Chapter 4: The Children are the suspects?

Snaps and Oranna were quite relieved that the office they had been led to after coming away from the crime scene was not nearly as solidly gold.

“It had been getting to the point where I was going to have nightmares about gold” Snaps narrated.

The walls, ceiling and floor were still gilded though. The foreboding black stone desk with a clutter of papers and what was possibly a breeding population of paperweights that fed on quills, however was most certainly not gilded. Nor were the three blue gemstone inkwells that rested heavily on the desk.

Behind this desk sat Gildenstan Goldie, as regally as possible when one is a fuzzy sack sitting on a plush rosy cushion. The cushion in question was resting in the unloved child of a bowl and a proper seat. In spite of his disadvantages, Gildenstan managed to look quite stern and serious, it was perhaps something about his eyes, or the quirk of his mouth.

Though really it may have had more to do with how serious he looked in comparison to the other shewpog in the room. This one stood beside the chair, wringing his hands and looking quite servile.

Oranna almost thought she had seen a toad, and not a shewpog. It was however a blue shewpog with green hair all done up in buns, giving his head a strange lumpy look that somehow only made him look more like something that would croak and eat flies.

He was quite a foppish character too, wearing a tunic with far too many frills on it, most people that are actually fond of frills and ruffles would have turned their noses up at this crime of cloth. Strangely though, his half-cloak was quite plain looking leather.

His hat however, well, it was hard to tell what kind of hat it was, buried as it was under a discordant rainbow of feathers. There must have been several birds there.

“I take it then that you have finished your investigation of the scene Mr Ace Investigator” Goldie stated curtly.

“Ah, do excuse me, this man here is my brother-in-law, Dalbert Bluvert”

“Good day, commoners” Dalbert sneered.

Goldie sighed.

“He was a partial witness to the theft, I decided that it would be unfair to have you make any statements without hearing his account first, as I have already heard it.”

“I told Golds that seemed awfully fair of him, wasn’t at all expecting it” Snaps said.

“I am always fair” Goldie said flatly.

Snaps was about to say something, but Oranna wisely prevented this by pretending to trip over her own feet and accidentally throttle Snaps while trying not to fall. After they became disentangled, the moment to call Goldie out on his statement had past.

“Well, if you are quite done, you may question my brother-in-law”

One dubious account later, Snaps and Oranna had a bit to think about.

“Dalbert said something blue with a hint of gold, what could that have been” Snaps mused.

Dalbert huffed “Why baked bad, there is only one thing it could be, I’ve been saying this from the beginning, why it must be the N…”

Gildenstan glared at Dalbert so hard that the plump fop fell over.

“Eahhh” Dalbert cried out.

“Get out of here, Dalbert!” Gildenstan ordered.

Dalbert scrambled out, he clearly had no desire to face Gildenstan’s wrath, though he was foolish enough to evoke it.

“Something beginning with N that is blue with a hint of gold?” Snaps mused.

Oranna actually managed to be the one to piece it together.

“Why, that’d be the Niard, since this is a theft we are talking about”

“The Niard is a mere myth!” Gildenstan snapped. “Children blame their own thefts on him!”

The Niard, was supposedly some manner of bluish lizard person thing with golden eyes, nobody was quite sure, but he was thought of as an infamous thief, many unsolved and strange thefts were attributed to the Niard, though the denizens of Elcon also had a tendency to blame the Niard for stealing any object that was just simply missing.

Some said he was more fishy than reptile.

“I’ll be hearing your findings now, Mr Ace Investigator!” Gildenstan snarled.

“This was it, I needed to satisfy Golds, as far as I could see there was a bunch of possibilities, first, there was the Ni… a master thief could have stolen it, having the skills to scale the building and pick the lock, another would be that someone in the mansion used the key and just took it, or a group worked together to take it. One thing I had considered was that Dalbert Bluvert was lying and stole it himself, or was in league with the thief or thieves.”

“You had considered it? You mean you no longer do?”

“Golds was pretty sharp on the uptake, no, Dally seemed far too much a bag of hot wind to be able to pull off a theft and stick around while remaining around, unless he is actually a masterful actor, but unless my candy guts are wrong, I’m guessing you wouldn’t say he is that sort of cool custard.”

“Correct, I’ve known Dalbert for a long while, the man is actually foolish enough that he’d result in a thief being caught if they enlisted his aid. He’d never be able to do it his own. Well, you have mostly satisfied me, Inspector Snaps, I admit I mostly enjoyed you making Dalbert squirm, but you have passed in my opinion!”

“How wonderful, what would our prize be?” Oranna said sarcastically.

“The prize is more information, the key to the cabinet is missing.”

“Something about that bothered me, if the thief had been smart, they would have put the key back, if they used it” Snaps said.

“Then the possibility of a thief from without would have been stronger, right?” Oranna said.

“Correct, Oranna” Snaps confirmed.

“Well, unfortunately for the thief it seems they weren’t quite smart enough to do that, now, there is one other thing you should know, most of my children could end up described as blue with a hint of gold, some more than others. My wife may have brought you here, but I want to find out who it is that can’t be content with what I give them and what they can earn!”

Gildenstan looked sternly at Tough Snaps and Oranna.

“Once you have determined the true thief, you can leave the rest to me”