Chapter 2: The Gilded Mansion and Gildenstan
Snaps and Oranna were unceremoniously tossed out of the sack they had equally unceremoniously been stuffed in. Oranna got to brushing the gingerbread crumbs from her fur and dress, while Snaps rid himself of the hairs that had come from Oranna. They saw no sign of Serelotte or their kidnappers, though what quite distressed Oranna was that her saxophone was nowhere to be seen either.
They found themselves in an opulent room, a supremely opulent room. The walls were golden, the floor was golden, the ceiling was golden. The three chandeliers were golden and gave off warm golden light. The honey waterfall ornaments were technically not golden, well, the ornaments themselves were, but the honey was honey.
These honeyfalls were either side of a stair that had small steps in the middle and larger wider steps at the ends. Clearly constructed for the convenience of both large denizens and small ones. The stair ended at a pair of golden doors with carved images on them. The images seemed to tell the story of a small furry sack of a creature, a shewpog, the shewpog seemed to be suffering a lot, bad things kept happening to him or her. The six pillars of the hallway also had images of this shewpog’s sufferings.
It wasn’t that strange to find images of a shewpog in the mansion of Gildenstan Goldie. He and his wife were both of those small furry sack-like beings, who’s most notable feature is their interesting hair. Like many of Elcon’s inhabitants, they come in many colours.
Speaking of colours other than gold, there were a few paintings, the frames were still gold of course. Each of the paintings were of knights. Each was a different colour. Snaps wasn’t cultured enough, but Oranna recognised them as the Knight protectors of the elements, from the historical ballads of the Ealadins.
They were silent in awe of the tasteless pomp before them. Or at least Oranna was, Snaps was just mumbling into the gag that Oranna had put on him when she couldn’t bear being stuck with his narration while they were in the sack.
Snaps was wondering where Serelotte had gone to, when he spotted the doors hiding on the walls, each spaced between the pillars. The doors were quite hard to make out as they were also golden and ill-defined to boot. He supposed she had gone through one of those doors.
Oranna was so absorbed in taking in the artistry buried under the tastelessness of the hallway that she almost tripped over what seemed to be a life size statue of a shewpog. She hadn’t noticed it at first, but then that was because it was golden, like most things in the opulent hallway and probably in the whole mansion. It was also because shewpogs are quite small creatures, managing to be around the size of a head, rather than the size which the smallest race of elcon is, a clenched fist.
The statue was totally golden, the hair, which jutted out like a log, a pompadour was golden. The fur was golden. The eyes were golden, the suit and the jewellery were golden too.
“Wow, Gildenstan must be really self-absorbed, look Mistah Snaps, he even has a statue of himself”
Snaps excitedly tried to tell Oranna something, but alas, he was stilled gagged, and Oranna seemed not to think it necessary to ungag him.
“Yeah, I know” Oranna said, picking the statue up. “Like, this statue is really lifelike, it is even all squishy and stuff, just like a real shewpog…”
Oranna paled, even her fur. “Ah!” She stated, coming to a realisation.
She gently put the shewpog down, trembling.
“‘Ah’ indeed!” Gildenstan Goldie harrumphed.
Oranna prostrated herself before Gildenstan.
“Please don’t unperson me or make me eat my instrument or make me sleep with the fishies, I like my own shoes just fine! I really super ultra sorry!” She pleaded.
Gildenstan glared, then he sighed, staring back and forth between Snaps and Oranna. Snaps gave him his best serious face.
“Is he quite alright? He seems a bit wall-eyed. Well, whatever, you can stop quivering, fox. You’ve been hired by my dear wife, so I’d likely not hear the end of it if anything untoward happened to you” Gildenstan paused while Oranna got up and quickly made a tactical retreat to behind Tough Snaps.
“Why is he gagged? Do I need to have a word with the help again?” He asked.
“Ah no, that was me, Mistah Goldie” Oranna said sheepishly.
“Whatever did you do that for girl?”
“Well, I’m afraid he has a bit of a speech condition, a mild case of auto-narrativism, and I was in a sack with him the whole way here”
Gildenstan grimaced. He considered the merits of keeping the gingerbread man gagged. He supposed that it wouldn’t do. It would probably make investigating a bit hard, being gagged.
“Oh, well I suppose he needs to speak, off with his gag then, quick about it girl!”
Oranna fumbled at the knot she had made. In sort order Snaps was once again able to speak and be heard, intelligibly.
“So, I thanked Mister Goldie, for finally getting that gag off of myself. I introduced myself as Tough Snaps, Ace Investigator, and I asked him what he was doing on the night of the theft”
Gildenstan snorted.
“Do you mean to say you consider me a suspect in the theft of my own possessions, Mr. Ace Investigator? Satisfy me that you aren’t blabbering nonsense, before I toss you out of the building, regardless of whatever grief my dear wife will give me”
“I wasn’t worried at all by his threat, after all, there are any number of reasons someone could have for stealing their own stuff, it could be to make people think the thing was lost, or frame someone else for the crime, or even some other mad ploy, main thing was though I didn’t know, I couldn’t rule out the possibilities. You get all kinds of strange reasons for things, and sometimes no reason at all.”
Gildenstan smiled, showing off golden incisors.
“Well, it would appear that my dear wife was as fortunate in finding you as she was in marrying me, I am pleased that you do not appear to be a complete fool, or even a half-wit. I believe you have won a proper introduction from me, though you must already know who I am. My name is Gildenstan Goldie, you have introduced yourself as Tough Snaps, the investigator, but who is this fox, she seems somewhat familiar to me”
“I’m Oranna, Mistah Goldie. I’m Mistah Snaps’ assistant, you employed a band I used to be part of once”
Gildenstan Goldie scowled, his face looking quite unpleasant and dark.
“Ah, yes that ill-fated auction. We shall speak no more on that. Ok Mr. Snaps, you may not have won me over, but I’ll allow you further into the house, I shall guide you to the scene of the crime myself. Now, what has my wife told you?”
“I explained to Golds that she had just said that last night a ‘beastly jewel’ had been stolen and that accusations were flying as hot and fast as a dragon with some place to go.”
Gildenstan Goldie began climbing the stairs, motioning Snaps and Oranna to follow. The doors opened of their own accord, as did all the doors they came across. Goldie began to lead them through a number of rooms and corridors and up a few stairs. He stopped before a pair of plain wooden doors. He remained silent as they went until they came before the wooden doors.
“There has been a number of accusations, Mr Snaps, some of them more credible than others, I shall stress this now, I am myself quite invested in you finding the true thief. I shall be content if you find the truly guilty party, whoever that may be, as for the ‘beastly jewel’. It was not just any mere jewel that was stolen, but a genie jewel.”
Gildenstan Goldie looked around, he seemed annoyed. He waved a hand before the doors and there was a clicking as they unlocked themselves. He then shooed Snaps and Oranna in.
“I shall let you out of the room after you have investigated it to your heart’s content, I’m afraid that I had to bring you to the scene first, as everyone has been quite bad about leaving the place well alone in spite of my orders to the contrary. You will have to question everyone after looking about.
I have done my own investigating you know, and several things disturb me about the situation, but a second opinion before I lay down my judgement will hopefully ease my mind. If your findings contradict my own, Mr Ace Investigator, you should hope that they have enough backing them, or you will find me quite unimpressed”
Ultimatum delivered, Gildenstan walked away and the doors closed, clicking behind him.
“Well, this is looking like a doozy of a case, isn’t it Mistah Snaps?”
“I agreed with her, but I wasn’t intimidated by Golds words, even though my knees were knocking… sometimes I really hate my speech condition, I asked Oranna if she could forget the bit about the knees”
“Sure thing Mistah Snaps”
Snaps sighed, and turned his eyes to the scene of the crime, wondering what truth and lies awaited him.