Mae's Mysteries: The Case of the Missing Necklace

     "What do all those detective books say? The butler did it?" Kacia muttered as she watched Mae ring the doorbell.

     Mae cast a sideways look at her cousin. "I don't think that's the case in this situation," she responded dryly.

     A second later, the door opened and the butler himself was before them. "Come in, come in, get yourselves out of that nasty weather," he urged, standing back to let them hurry past. "Allow me to take your umbrella and coats."

     Thunder rumbled in the distance as the door shut behind them. Mae and Kacia handed their damp coats to Brunton. "Is Tadriel around?" Mae asked.

     Brunton gave her a look of surprise. "Why, yes. I believe he is, as usual, in the kitchen. I was there with him until you rang the bell."

     "Okay, thank you!" Mae sang. She grabbed Kacia's wrist and nearly dragged her all the way to the kitchen.

     Tadriel was exactly where Brunton had said he would be. He stood over a pot of boiling Flaming Blooble soup, staring intently into the ocean of yellow and periwinkle before him. He glanced up as Mae and Kacia bustled in.

     "The kid from last night," he said with a fatigued smile. "Hello."

     "Mae," she said, pointing at herself. "And this is my cousin, Kacia."

     He waved his soup ladle at them. "To what do I owe the pleasure, Mae and Kacia?"

     "You look a bit worse for the wear," Mae said gently. She sat down at one of the stools pulled up to the marble counters. Kacia did the same.

     Tadriel's smile faltered for a moment, and Mae noticed the bags under his eyes. "It feels like last night was years ago, to be frank," he said. "Today has been a challenge."

     "Oh?" replied Mae.

     The Gelert glanced up at Mae, then stirred his soup some more. "I'm sure it isn't news to you that your uncle thinks I'm the thief." His jaw clenched.

     Kacia and Mae exchanged a somewhat embarrassed look before Mae started to reply. "I think--"

     With a loud bang, Tadriel slammed the ladle down onto the countertop, making the girls jump. "It couldn't have been me! This is my first time here, how would I even know he had it? He searched me, he searched my things, that enough should've been plenty to clear me of suspicion."

     "If it makes you feel any better," Mae said gently with a small smile. "I think it would've been difficult for you to pull it off so spur of the moment, especially without knowing the mansion well. If you had taken the Heart of the Sun, I'm confident we probably would've recovered it by now."

     Tadirel let out a long, laboured breath. He stared back into his soup, a distant look in his eye. Finally, he looked back up at Mae. "Thank you," he said. "It feels like I haven't breathed since last night. I figured everyone suspected me."

     "I won't pretend like your name wasn't mentioned a few times," Mae replied, running her finger along the edge of the counter. Kacia gave her a cautious look. "I haven't cleared anyone from suspicion quite yet, but Brunton did inform me that the two of you spent almost the entire evening in each other's presence."

     "He did? Good man," Tadriel nodded, a smile starting to spread across his lips. "I'm relieved to hear that."

     "Can you confirm for me that Sir Palomir came down here during dinner?" Mae leaned forward onto the counter. "He recounted his movements for the evening and mentioned coming to the kitchen at one point."

     Satisfied with the stirred whirlpool he had created in his soup, Tadriel set his ladle down and crossed his arms, thinking. "Yes, I believe that's correct. He came and asked me for a towel. I had just come back down after the... glass, erm, episode when he appeared."

     "Okay, that checks out with what he told me," Mae mused. She tilted her head to one side, and then to the other.

     "So you were pretty much either here or in the gallery the whole night?" Kacia chimed in. Mae glanced over at her from the corner of her eye, and Kacia shrugged sheepishly.

     "That's right," he said matter-of-factly. He wiped his paws on his apron and crossed his arms again. "Aside from us each going upstairs alone once or twice, Brunton and I were together in here or in the gallery the whole night."

     Mae paused to think for a moment. So far, everything Tadriel was telling her lined up exactly with what she had been hearing all day. She drummed her fingers against the counter. "It sounds like before coming here you knew my uncle, Sir Palomir, and Casara. Is that true?"

     "Not exactly," Tadriel said, unfolding his arms and putting his hands on his hips. "I hadn't actually met your uncle in person before he employed me. My first time meeting him was yesterday when I arrived."

     "Oh," Mae replied. "But Sir Palomir and Casara you knew?"

     "I cooked for a meal or two that the knight attended in Altador, perhaps in Brightvale or Meridell too. They're always throwing parties to commemorate the service of Neopian nights." Mae thought she sensed a note of resentment in Tadriel's tone, but she kept quiet as he continued. "Casara works in Meridell. Always seemed like a slimy individual to me. Perhaps she's a secretary, but her real business seems to be secrets." He picked his ladle up again and twirled it idly in his hand.

     "Secrets?" Mae repeated.

     "She seems to know everyone's business," Tadriel sniffed. From his dismissive tone, Mae got the impression that Casara had rubbed Tadriel the wrong way at some point. "I wouldn't trust her with what you ate for breakfast today if I were you, or King Skaarl will know about it before sunrise."

     Mae slipped her hand under the counter and tugged at Kacia's pant leg. She felt that she had heard everything Tadriel could tell her. Kacia picked up on her signal and cleared her throat. "Mae, where's the restroom?"

     Mae hopped off her stool and wrapped her paw around Kacia's wrist. "C'mon, I'll show you." She looked back at Tadriel, and gave him a smile. "Thanks for the information! That soup smells great!" He bowed his head and smiled, waving his ladle goodbye as the girls scurried out of the room.

     ***

     Mae and her cousin sat on one of the benches in the conservatory under a fluffy blanket, looking out over the garden as the rain bucketed down around them. The glass walls of the conservatory made it seem as if they were in the thick of the storm, which matched how Mae's mind felt -- like a tumultuous whirlwind of chaos.

     Kacia had her crossword puzzle out again and was scribbling answers down as Mae stared out at the downpour in front of her. It was silent except for the sound of the pitter-pattering raindrops echoing off the glass around them.

     "I've heard everyone's retelling of the night, and they all match up with each other," Mae sighed. "The exact same version of events, over and over."

     "So? Isn't that normal? You were all at the same dinner party, it makes sense to me that your stories are all similar. One down: Rare ingredient of Kauvara's potion, seven letters, ends with 'R'." Kacia tapped her pen against the newspaper.

     "Dunno. The problem is that if one of them stole the necklace, then one of them must be lying, but their stories all corroborate each other. And I still don't see how someone could've gotten it out of the mansion undetected. It's an impossible crime, but someone was able to make it possible."

     "I think it's 'Arbiter,'" Kacia said as she wrote the letters in. "Then that means someone must have told you something that doesn't add up. Once you figure out what it was, you'll know who the thief is, right? Eight across: 'Blank' racers, six letters."

     "I'm not sure," Mae heaved another sigh. "You make it sound simple when you say it like that, but that's precisely what I've been attempting to do all day and I feel like I've ended up chasing my own tail."

     "You're not even trying!" Kacia whined. "Clearly it's 'Poogle,' you know that."

     "It's hard for me to try to fit one more little thought into my head right now! Everything that everyone has told me is just racing around in there like pure chaos."

     "Well alright, then let's organize the chaos." Kacia closed her newspaper. "Why don't you start by trying to put everything in order?"

     Mae closed her eyes tightly and put her paws to her temples. "Okay. Sometime relatively recently, Uncle Jovron acquired the Shenkuu empress's ancient beloved necklace, the Heart of the Sun. It was lost for many years, but somehow, he got his hands on it. He decided to call his friends to a dinner party to show off the Heart of the Sun before giving it back to the city of Shenkuu, and invited six Neopians: Khadi-Ra, the Qasalan art dealer; Psylina, Elephante royalty from the Lost Desert; Casara, secretary to King Skaarl; Sir Palomir, a former knight of King Altador; and myself, his niece. The sixth person invited was Tadirel, the cook. Uncle Jov's butler, Brunton, was also working in the manor.

     "I got to Uncle Jov's last night, and Brunton answered the door. He brought me to the parlour, where everyone else was." She could see the image of the party in her mind, before the crime had been committed and it was just an evening of friends enjoying themselves together at a dinner party. She was back in that moment, just for a few seconds, and could remember the rush she got the first time she laid eyes upon each of her uncle's eclectic guests, and the feeling in her gut was back in the pit of her stomach, telling her she would remember that evening for the rest of her life.

     Kacia snapped her out of her reverie. "Okay, and then what?"

     Mae cleared her throat. "Then, after a little while, Uncle Jov told us he had something to show us in his study, so we all went upstairs together. He revealed there to the five of us that he had the Heart of the Sun in his possession. After we got the chance to look at it for a bit, the gong sounded for dinner, and Uncle Jov had us all go to the gallery down the hall for dinner.

     "Once we were seated at the dinner table, Tadriel came up to ask me a question about dinner. A little while after he left, Brunton brought us our drinks. As he was leaving the room, Jovron followed him out, and the two of them went to the study to admire the necklace. I believe this was the last confirmed sighting of the necklace.

     "We spent some time chatting amongst ourselves, and eventually Jovron came back in, followed shortly thereafter by Tadriel with dinner. As he was putting our plates down, he accidentally knocked Casara's glass onto the ground and it broke. Jovron sent Tadriel to go get Brunton, and the two of them came back to clean the glass up before going back to the kitchen. Sir Palomir left to find a towel downstairs for the cut on Casara's hand, and Khadi-Ra also left to get a bandage from the bathroom. Palomir arrived back first, then Khadi-Ra. Brunton and Tadirel came back again with dessert, and everyone kind of roamed the room, chatting and looking at the art.

     Kacia brought her legs up onto the bench, crisscrossing them in front of her, and joined in the retelling of events. "Except for Casara, who went out onto the balcony for some air."

     Mae nodded. "I was talking with Uncle Jovron, who was just starting to tell me he had a bad feeling about the night when Psylina interrupted to ask for the bathroom. She left to use the restroom down the hall, but came running back a minute later to tell us that the Heart of the Sun was gone.

     "We were all searched immediately, and once it was determined that none of us had the necklace on our person, we were swiftly swept out of the house and sent away. Uncle Jovron stayed at the manor with Brunton to comb the house, and also demanded that Tadriel stay so Brunton could keep an eye on him as Jovron thought Tadriel was the thief.

     Mae leaned her head back and opened her eyes, staring up at the glass ceiling above her. The rain continued to sound steadying against the panes of the glass. She closed her eyes again. "Between searching everyone who was present that evening, sweeping every nook and cranny of the manor, and monitoring Tadriel's every move, the necklace was never recovered. Someone got it out of here somehow."

     "That sounds like the whole story to me," Kacia said. "What do you think?"

     Her cousin didn't respond. Mae was deep in thought, meditating to the sound of the raindrops and trying to organize her thoughts. There had to be something, somewhere over the course of the night that would give her the key to what really happened.

     After sitting in silence for a couple of minutes, Kacia pulled her crossword puzzle back out and picked up her pencil. "'Blank' Neo Crunch. Four letters."

     "Coco," Mae murmured.

     "Usul stuck in the Pirate Caves. Six letters."

     "Hannah."

     Kacia smiled as she looked at the next clue. "Oh! This one's perfect for tonight. 'Blank' Negg: Shake it and hear the rain."

     "Stormy," droned Mae.

     Kacia gazed out into the garden at the storm outside. "It's too bad it wasn't like this last night. That would've been more appropriate."

     Mae tilted her head and looked over at her cousin, furrowing her brow in confusion. "What do you mean?"

     Kacia pointed at the clouds. "What is it that detectives say? 'It was a dark and stormy night.' It would've been more appropriate for it to have rained last night instead of tonight."

     "Mmm," Mae agreed quietly, thinking back on the dazzling sunset that greeted her when she arrived at the manor last night.

     Suddenly, it was like a jolt of electricity ran through Mae. She shot up off of the bench, her tail straight and the hair on her back standing up. Her movement was so sudden and abrupt, Kacia nearly fell off the bench herself in surprise. "What?!" Kacia barked.

     Mae whirled around. Her heart beat rapidly inside her chest as she felt the dust clear from the cogs inside her mind, and the gears began to turn. "Kacia! You're a genius!" Mae dove into her cousin's arms, squeezing her tightly.

     "What?!" Kacia repeated, this time gasping for air as Mae continued restricting her airflow with her hug.

     Mae pulled back, her eyes wide and a huge smile across her face. "Okay! There's something I need you to do. And it's very important, so listen carefully."

     The Kougra leaned in and whispered instructions into her cousin's ear. When she was done speaking, Kacia pulled back and stared at her. "Why?"

     "You'll know why, I promise. Just make sure to stay out of the room until the time is right."

     Kacia shook her head. "I don't get it, but alright, if you say so."

     Mae began striding towards the door.

     "Wait!" Kacia called after her. "Where are you going?"

     The grin on Mae's face grew even larger somehow. "I have to invite some guests to dinner!"

To be continued…