“For the last time, I didn’t murder Astral Thunder! I barely knew her! Why would I want her dead?”
Inspector Bagshot narrowed his eyes. “We’ve a witness. A post pony. He’d just delivered to No. 10 when he saw an ochre-coated unicorn pull open Astral’s front door and enter her house. A few seconds later, he heard a scream and rushed over to investigate. Through Astral’s window he saw the unicorn strangling her with a garrotte. He ran into the house to help, only he was knocked unconscious before he could get any farther than the hallway – by an accomplice, he reckons. When he came to, Astral was dead and her murderer gone.
“He went straight to the Guard. Identified the killer as Sun Spinner, a local bar pony – you.”
“That’s not true!” exclaimed Sun Spinner.
“Despite the case against him,” Bagshot told Slipstar later, “Spinner refuses to confess to the murder.”
“This post pony – is he to testify?” inquired Slipstar.
“Yes. Doctor Haste is keeping him in the hospital overnight – blow to his head was a nasty one. We’re trying to press Spinner for the name of his accomplice, but he continues to insist he is innocent.”
“I’m not surprised,” remarked Slipstar, “for there was no accomplice, and your witness is lying!”
How did Slipstar know?
While attempting to frame Sun Spinner for the murder, the “post pony” made a fatal mistake. He claimed to have seen Spinner “pull open” Astral’s front door. Impossible. Private house doors open inward, a fact that any real post pony would know. Furthermore, Slipstar suspected that his story of being struck on the head by the murderer’s accomplice was phoney. It was Astral who, while fighting for her life, had struck her killer.
“Tell it to us one more time, if you please, Miss Ivory,” said Crimson Quill, the long-suffering editor-in-chief of The Canterlot Times.
“At around eight o’clock this mornin’,” Miss Ivory began eagerly, “I walked to the kiosk in West Badham Street ter pick up the tabloids. Begging yer pardon, Mister Quill, but I reckon The Times can be very opinionated.”
“Indeed,” grumbled Quill.
“Anyhow, on the way back to my flat I passed two ponies, a mare an’ a stallion. They were talkin’ urgently. Near whisperin’, like. Didn’t pay ‘em much mind at first, you know, but as I passed ‘em, I over’eard the mare say – and these were ‘er exact words, mind – ‘I knows you were wiv ‘er that night. If you don’t pay me fifty-thousand bits ‘fore the shoot on April 31st, I’ll tell yer wife!’
“Now, that got me wond’rin’. An’ then it ‘it me! The stallion? ‘E was Colt Bolt!”
Quill raised an eyebrow. “The famous model?”
“The very same! An’ if you’ve been keepin’ up wiv the tabloids, Mister Quill, you’ll know that Colt Bolt an’ his wife ’re goin’ through a rough patch at the mo’. Y’ see, she reckons ‘e’s an adult’rer! An’ I reckon that girlie knew ‘e’d been wiv another mare! I reckon that girlie were blackmailin’ ‘im!
“So what d’you reckon? Front page o’ The Times tomorrow?”
“I think,” said Quill, “it’s time I showed you the door.” And Slipstar, who was sitting beside him, nodded his approval.
Why?
Quill knew that Miss Ivory, a renowned gossip, was trying to grab a headline. Her story was false, for she claimed that the blackmailer had demanded to be paid “before the shoot on April 31st”. Never could there have been a photo shoot on April 31st. April has only thirty days.
Flying through Cloudsdale, Slipstar decided to drop in on his old friend Fleetfoot. Bearing a box of fancies, he arrived at her home and was surprised to find her in a state of some distress.
“I’m for it this time,” lamented Fleetfoot. “My flight uniform – it’s been stolen! Spitfire’s going to murder me!”
A pot of tea and a homemade tart later, Slipstar asked, “Are you certain you haven’t mislaid it?”
“Positive. I stayed behind at the academy yesterday to wash it. Then I left it in my locker. When I opened my locker this morning, it’d gone. The Guard’s involved. They think Whistle took it, one of our janitors. Makes sense, I suppose – he’s got the keys. But I know Whistle. He’s a decent pony who wouldn’t steal anything!”
“Yet they suspect him?”
Fleetfoot sighed. “I told them I heard somepony vacuuming. They questioned Whistle, and he admitted to vacuuming the changing rooms at half-past five, which was round about the time I put away my uniform, right enough. The place was empty – everypony else had left, so it must have been him. But it can’t have been.”
“Out of curiosity, why did you stay behind? I was under the impression that Wonderbolt uniforms go to Cloudsdale Laundry.”
“Blame Spitfire. It was a punishment for saving a junior’s neck at training. The dumb filly provoked the wrath of our tornado generator. We were cloud-busting when she decided to take a peek. She started it up by mistake, and I managed to knock her out of its way. But I got caught in the tornado. It flung me onto a muddy bank. I flew back and turned the machine off before the tornado could get any bigger. Spitfire wasn’t happy. She marched the two of us to her office for a word in private, told the filly off, then, instead of saying ‘Good job, Fleet’, grilled me on account of my filthy uniform!”
“You’re sure Whistle was the only other pony in the building at the time?”
“Yes. I spoke to the guard at the door this morning, and he said that everypony who entered the academy yesterday – bar Whistle and I, of course – left before or at half-past four, the juniors in one group, the others more or less individually – Spitfire, Soarin, Rapidfire – the lot.”
“When did you leave?”
“Just before the guard locked up.”
“Was Whistle questioned?”
“Yep. He didn’t say much. After he vacuumed, he mopped. Then he went home. He said he thought he was going to be late for dinner, but he got back early. When they asked him whether or not he’d stolen my uniform, he said that he didn’t know I’d stayed behind to wash it.”
“Hmm. Did Whistle leave before you?”
“I don’t know. Must have done.”
“Tell me – after the others had left, did you see Whistle?”
“See him? No. I just heard him vacuuming.” Fleetfoot sighed again. “They’re searching Whistle’s house right now. So far, they haven’t found anything.”
Slipstar frowned. “How many clocks are there in the academy? And how many ponies have keys?”
Fleetfoot shrugged. “Three clocks. One in the mess hall, one in Spitfire’s office, and one in the janitor’s room. As for keys, three sets. The guard carries one, and Whistle’s got two. Keeps a spare set in his drawer. Why?”
“Whistle didn’t steal your uniform, but I think I know who did and how they did it.”
Whom did Slipstar suspect? How was the uniform stolen?
Slipstar surmised that the only ponies who knew Fleetfoot was to stay behind to wash her uniform were those who had been present when her punishment had been pronounced – Spitfire and the filly whom Fleetfoot had saved from the tornado generator. Slipstar deemed it unlikely that Spitfire was the thief, as the guard had witnessed her leave the academy before the theft occurred. On the other hand, it would have been relatively easy for the filly to slip away from the juniors, who left the academy “in one group”. Slipstar was intrigued by Fleetfoot’s words: “he thought he was going to be late for dinner, but he got back early.” He theorised, therefore, that the filly had tampered with the clock in the janitor’s room so as to have Whistle start and finish his chores earlier than he normally would. By the time Fleetfoot had washed and dried her uniform, Whistle had left the building. The filly turned on the vacuum cleaner so as to trick Fleetfoot into thinking Whistle was still present. Once certain she was alone, using the keys she’d taken from the drawer in the janitor’s room, she opened Fleetfoot’s locker and stole her uniform. Then she unlocked the academy door and departed.
