Clue: Who Killed Home Body?

by DagaYemar

9. That Takes the Cake

“Amazing job as ever, Mrs. White!” Colonel H. Mustard sputtered happily through his stuffed mouth. It wasn’t always the easiest using utensils if you weren’t a unicorn, but he made a good show of scraping his fork around his bowl to get every last bit of tomato-and-apple spaghetti sauce.

“Hear hear!” Scarlet Letter put in, slurping the last of her noodles and dabbing her lips with a deep red cloth napkin.

White Wash flapped her wing at the pair of them self-consciously and continued busing the dining table. “Flattery will not get you larger servings!” she snapped, but couldn’t suppress a smile as she turned away.

“I could go for another helping of salad with that incredible homemade dressing, if you’ve got any left,” Professor Plum Pudding said, eyeing to door to the kitchen hopefully.

“Don’t fill up too much,” Home Body said from his place at the head of the table, stifling a burp. He nodded to White and she took the dirty dishes and disappeared into the kitchen. “We’ve a special treat for you all to enjoy for dessert.”

Mustard’s ears pricked up. “Ohhh! It is a lemon-meringue pie?”

Green Mail tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Mint chocolate truffles?”

“Plum pudding?!” Plum Pudding asked, clapping his hooves eagerly.

“Strawberry parfait… wait,” Scarlet arched an eyebrow at the professor. She had a good angle for it, as he was sitting directly across the table from her. “Really? You want plum pudding?”

“I know what I like!” Plum huffed defensively.

“Actually,” Home said, “We’re going to have some cake!”

His guests all froze as one. Slowly, a look of fear crept into their eyes as they turned horrified to their host.

“Um, Home Body,” Mustard started, talking slowly as if trying to find the right words, “We all know Mrs. White is quite talented in the kitchen, but…”

“She’s completely inept at baking cake!” Green shouted, slamming his hooves on the table for emphasis. “They are the one thing she inexplicably can’t cook! It make no sense; how can everything else she makes be so fantastic when her cakes are the absolute worst?!”

Plum rose from his seat and eyed the door warily. “You know, I think I’ve less appetite than I thought. I believe I’ll just retire for the night…”

Peacock Poppycock put a hoof on his shoulder and guided him back down into the chair next to her. “Calm down, everypony, it’s not what you think. Home Body and I were discussing what kind of cake I wanted for my party and I just couldn’t decide! So we had Pinkie Pie send over a bunch of different ones for us to try. These are all going to be from her, not White!”

“Oh thank goodness!” Scarlet exclaimed with a sigh of relief, “You shouldn’t scare us like that, Homey!”

Similar announcements of relief passed around the table, everypony completely unaware that their conversation had been overheard. White Wash stood with her ear to the closed door to the dining room, teeth grinding in anger. Of course, she was aware of her crucial flaw where baking was concerned, but it infuriated her that they would talk about it so brazenly behind her back like that.

But I have a plan, she thought, turning an evil eye on the large trolley next to her. I spent all morning secretly baking the best cake I’ve ever made and slipped it in with the others! When Peacock eats it and decides it’s the best, I’ll shock them with the truth. And they’ll have no choice but to apologize for what they said!

She smirked at her cleverness and bumped the door open with her hip, pulling the trolley backwards into the dining room. She kept her left wingtip firmly pressed on one point of the cloche to keep track of where the special cake lay. Mustard had apparently launched into one of his long winded stories, so everypony’s attention riveted to her the instant she entered with the cakes.

“I hope everypony’s ready!” she chirped in the most innocent tone she could manage as she lifted the covered tray, continuing to hold her precious place with her wing.

“Which is when I told the diplomat, ‘If you are going to take that tone with my Princess, you’ll have to answer to me!’,” the Colonel shouted, gesturing broadly from his chair. His wing snapped out in his enthusiasm and cuffed White Wash upside the head.

White cried out, momentarily off balance, but a soft glow enveloped her before she struck the ground. “I’ve got you!” Plum said, his horn aglow as he lifted her back to her hooves.

“And I’ve got the cakes!” Scarlet Letter said happily, having caught the platter in her own magic. There was a scattering of applause and cheering at her announcement; rather more than there were at White’s own rescue, much to her chagrin.

Then she paused as a sudden realization hit her. I’ve lost place of my cake!

“Come on, let’s sit you down,” Plum said merrily, unaware that her plans had gone awry. He settled her into the empty chair between Home Body and himself.

Home Body leaned across the table and whipped off the cloche. Everypony oohed and ahhed at the seven mini cakes revealed inside, all in different shapes and sizes. White stared at them and realized she’d somehow forgotten just which one was the one she’d made.

“Looks like there’s just enough for each of us,” Home said, pulling a cake with a large chocolate decoration adorning the top closer to himself, “Let’s dive right in, shall we?”

I definitely didn’t make that elaborate chocolate topping, White thought, so it definitely isn’t that one… The others all grabbed a cake for themselves, and White distractedly pulled the last one towards herself.

“Well that’s kinda silly,” Green said, looking up and down the table, “It looks like each of the stallions grabbed a cake with white frosting, and the mares picked ones with blue frosting.”

Did I use blue or white frosting?, White thought, eyeing her cake warily, I can’t remember, it could have been either…

“The swirling rose pattern on this one is quite intricate!” Peacock hummed, peering close at her own confection. “I’m impressed she puts this much detail into samples!”

Scarlet pouted. “I love the icing part the best, and mine doesn’t have that pattern. Somepony trade with me!”

“You know we’re going to be tasting each of them, not just the first one?” Mustard said wryly, and sighed when she gave him the stink eye. “Well, you’ll have to trade with somepony else. It doesn’t look like anypony on our side of the table took one with the extra icing.”

I definitely didn’t make any of those fancy flower shapes, White thought as Scarlet swapped their cakes with her magic, I don’t have time in the day to be messing around with all that…

“Take a knife and cut off a small slice to begin,” Home instructed, picking his own out of the pile and passing them left to Green Mail. The knives made their trip around the table and then they each cut into the desserts at the same time.

“Oh! There’s a layer of chilled berries in mine!” Plum said happily, freeing his slice and slipping it onto his plate. Two other ponies also were delighted to find a fruity surprise in their treats.

“Oh poo,” Peacock sighed, “That looks so good… I can’t wait! I want to try one of those first!” She gave the pony across from her such a pleading look that they sighed and swapped pieces with her.

I definitely didn’t put in any fruit, White thought, concentrating as hard as she could on remembering. The batter was too goopy to form the layer, no matter how I pushed at it. Now if only I could remember which frosting…

Green Mail paused and put a hoof to his chest. “You know, I believe I actually did have a little too much to eat earlier. I think I’m only going to have one slice before calling it a night. Mind if I have that one? It looks better than mine.”

The guest who hadn’t traded with anyone yet shrugged and passed over their slice, taking his.

“Is everypony done?” Home asked, amused. He lifted his fork up as if it were a conductor’s baton. “Then let’s dig in!”

That’s right! White thought as she followed everypony’s example and scooped up a bite of cake, I prepared blue frosting! It took three whole tubes of toothpaste to get the color right! Which means I know which one is mine!

But this realization came too late. As everypony took their first bites, one pony locked up around their fork. They gave a little shudder, rolled their eyes up into their head, and fell face first into their cake.

Who bit into the baked bad?

And here's a map if you need it.

Author's Note:

Answer

White Wash

First, we need to determine where each pony is sitting. Peacock Poppycock was next to Plum Pudding, who helped White Wash into the chair on the other side of him, so that’s one side of the table. Scarlet Letter was sitting across from Plum in the middle seat, and Green Mail sat to Home Body left, so that puts him on the inner edge to Scarlet's right. This leaves Colonel H. Mustard sitting on Scarlet’s other side.

The offending cake has blue frosting, no floral pattern, and no berry filling. Peacock, Scarlet, and White started off with blue cakes, but Scarlet was the only one on the side of the table without the patterned icing. Thankfully, she swapped her cake with White and was spared the maid’s terrible baking.

Fortunately for White, by inadvertently destroying her own cake, she prevented anypony from figuring out she had tampered with it. She played off her accident as exhaustion from cooking all day and got to take the rest of the night off. Maybe next time, White Wash.

Comments

[Kinrah]

I think I'll keep to pastebinning it from now on, to avoid really long comments which are all black spoiler bars. Here's this chapter's working. At one point I was worrying over where the door was relative to the table, but realized it didn't really matter.

[Captain Snark]

By Celestia's mane! Professor Plum is a cannibal!

Let's sort this out.
The Cake White Made – No Pattern, No Berries (Three have berries), Blue Frosting (with Toothpaste? Eww…)
Green – White Frosting, No Pattern, Swapped with Plum, WF/B, Pinkie’s
Mustard – White Frosting, No Pattern, Berries, Swapped with Peacock, BF/RP/NB, Pinkie’s
Peacock – Blue Frosting, Rose Pattern, No Berries, Swapped with Mustard, WF/NP/B, Pinkie’s
Plum – White Frosting, Berries, Swapped with Green, WF/NP, Pinkie’s
Scarlet – Blue Frosting, No Pattern, Swapped with Scarlet, Blue/Pattern, Pinkie’s
White – Blue Frosting, Rose Pattern, Swapped with Scarlet, Blue/No Pattern, White’s

I was going to joke above that if this was the show White would end up with her own cake because... rule of comedy.
And it appears that's exactly what happened. White Wash ended up with her own cake.
So... Hurrah for comedy!

"The cake is a li-"
"Right, no. Stop that. Stop that. That's an old and overused meme. And it's not true, or very funny in my opinion. The cake is indeed real, it's just not for you. Right, now, move on to the next one."

"I said, move on!"

[ExplosionMare]

I think Peacock bit into it.

Wow, that answer felt unexpected.