips - a Canterlot thug. With refined accents, a high class of victim, and a habit of apologising after robbing you; the Canterlot thugs were a force to be reckoned with. If you were a frightened puppy, that is. Well, no - you'd be fine if you were a puppy - then you would be cute enough to be adopted into their ranks to grow into an adorable attack dog. "I need to talk to her." I turned around to face the stallion. He was, as is required, large, with a square jaw and a well groomed forest of stubble, in an attractive shade of magnolia. "I know she's here." "Well, maybe she doesn't want to talk to you." "I like to think she doesn't have much of a choice." Now it was time to have a staring contest with this stallion, whose eyes bulged like over-ripe peaches. His mouth curled into a crescent, making him look more disappointed than threatening. "You're her fancy lover, aren't you? She said she didn't want to see you if you came." "What? No!" I shook my head, trying to enforce the point, "I'm investigating a murder." "Oh - pardon me!" He removed his hoof, dusting off my shoulder where it had rested, "Sure - go and investigate your murder." I smiled in thanks and wandered over to the stairs. "She's in room 3!" He called after me, "It's just on your left - can't miss it!" "Thanks!" I called back - it always served to be polite to your local thugs. If I'd had the money, I might even have bought him a drink - possibly - buying somepony a drink from here could be seen as an insult rather than a kindness. Nevertheless, I had more important matters to attend to...