The plaintive sound of a violin echoed through the swamp. Holmes sat on a log, alone, playing a threnody. “Abandoned!”, he sighed. Lestrade, Quaz and the princess were gone, who knows where. “Oh, please cheer up.”, growled the Dreary Swamp. “I can’t stand your pathetic whining.”.
Holmes snuffled. “You’re right. I have to pull myself together.”. With a sigh, he stood up, squared his shoulders, and started plodding through the swamp. Plod. Plod. Plod. “Stop thumping!”, groaned the Dreary Swamp. “I’ve got a headache.”. Holmes kept plodding mournfully onward.
Holmes snuffled. “You’re right. I have to pull myself together.”. With a sigh, he stood up, squared his shoulders, and started plodding through the swamp. Plod. Plod. Plod. “Stop thumping!”, groaned the Dreary Swamp. “I’ve got a headache.”. Holmes kept plodding mournfully onward.
Holmes snuffled. “You’re right. I have to pull myself together.”. With a sigh, he stood up, squared his shoulders, and started plodding through the swamp. Plod. Plod. Plod. “Stop thumping!”, groaned the Dreary Swamp. “I’ve got a headache.”. Holmes kept plodding mournfully onward.
After a while, the ground began to rise and dry out. With a farewell to the Dreary Swamp, Holmes found himself at the foot of a gently sloping meadow full of spring flowers. In the distance he could see a fairytale castle, its towers poking through the fog that swirled around it.
The sound of thundering hooves echoed through the fog. A herd of glossy unicorns came running down the meadow toward Holmes. Frightened by the pointy horns and tossing heads, Holmes hid behind a tree. The herd came to a sudden halt at the edge of the swamp, snorting and wheeling.
Holmes crouched quivering behind the tree, not daring to peek out. He felt a gentle poke in his ribs. Opening one eye, he saw an enormous unicorn looming over him, its mane with laced with ribbons. “Hi!”, the unicorn said. “How are you!”.
Holmes squirmed back away from the beast.
The unicorn poked him again. “Oh my God, don’t touch me!”, shrieked Holmes. “Sorry, buddy.”. said the unicorn. “You just seemed a bit wobbly.”. The unicorn gestured with its horn to the waiting herd. “Can we give you a lift somewhere?”. “The…the castle? Yes?”, whimpered Holmes.
“Sure! Easy peasy! Hop on!” The unicorn knelt down and nodded toward its broad flank. Holmes tremulously clambered onto the unicorn’s glossy back. “You’re very shiny.”, he said, tentatively. “It’s the glitter.”, said the unicorn. “Beautiful, but it gets everywhere.”. They got up.
The herd thundered up the foggy meadow, scattering meadow flowers along the way. Holmes clung to the unicorn’s ribboned neck, both terrified and exhilarated. The fog grew thicker and thicker as they approached the castle. They could hear grunting noises that almost seemed speech.
As the castle walls emerged from the dimness, a mighty pig stepped out and stood before the herd. “Hoogh”, quoth he. The unicorn sighed. “Mate. I thought you were done with that lady.”. The pig grunted and dug his nose into the ground. “Never kept her promise. Silver sty my ass.”
“Better to have loved and…”. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. So who is the loser?”. The unicorn nodded to Holmes. “We picked him up at the swamp. Seems to want to get to the castle.”. The pig looked at Holmes skeptically. “You don’t seem the hero type. What’s your deal?” Holmes stared back.
Holmes slid off the unicorn’s glittery back and tottered toward the pig. “Do you know where the castle is?”. The pig sighed. “You are standing right next to it, idiot.”. Holmes peered into the fog. Through the gloom he could see a broad flight of steps. “Is this it?”. He pointed.
“Yes, obv.”. The pig trotted briskly up the steps. Holmes gave a brief salute to the milling unicorns and followed.
The steps led up to a wide terrace, its ends obscured by the fog. The pig moved briskly forward and Holmes continued to follow him to an enormously big timber door.
“This door is so big!”, exclaimed Holmes. The pig only rolled his eyes and banged a trotter against the door. A tiny slat opened. “What”. “It’s me, Hoogh, and some random detective. Let us in, would you, mate?”. The slat closed and the enormous door creaked open to allow them in.
Inside the door was a wide, kidney-shaped bailey surrounding the motte. A few drably-clad servants scurried across the flagged space. A man dressed in slightly finer garb approached Holmes and Hoogh. “Hello Hoogh. And who is your friend? Who might you be?”. He squinted at Holmes.
“I’m a detective.”., said Holmes. “And I play the violin.”. He held the instrument up. “I don’t know why I’m here but I would like to be useful.”. “No call for any violinists here. We have a full complement of fiddlers. But a detective….”. The man looked thoughtfully at Holmes.
“We do have a bit of a mystery. Well, a murder actually…”. “A murder!”, Holmes laughed delightedly. “The game’s afoot!”. The other man smiled faintly. “I’m Robert, the castellan. I do think we can use your help.”. He gestured Holmes toward an open door at the base of the motte.
Despite the spring sunshine outside, the air inside the motte was dank and chill. Robert led Holmes up a winding stair and into an office that looked over the bailey. He sat down at a crowded desk and waved Holmes to a chair. He steepled his fingers and looked over his pince-nez.
“What do you know about cooking?”. Holmes looked bewildered. “I don’t cook. Mrs Hudson takes care of cooking.”.
Robert leant back in his chair. “Right. Well our mystery concerns our head cook, Godfrey. He was found dead. Right in the pantry.”. “That’s a fatal spot.”, said Holmes.
“What did he die from?”. “That’s the first mystery. We don’t know. The short order cook found him this morning when she was getting eggs for breakfast.”. “She was getting X?”. “No.”, said Robert patiently. “EGGS. We don’t use rhyming slang in the Kingdom.”. “Sorry.”, said Holmes.
“We should start with the cook.”. “Mrs Clickbait, yes.”. Robert looked at Holmes. “You must be tired. Let me find you a room before we continue.”. He led Holmes out the door and up a steep stair. The room was tiny, but warm and comfortable. Holmes collapsed on the bed, exhausted.
Some hours later he awoke to a knocking on the door. When he opened it a tiny girl stood on the threshold, holding a basket. “Hot food and towels, your Honour, and Mr Robert requests your presence downstair in the pantry when you are done eating.”. He took the basket with thanks.
After food and a wash, Holmes headed downstairs to the motte’s enormous kitchen. Mrs Clickbait presided over an enormous space. Dozens of people rushed about for one weird reason or another. Mrs Clickbait bustled up to Holmes.
“So you’re the famous consulting detective, are you?”. She looked him up and down thoughtfully. “I could tell you 10 scary things about detectives.”. She gestured toward the pantry. “Can a cook solve a murder? Let me show you how.”. She walked off, Holmes following meekly behind.
The pantry was empty, except for the outline of a prone man chalked on the floor. “So where is the corpus delicti?”, said Holmes. She narrowed her eyes. “The what? Is that a kind of fancy pastry? We’re simple folk here.”. “No, the corpus. Body. Where’s the body?”. “I’ve no idea”.
Holmes looked puzzled. “When there is no body, how do we even know a crime has been committed? A child could have been in here drawing for fun.”. He scuffed at the chalk outline. “When did anyone last see Godfrey? Why do people think he has been murdered?”. Mrs Clickbait frowned.
“Want management mad at you? Here’s how.”. Mrs Clickbait gestured to the pantry shelves, which were impressively well stocked. “He has been burning through the food budget like Gordon Ramsey on a rampage. Robert was very cross with him.”. “Robert? The castellan?”. “Yes, the rat.”
Mrs Clickbait ran a finger across a dusty shelf. “Loves his household cleaning tips, does Robert. And the chance to tip a few coins off the top of the grocery bill into his own pocket.”. Just then, the tiny girl rushed into the pantry waving a piece of paper. “He’s alive, ma’am!”
“What do you mean, tiny girl!”, cried Mrs Clickbait. “It’s Ethel, ma’am. I’m tiny, but I have an identity.”. She held out the paper. Holmes snatched it. In large irregular letters it said “ALl thE coIn iN tHe cAsTle or GoDfrEy GetS It. bY mIdniGht tOniGht.”. “The plot thickens!”.
“Where did you get this?”, said Holmes. Tiny Ethel led Holmes out the front door. “It was nailed to the door like Luther’s 95 Theses probably weren’t. I saw it when I was taking scraps to the pigs.”. “True!”, said Hoogh, from where he lay on the steps, chewing on raw potato peel.
“So now we have three mysteries”, said Holmes, thoughtfully bowing his violin. “Who drew the chalk outline, who posted the ransom note, and where is Godfrey!”. “Four mysteries!”, said Tiny Ethel. “Where are we supposed to go at midnight?”. “There’s a second note.”, mumbled Hoogh.
He rolled over and produced a second piece of paper from under his wide body. Holmes took the grimy and somewhat smelly note. In the same clumsy hand it said “Be aT tHe SOuth gAte wITh A coaCh aND foUr swIFt HOrses. PUt aLL tHe mONEy iN sMall mALmsey wiNe baRRels WIth No DUkes.”.
“That part about the Dukes is weirdly specific.”, said Mrs Clickbait, who had followed them out. “Not at all,”, said Holmes. “It’s an obvious nod to the death of George, Duke of Clarence in 1478. Try to keep up. What time is it?”. Tiny Ethel squinted up at the sun. “Almost None”.
“No”, said Holmes. “What time is it?”. “Almost None, I said!”, shouted Tiny Ethel. “Well whatever, I make it about three pm. No time to waste! He strode off in a random direction. Mrs Clickbait shrugged and returned to her kitchen, Ethel in tow.
Robert was sitting at his desk when Holmes burst in. “How much coin do you have in the castle?”. Robert put down his pen. “What do you mean? We don’t have fiat currency here.”. Robert stood up and pointed out the window at a massive building squatting on the side of the hill.
“We mine Ethereum. It’s the basis of our whole economy.”. “Then how much do you have?”, cried Holmes. “Well, none, strictly…”, said Robert. “It’s all in non-fungible tokens – NFTs.”
“You know, where you pay somebody for a link to a picture of somebody else’s art, hosted on an ephemeral server somewhere”. “Right. Then how many NFTs?”. Robert removed a USB stick from a drawer. “Let me just plug this in. Now, where is the password?”.
He rattled around in his desk, coming up with a scrap of parchment. “Here it is.”. He laboriously pecked at the keyboard of an ancient PC. A window opened on the PC. “Oh my God!”, cried Robert. “I’ve, I mean, WE’VE been robbed! All of my apes are gone!”.
“Aha, a sixth mystery!”, thought Holmes.
“So if I understand correctly.”, Holmes said slowly. “You HAD coin. That you used to buy cryptocurrency. That you used to buy NFTs. And now somebody has stolen the NFTs. Which now means that there is NO coin in the castle.”.
“Yes!”, cried Robert, distraught. “There is NO COIN IN THE CASTLE!”. “Well THAT simplifies things.”, said Holmes cheerily. “Now, can you find me a coach and four and some malmsey casks?”. “Yes, I suppose so,” said Robert. He made a few notes on a parchment.
“Take this to the sommelier.”.
Holmes found the sommelier in the wine cellar. He was a slender pale man who looked like he had just smelled something deeply unpleasant. Holmes handed him the paper. He looked over his spectacles. “Malmsey, you say? How common.
Fortunately for you we have just decanted a batch. You can have ten casks.”. “More than enough”, said Holmes. “One would have been more than enough”, he thought. “And the coach and four?”. The sommelier sighed. “Do I LOOK like an ostler?”. He pointed up the stairs.
“Try the stables.”. Holmes thanked him and left.
The stables were warm and redolent of horses. The ostler was in one of the stalls, rubbing down a dun-coloured mini pony. “Hail fellow, well met.”, said Holmes. “Do you have a coach and four swift horses?”.
“Certainly not”, said the ostler (whose name was Oscar). “Everything was sold to fund the Ethereum mine. All I have left is Hercules here”, he patted the mini, “And his stablemate Gretchen over there.” He pointed to a small donkey standing quietly in the next stall.
“But I have a small cart and they are trained to harness together”. “Well that will just have to do.”.
Holmes and Oscar the ostler harnessed the obliging equines to the cart and Holmes led them around to the cellar door where the malmsey casks were waiting.
Holmes easily loaded the empty casks onto the cart.
He led Hercules and Gretchen to the south gate. Midnight was fast approaching. As Holmes idly scratched Hercules behind the ears, a shadowy figure emerged from the shadows.
A broad, bulky man in a white apron walked up to Holmes. “Do you have the coin?”. “We have exactly what you asked for”, said Holmes. “All the coin in the castle. Now where is Godfrey?”. The aproned man shuffled awkwardly. “I’m, I’m Godfrey.”.
“So, not dead then? Well obviously not.”, Holmes said archly. “No”, said Godfrey. “But you have the coin, right?”. Holmes gestured to the casks. “All the coin in the castle, right there.”.
Godfrey went over to the cart, neatly sidestepping Gretchen’s attempt to stand on his foot. He pried open the first cask. It was empty. “Where is the coin?”, he cried. He began opening the other casks, all empty. “To be precise,” said Holmes, precisely. “The note called for all the coin in the castle. There is no coin in the castle thanks to your castellan’s fondness for crypto. So the demand is met.” Godfrey sagged. “Tiny Ethel, what do we do?”.
Tiny Ethel also stepped out of the shadows.
She smiled disarmingly at Holmes (who wasn’t armed). “Oh, I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. When I said ‘Godfrey gets it”, I meant Godfrey gets the COIN. We were going to run away together and start a little crypto farm. Power isn’t cheap.”. She sighed. “I suppose that’s out of the question now.”.
Eyes brimming with tears, she said “Will we be arrested?”. Holmes looked at her kindly. “What crime has been committed? Godfrey is fine, no coin was stolen, the sommelier didn’t even want the malmsey casks.”
“But I do want to solve all six mysteries before you go.” He smiled. “It’s a trope. Famous detective brings all the players together at the end to resolve any outstanding plot lines.”. Coincidentally, Robert walked up.
“I was on my bedtime walk. Saw you there, thought I would check in.”. Mrs Clickbait also emerged from the darkness. “Hi. Couldn’t sleep. Saw the lights. Thought of ten weird reasons.”. Hoogh grumbled from the shadows. “Trying to sleep, folks!”. The unicorn strolled into shot.
“Hi! How are you? I’m great!”. The Dread Swamp declined to participate.
Mise en scene established, Holmes continued. “So the first mystery is fine. Godfrey isn’t dead. Solved. The second mystery – who drew the chalk outline?”.
“That would be me.”, confessed Mrs Clickbait.
“I knew Godfrey wasn’t dead. I just wanted to draw attention to Robert’s pilferage and coin-pinching ways.”.
“Mystery three is easy – I assume Tiny Ethel wrote the notes?”. She curtsied. “Yes, your Honour. It was ever so difficult to make the writing clumsy. I have excellent penmanship, you see.”.
“Mystery four – where to go at midnight? Here, obviously.”
“Mystery six – who stole the apes? Any thoughts, Robert?”.
“What happened to the fifth mystery?”, said Hoogh.
“Miscounted! Right! Mystery FIVE! Who stole the apes?”.
“Erm, that would be me.”, said @crackpotNFT8876. “Who the hell are you?”, shouted Robert.
“I’m a last minute plot device dropped in to compensate for the author’s lack of imagination. You’re welcome.”
“Well”, said Holmes. “All mysteries solved. My work is done.”.
“But what shall we do?”, cried Tiny Ethel. “The castle is bankrupt. @crackpotNFT8876 has stolen all of the apes that Robert foolishly squandered our Ethereum on. We have lost our livelihoods.”.
Holmes smiled at Tiny Ethel and Godfrey.
“The good news is that Hercules is not in fact a simple mini pony, but a rare and very valuable Przewalski’s horse. And Gretchen is a Balkan donkey from Serbia, origin of the world’s most expensive cheese. And even better, the ten malmsey casks I brought you are highly valued by small batch artisan gin producers. So I think you have a bright future pandering to the wealthy and particular. I wish you the best.”.
With a tip of Godfrey’s chef’s toque, and a bright smile from Tiny Ethel, the two led their prizes off into the night.
Holmes turned to Mrs Clickbait. “I think you already know ten secret ways to make a fortune.”.
She nodded, and strolled off into the darkness, Hoogh at her heels. “And me?”, said Robert. Holmes looked at the castellan pityingly. “I am afraid you are sentenced to a life of accountancy. A castellan’s lot is not a happy one.”. “Seems fair”, said Robert.
He walked off toward his tower, the unicorn playfully poking him in the back as he went.
“So it’s just you and me then.” Holmes said to @crackpotNFT8876.
“I guess so. Want to buy some apes?”.
[THE END]