Twilight Holmes: The Mystery of Basil Bones

by bats

Chapter 5

“Mmm. Yes, I see, most unfortunate.” Basil puffed at his pipe. “I can tell by the stance of your wagon that it is missing a wheel. What’s more, I can surmise based on the state of the wagon itself that your utilization is quite exuberant, yet the other wheels, bearings, and axles are kept in exceptional condition.”

Scootaloo leaned over to Sweetie Belle and asked in a stage whisper, “Is he saying real words?” Sweetie nodded once, paused, then shrugged. Twilight smirked.

Basil stooped, took a long drag before letting out a cloud of smoke, then removed the pipe from his mouth and used the stem to point at one of the wheels. “As you can see, despite the rather copious amount of soil and sod on the treads of the wheels, the fittings are all freshly cleaned and tightened.” He stuck the pipe in the corner of his mouth and straightened. “Therefore, little madams, it is of remote chance that a wheel would fall off due to rigorous use, considering this state. Or rather, were it to happen as a result of such use, it would be excessively unlikely that you would fail to notice it.” He chuckled to himself and waited a beat for a reaction.

Apple Bloom scratched her head. Twilight bit her lip.

“… That is to say, it would have been the result of a crash and you would noti—nevermind, moving along.” He cleared his throat and slipped to the other side of the cart. “Yes, as suspected the threads are immaculate and accounted for. If the wheel came loose by happenstance, it could only happen as a direct effect of a loose bolt, which, as we’ve previously established, is logically improbable when the maintenance standards are taken into account. Are we all following?”

Another moment of silence passed. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom turned to Sweetie Belle. “… Um.” She cleared her throat. “He said that since the wheel thingie isn’t broken, it had to have fallen off because something was loose, but that you keep the wheels in too good of shape for …” She looked at Twilight for a second, searching for confirmation. Twilight smiled and gave a tiny nod of reassurance. “… For it to have happened just from not paying attention?”

“Oh.” Scootaloo rubbed her forehead. “Duh.”

Apple Bloom huffed. “Ya sure ya didn’t forget to give it a good look sometime in the last couple’a days? Might’a gotten loose ‘n nopony noticed.”

“Yeah, AB, I’m sure.”

“It ain’t your fault if that happened, we’re all supposed to be takin’ care of our stuff.”

She frowned and crossed her forelegs over her chest. “I’m sure. I don’t check the wheels because I have to, I do it because it goes way faster if I do. Also working on that stuff’s fun.”

Twilight’s smirk fell as she listened to the bickering, and she brought her eyebrows together. While Basil’s argument might in fact have been ‘duh’ as far as Scootaloo was concerned, it wasn’t unremarkable. She couldn’t discount the possibility that Basil had overheard the fillies’ conversation about their missing wheel before he showed up, but that seemed unlikely. She had seen his approach, which would be difficult to hide in the part of Ponyville Rarity lived in, and the fillies had been badgering her about personal problems at the time. No, it made more sense that he genuinely figured everything out through observation. For that to be true, it meant he had a great amount of skill, but that itself didn’t make any sense.

Scootaloo huffed and turned back towards the wagon. “Okay, so, what’s the point? The wheel fell off for no reason, we already knew that.”

“Ah, but clearly there was a reason, young madam. Everything has a reason, whether apparent or obfuscated by factors not immediately discernible.”

Scootaloo glanced at Sweetie. Sweetie swallowed and glanced at Twilight. Twilight smiled and shook her head. “They’re fillies, Basil.”

“Hmn?” He raised an eyebrow, and regarded Twilight for a half second before his eyes widened. “Oh, uh, miss … Twilight, I believe? I failed to notice …” He coughed and turned so his back faced the tree. “Your, uh, paramour isn’t present currently, is she?”

Twilight stared at him. So much for him being observant.

He looked fitfully around the barren path and the few tent homes dotting the outskirts of town. “A-ah, we seem to be … ahem, nevermind, moving along.” He straightened and puffed his pipe back to a steady curl of smoke. “I take it my choice of vocabulary can prove challenging. To rephrase, everything has a reason, little madams, whether you can see that reason at a glance or it’s hidden by events or circumstances that aren’t yet obvious without investigation.”

“Okay,” Apple Bloom said. “So why’d the wheel fall off?”

“Ah, but it’s clear the wheel didn’t fall off.” He gestured with a flourish. “When factoring in the state of upkeep and the lack of climactic stressor events, we are left with only one rational possibility.” He grinned. “The wheel was intentionally removed.”

Apple Bloom gave Scootaloo a piercing look. “You said you let it alone.”

“Me?! I didn’t touch the stupid wheel!”

“If somepony’s gonna be yankin’ wheels off the dang wagon, it’d be you, Scoots.”

“Well, I didn’t!” She stuck out her lip and turned to Sweetie Belle. “You believe me, right?”

Sweetie blinked. “Y … yes?”

“See?”

“Well, course she believes you, she’s always takin’ your side.”

“Oh, c’mon!” Sweetie glared. “Scoots always keeps that stuff working, she does it so well Mister Basil knew she did just by looking. If she says she didn’t take the wheel off, she didn’t take the wheel off. It’s not like she bumped her head yesterday or something.”

“Yeah! I mean, I did bump my head, that ramp was really steep, but still!”

“Not helping,” Sweetie grumbled.

“Um, little madams, what I mean is … that is to say …” Basil adjusted his glasses and sighed. Twilight chuckled.

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I’m just sayin’. If we’re goin’ with somepony takin’ the wheel off, who else’d do it? But fine, I ain’t tryin’ to say you’re lyin’, Scoots, I believe you.” Scootaloo straightened up again and nodded. Apple Bloom rubbed her chin. “So if you didn’t take it off, and I didn’t, ‘cause I promise I didn’t, did you take it off, Sweetie?”

Sweetie raised her eyebrows. “Me? Why would I do it?”

Scootaloo took in a breath, but Apple Bloom raised a hoof in a relent, cutting her off. “I ain’t accusin’ you of nothin’. Just askin’.”

“No. I … wouldn’t know how, even if I wanted to.” She looked sidelong at Scootaloo, her cheeks coloring. Scootaloo smiled and pretended not to notice.

“That’s what I was gettin’ at in the first place, none of us took it off.” She turned back to Basil. “So it can’t be that, Mister Basil.”

Basil had taken to staring deeply at his pipe and jumped where he stood when he heard his name. He coughed. “Oh, but you see, if we oblige to take your answers at face value, the only perpetrators who have been ruled out are the three of you. Somepony else who had access could very well have purloined the wheel.”

“Pur …” Apple Bloom looked to Twilight.

“It means stolen.”

“Oh. Stolen?” She exchanged a quizzical look with her friends for a moment. “Why the heck would somepony steal a wagon wheel? That don’t make more sense.”

Basil shrugged. “Surely theft, even seemingly inconsequential thefts, can occur with occasional frequency.”

“Not in Ponyville,” Sweetie said.

“Oh, but everypony thinks their town is above such things, but it still—”

Scootaloo rubbed the side of her head. “But everypony in town knows each other, you’d know who stole what in, like, a day.”

Apple Bloom frowned. “There was that time Rainbow Dash took that book from the hospital.”

“Yeah, which everypony found out about in, like, a day. Plus she was acting really weird about everything when that happened.”

“I’m just sayin’ it ain’t crazy to think somepony might steal somethin’ from somepony else here.”

Basil nodded. “Precisely, it’s—”

“It’s just dumb.” She gave him a flat look.

“Yeah,” Scootaloo agreed. “It is dumb.” Basil scoffed and nearly dropped his pipe. She turned to Sweetie Belle. “Maybe your sister took it off? I know she hates dirty things, maybe it was muddy or something and she wanted to clean it.”

“I don’t think so, even if that might happen, why would she only take off one?”

Basil cleared his throat. “Now, young madams, there is the possibility of—”

Scootaloo turned to Apple Bloom and talked over him. “Any chance your sister borrowed it? Maybe a wheel on her wagon broke and she forgot to tell you. I wouldn’t blame her, if she needed it to get her work done.”

“Nah, they got different sized wheels. I still think it’s gonna be in your yard.” She grabbed the handle to the wagon and led it away from the tree. “Might not’a fallen off, but maybe somepony took it off to look at somethin’ and dropped it? Let’s go check.”

“Ugh, fine, and if you’re right, I promise I’ll mow the grass.” Scootaloo took her scooter and followed after. Sweetie Belle offered Basil and Twilight strained smiles, then hurried to keep up with her friends.

“If it ain’t there, I’ll mow it.” The three went around a tent and disappeared towards the center of town.

Basil sighed and puffed at his pipe. “Ah, the … exuberance of youth.” He cleared his throat and looked at Twilight from the corner of his eye. “I take your continued presence signifies a desire to speak to me.”

“Um …”

“Before you do, I feel it’s worth stating that upon further reflection, taking into account the nature of pegasus metabolic rates and your paramour’s … physicality and aggressive nature, my suppositions surrounding your evenings may have been … flawed.” She saw his jaw flex, and he straightened with his muzzle held up. “There was no intention of offense. And while a detective makes no apologies for following the evidence or presenting accusations where such evidence leads, perhaps in this instance … internal and external factors …” he trailed off to mumbles.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. She stood up and turned to face him straight on. “That’s not much of an apology.”

“… I am unaccustomed …” He straightened his glasses and busied his attention with his pipe, refilling the bowl. “Taking into account your lack of involvement in manners pressing to me, it could be a, ah, wise consideration, and coupled with what I can surmise of your character, it is possibly a necessary consideration as well.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “You must forgive me for not having much faith in your ability to surmise anything about me.” He frowned at her, then sighed and turned away. An impulse struck her and she continued. “I might be wrong and misjudged you the same way you misjudged me. Tell me what you think you can figure out about me, and I’ll consider accepting your apology.”

As if she flipped a switch, Basil fell back into his confident bearing, jamming his pipe back in his mouth. He used the momentum of his turn to begin pacing instead of leaving. “Very well. While there is not a high degree of regional accent in the majority of Ponyville—a key factor of this being its recent growth—I can surmise that you are a recent arrival, owing to the combination of a number of factors, such as your choice of words, the character of your metropolitan and multicultural accent, and the nature of your bearing and body language. These factors suggest you originate from either Canterlot or one of the larger unicorn boroughs of Manehattan. You are also a scholar, this is clear from every angle, from your personal aesthetic, to the way you interact with others, to your cutie mark. It is additionally indicated by your effortless understanding of my method of speech.”

“… Your vocabulary isn’t that complex,” she muttered.

“Were this all there was to determine, it still would be a valuable course of action to assure you as an ally of sorts; scholars are excellent sources of local lore and history for exposing deeper causal relationships that would appear clouded to an outside observer. But upon further digging, more details surface.”

Twilight cocked her head to the side and focused. Basil’s observations again held both truth and insight, though she admitted she probably wasn’t a difficult target to read.

“To complete said digging, we must follow the clues to their logical origin. Your lack of a regal bearing or affectation suggests to me you hail from Manehattan originally. One of the less affluent neighborhoods of Canterlot would also be congruous, but I suspect Manehattan as the more likely choice. Your cutie mark represents an aptitude with raw magic, an ability that crosses class lines and could propel you into academia despite a lack of affluence, but upon crossing those class lines a hunger for approval and wealth propels most into a more thrill-seeking vocation, rather than the academia-focused pursuit of theoretical study.”

Pressing her mouth into a thin line, Twilight held her tongue. As long as he was the one digging, he could dig his own hole, and the deeper he dug the clearer a picture she could have of his skill.

“So thus far we have the portrait of a filly from a well-to-do family who comes into a talent and appreciation of unicorn magic. She is given the best schooling available, most likely at our Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, a fact that further contextualizes the evidence of a connection to Canterlot.” He tapped the stem of the pipe against his chin and nodded in appreciation. “Yes, that seems most fitting. She likely excelled in her studies, and …” He paused and scrutinized her closely. Twilight noticed his nostrils flare. “And did commendably in practical demonstrations, too, judging by the subtle odor of ozone on you, an often unnoticeable byproduct of high level magic users.” He frowned. “Though it is perhaps equally likely that such odors could come as a transference, considering your paramour’s occupation.”

He puffed his pipe and cocked his head. “Hmn. As your cutie mark most closely implies power, I’ll hazard that if you didn’t excel at practicals, it was solely as a result of difficulty controlling and harnessing your natural strength. Yes, yes that appears to be an accurate explanation. A young mare with lots of promise and resources is sent to the premier school for exploring that promise, where she excels academically, but struggles in actual application due to her abundance of strength proving difficult to control.”

He nodded and fell back into pacing. “As such a mare ended up as a scholar in such a town as Ponyville—where ‘scholar’ is most logically synonymous with ‘librarian,’ I would submit—it stands to reason that academia proved infeasible in the long run. She likely got far, but not into the expected career path of either a professorial position or that of a local wizard, and thus was forced into a lesser career path where study could continue within her abilities. Such a pony, despite her shortcomings, would prove a keen ally for reasons cited previously, though a full understanding of local lore would naturally be called into question, considering the relative unfamiliarity with the locale compared to a pony born and raised there. In addition, her understanding of magical theory would prove useful in more complicated pursuits, and would suggest a sharp mind for appreciating impressive deductions. Deductions such as this one.” He flashed a smile and stopped pacing, standing straight and proud in front of her.

“Mm,” Twilight said, her ears flat. “You’re … not very good at talking to ponies, are you?”

“Hmn?”

She sighed, stood up, and fell into pacing. “They weren’t bad guesses, but you say that I’m probably not from Canterlot, because I don’t care a lot about the, uh, royal culture there, which would mean if I was from Canterlot, I must be from a lower-class family.”

“Correct, which is evident because—”

“What if I came from a recognized house, but just don’t personally care about regality?”

Basil drew his brows together and frowned. “I suppose that could be an explanation, but most ponies in that position don’t—”

“Most ponies might care about that sort of thing, but that doesn’t mean I or anyone else must care about them. The truth is, I’m from Canterlot, and from an upper-class family.”

“Hmn. Surprising, though it would be reductive of me to say it’s truly unheard of. A number of the more ancillary upper-class members have more pedestrian leanings … no offense.” He cleared his throat.

“Pedestrian or not, I’m not from an ‘ancillary’ family.”

“I simply meant one of the houses without a crest or titled posi—”

“I’m from a royal house, actually.”

“Ah. Um. Well—”

“Being able to quickly observe and make deductions about how I behave doesn’t mean you can really know who I am, which is why I said you don’t know how to talk to ponies.”

He cleared his throat and adjusted his spectacles. “I … suppose when submitting the most likely answer given the evidence that there are occasions where less likely answers end up being the truth.”

“It doesn’t help you when your ‘most likely’ answers resort to stereotyping.” Twilight took a deep breath and turned to pace again. “Additionally, you came to the conclusion that I must have a lot of raw magical ability, and made a reasonable assumption that it was large enough that I had difficulty controlling it in school. Your conclusion is that I then struggled and failed, leading me here.” She paused a beat to let him stumble over himself if he wanted, but he wisely kept silent. She turned to face him directly. “I’m just going to ignore the fact that you’re assuming nopony might want to live in a town like Ponyville and could only end up stuck here, which would undermine your argument that I must have failed out of school eventually. Which I didn’t do, I excelled at school and am continuing my upper education in Ponyville, while serving as—yes—the librarian.”

“Ah. I sup—”

“But as I said, I’m going to ignore that for a moment, because ignoring it dismisses the supposition that I struggled in school out of hoof. It actually is true that I struggled, but … what if a teacher took notice of my strength and saw it as something in need of special attention? A teacher like … Princess Celestia herself?”

Basil’s pipe fell out of his mouth. “Oh goodness gracious, Sparkle, Twilight Sparkle, I didn’t recognize … I … Please excuse me.” Cheeks coloring, Basil swept up his pipe and took off even faster than when he was dodging hay bales, heading off in the same direction as the cutie mark crusaders.

Twilight grinned with more malicious satisfaction than she was comfortable admitting.

She turned towards the door to Carousel Boutique, let her smile fall, and sighed. “Ugh, that didn’t answer anything. I have no leads on Basil, and I have no idea what I’m going to say if Rainbow shows—”

“Hey, Rarity!” Rainbow Dash’s voice echoed from overhead. “Did Basil say a bunch of stupid st—” She flew into view and locked eyes with Twilight. Her teeth clicked shut and she jerked in midair, crumpling a roll of paper she held in the crook of her leg.

Twilight folded her ears back and locked her face in a neutral mask. “Oh Celestia, not now,” she murmured.

Rainbow jerked again and lilted to the side, as if she stopped herself from blazing back the way she came, then closed her wings and landed harder than she normally would. She stumbled into a nonchalant strut. “Oh, um, h-hey, Twi, I was …” She scratched the back of her head and trailed off into mumbles.

“Following Basil?” Twilight offered, a bit faster and brighter than she meant. “He was just here.”

“Y-yeah, I saw him running, and …” Her eyes darted around the open path, then she flinched and unfurled the paper in Twilight’s face. “This article! I was checking on something from this article!”

Twilight saw the headline, which she remembered reading and grumbling over the alliteration a few weeks before, and raised her ears. “You were reading old Basil Bones articles for ideas about what might be going on? That’s really clever!”

“What? Oh, yeah, I’m super clever.” She cleared her throat and angled the newspaper so she could see the front page, too. “You read this?”

“A couple weeks ago, something about an invisibility spell, right?”

“Yeah, Lady Moneypants or whatever made it look like her statue thing got stolen with one of those, then took it when the cops had her open the case.” She shook her head. “That’s not the important part, read this quote.”

Twilight looked to the section Rainbow was crinkling with her hoof. “‘I was framed,’ claims disgraced debutante Idle Riche. ‘I’ve never seen that statue before in my life.’” Twilight’s smile fell to a flat line. “… Um.”

“Yeah, yeah, she’s dumb as a bag of breezies to say that, but that’s it, isn’t it? Basil Bones is framing ponies! I bet he took Fluttershy’s dumb tea set thing, stuck it in the fountain, and then made a big show out of finding it to look cool!” Rainbow crumpled the newspaper up and stuck out her chest.

Twilight looked at the wad Rainbow tossed on the ground. “… That was the archive copy, wasn’t it?”

“… Um.” Rainbow coughed. “Anyway, it makes sense, right? He’s so bad at his whole detectiving thing but still solves stuff because he knows the answer before he starts, and then just makes up a bunch of junk that makes his answer sound like it sorta makes sense.”

Twilight offered a smile and put her hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder. “It is a good idea, Rainbow, it’s what I was thinking at first. It’s why I wanted to know if one of Fluttershy’s animals really did forget the set at the fountain.”

Rainbow eyed the hoof on her shoulder, and Twilight could see the muscles in her girlfriend’s jaw flexing. She felt a pang of unease and almost pulled her hoof back, but Rainbow sidestepped into it and hugged her around the shoulders. “I get it, if none of them did, that means it must’ve been Basil who took it.”

Rainbow stepped back from the hug and put some distance between them, but Twilight breathed a sigh of relief anyway. The air of awkwardness had broken, at least a little. “Well, it doesn’t mean he had to be the one who took it, it just means he could be.” She shifted her weight from one hoof to another and grimaced. “However, I’m … not as sure he’s really as bad as he made himself look.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “But … he, like, really sucks at this.”

“Sort of.” She turned and looked at the tree. “When he was here earlier, I was observing him try to solve something for the cutie mark crusaders, and then again when he was guessing stuff about me.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes and huffed. “Oh, great, was he trying to figure out who it was you slept with last night?”

Twilight chuckled and shook her head. “He half apologized about that and said he wasn’t taking your metabolism into account.” Rainbow gave her a blank look. “He didn’t notice you were hungover, because pegasi recover from hangovers better than unicorns do, so he made a bad call. But that wasn’t the main thing.”

Rainbow straightened and frowned. “You mean he was right this time?”

“Not entirely, but the observations he made were solid. He could tell looking at Scootaloo’s scooter and the wagon the others ride in that Scootaloo takes really good care of the wheels. He figured out a lot of things about how it works and what must have happened for them to lose a wheel just by looking.”

“Big deal, you don’t have to know much about mechanical stuff to figure that out, I bet. Scoots takes good care of her scooter.”

“Sure, but the point is he wasn’t as wrong as he was on … some of the other stuff.” She cleared her throat and continued quickly. “But after the kids left, he tried to make a bunch of guesses about my past, and that’s where I really figured it all out.”

Rainbow’s brow knit. “Okay. So what’s the big secret?”

“He’s really very good at making observations. He could tell I had to be from either Canterlot or Manehattan originally, that I went to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, that I struggled to control my magic when I was younger, and that I’m the librarian in town now. That’s not something to just shrug off and say he was lucky.”

Her frown deepened and she nodded. “Yeah, that’s … pretty damn good, really. Sounds like something Auguste Dumane could do.”

“But from those observations, he decided I must’ve been either from Manehatten or a poor family, that I dropped out, and that I’m stuck here because there wasn’t a better job I could take.”

“What?” Rainbow scowled. “I should fly him up somewhere high and drop him.”

Twilight smirked. “That’s his problem, he constantly assumes the worst about ponies, thinks stereotypes are good enough to be facts, and ends up misjudging ponies a lot. He’s not bad at his job, he’s just bad at figuring other ponies out.” Her smile fell, and she smoothed out the newspaper on the ground. “Idle Riche was just saying whatever she could to try and sound innocent here, but I’d bet Basil was completely wrong about her motivations for the theft.”

“He said she’s got a gambling problem or something.” Rainbow tapped her chin. “Which he said because she had some cheap clothes and was … nice, I guess? Kinda flirty with the cops? He didn’t really explain that part.”

“Probably because it was based on assumptions that wouldn’t explain it any better, either.” She sighed. “He can figure out crimes and what happened in a situation, but when it comes to the ponies doing those things, he’s just kind of a jerk.”

Rainbow furrowed her brow and rubbed her mouth. “I guess that makes sense …” She straightened up. “Wait. It makes sense for Idle Riche, and even for, like, the … stuff … at breakfast …” She shook her head. “But not for Fluttershy. He guessed the fountain because he said she smelled like water and stone dust, or whatever, and I overheard him talking to Applejack earlier, where he said that she would’ve smelled like that if she worked with a lot of animals.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “You overheard him talking to Applejack?”

“Yeah, I was … nevermind that, I was in the neighborhood.” She looked away.

Twilight shifted her weight again. “Okay. So he said that the odor might have come from something else, that just supports the explanation that he’s bad at reading ponies well.”

“Yeah, but that smell was why he thought the dishes were in the fountain! If him reading ponies badly is all that’s going on, why were they actually there?”

Twilight opened her mouth, then shut it again. “… Huh.”

“See?”

“You’re right.” She rubbed her chin and grimaced. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“But it does make sense if they’re both true!” Rainbow said, eyes widening. She closed the gap and grabbed Twilight by the shoulders. “What if he spied on Fluttershy, like, last night or something, made a bunch of bad guesses about her, then made up the theft to fit in with his dumb guesses?”

“Maybe.” She crinkled her muzzle. “Except if he was spying on her last night, he would’ve seen her taking care of animals instead of … entertaining stallions.” Rainbow sniggered. Twilight rolled her eyes and pressed on. “Also, we have to remember that he smelled water and stone on her and came to conclusions based on that.”

“Well, he could’ve just made that up.”

“But why would he make that up, and then decide later that it could mean she worked with animals?”

“It—” Rainbow paused with her mouth open for a moment, then dropped back to all fours. “Uh … heck if I know.”

“Ugh, this doesn’t make any sense.” Twilight rubbed her face. “We’re missing something.” Twilight felt a tap at her leg, squeaked, jumped, and came muzzle to muzzle with Angel. “Oh! Hi, Angel.” Angel gave her a satisfied grin and shoved a sheet of parchment in her face. She took it and unfolded it. “Fluttershy got back to me, Rainbow.”

“Ooh, what’s it say?” She pushed against Twilight’s side to get a look.

Twilight cleared her throat and bumped Rainbow back. “It says, ‘Twilight, I finished asking all the critters, and they all promised me that they didn’t take the tea set, even when I told them they wouldn’t get in trouble if they did and that it was very important they told the truth. The thing that worries me is when I asked Francesca the bat, she said she saw a shadow in the kitchen last night. She thought it was either me or one of the other critters and went out to find food, but I slept through the night. I hope you can figure out what’s going on. I’m a little scared someone or something broke into my house now. Let me know what you find out as soon as you can. Or as soon as it’s convenient for you, I’m okay, don’t worry about me.’”

Angel stamped his foot impatiently and jabbed Twilight in the fetlock.

She jumped again and looked down. “Oh. Um … I’m sorry, Angel, I haven’t had a chance to go to the market yet. I’ll bring you a carrot later this afternoon, okay?”

The bunny glowered with his ears hanging down, gave Twilight an ‘I’m watching you’ gesture, and hopped away.

“Basil must’ve broken into Fluttershy’s!” Rainbow hissed. “That proves it! I’m flying him to Cloudsdale and dropping him.”

Twilight sighed and looked over the letter again. “That might be what happened, but it’s not proof. It … might be enough to mean it’s time for phase two, though.”

“What’s phase two?”

She narrowed her eyes as she folded up the letter. “We set a trap for him.”

“… Awesome.”

Author's Note:

Rainbow Dash has no respect for newspapers.

Comments

[Mister Morden]

And the plot thickens! I am liking the deconstruction of the Sherlock Scan in this story.

[JetstreamGW]

Newspapers don't deserve respect, bats. You know that.

[bats]

7271136

What's a newspaper?

[JetstreamGW]

7271143 Fucked if I know.

[Ughlee]

When Twilight corrected Basil I resisted the urge to yell "get rekt m8" at 12 at night in a hotel silly basil, you can't win in a game of deductions against Twilight!

[TheRandomHero80]

Well i seem to of reached the current limit on this story. 2 in the morning think i best go to sleep now. I do love this story quite a bit, Basil is a doofus.

[Vaguely Demented]

Anyone else find themselves wishing Twilight had yelled Objection or similar during his supposition?

[Orion Star]

That feeling when you readanold story and dont notice its in complete. Rip

[Eroraf86]

Twilight correcting Basil was cathartic as heck. Basil's reaction when he finally recognized her was the icing on my schadenfreude cake.