The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde VS. MLP

The Hooves Murder Case:

Nearly a month later, on October 18th, Ponyville was startled by a crime of singular ferocity and rendered all the more notable by the high popularity of the victim. The details were few and startling. A magenta-coated school teacher living alone in a house not far from the river, had gone upstairs to bed about eleven. Although a fog rolled over the city in the small hours, the early part of the night was cloudless, and the lane, which the teacher’s window overlooked, was brilliantly lit by a full moon. It seems she was romantically given, for she sat down upon her seat, which stood immediately under the window, and fell into a dream of musing. Never (she used to say, with streaming tears, when she narrated that experience), never had she felt more at peace with all ponies and felt more at kindly of the world. And as she so sat she became aware of a grey beautiful mare with a yellow mane, drawing near along the lane; and advancing to meet her, another and smaller mare, to whom at first she paid less attention. When they had come within speech (which was just under the teacher’s eyes) the grey pony smiled and accosted the other with a very pretty manner of politeness. It did not seem as if the subject of her address were of great importance; indeed, from her pointing, it sometimes appeared as if she were only inquiring her way; but the moon shone on her face as she spoke, and the teacher was pleased to watch it, it seemed to breathe such an innocent and genuine kindness of disposition, yet with something high too, as of a well-founded self-content. Presently her eye wandered to the other, and she was surprised to recognize in her a certain Ms. Diane, who had once visited her for directions and for whom she had conceived a dislike. She had on her back an abnormal-sized heavy candy cane, with which she was trifling; but she answered never a word, and seemed to listen with an ill-contained impatience. And then all of a sudden she broke out in a great flame of anger, stamping with her hoof, brandishing the candy cane, and carrying on (as the teacher described it) like a madmare. The grey mare took a step back, with the air of one very much surprised and a trifle hurt; and with that, Ms. Diane broke out of all bounds and clubbed her to the earth. And next moment, with griffon-like fury, she was trampling her victim under hoof and hailing down a storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway. At the horror of these sights and sounds, the teacher fainted.

It was two o’clock when she came to herself and called for the police. The murderer was gone long ago; but there lay her victim in the middle of the lane, incredibly mangled. The cane with which the deed had been done, although it was of some rare and very tough and heavy peppermint, had broken in the middle under the stress of this insensate cruelty; and one splintered half had rolled in the neighboring gutter-the other, without doubt, had been carried away by the murderer. A mailbag was found upon the victim; but no cards or papers, except a sealed and stamped envelope, which she had been probably carrying from the post, and which bore the name and address of Ms. Sparkle.

This was brought to the librarian the next morning, before she was out of bed; and she had no sooner seen it, and been told the circumstances, that she shot out a solemn lip. “I can’t say anything till I have seen the body,” said she; “this may be very serious.” And with the same grave countenance she hurried through her breakfast and drove to the police station, whither the body had been carried. As soon as she came into the cell, she nodded.

“Yes,” said she, “I recognize her. I am sorry to say that this is mailmare Derpy Hooves.”

“Oh Celestia,” exclaimed the officer, and the next moment his eye lighted up with profession ambition. “This will make a deal of noise,” he said. “And perhaps you can help us to the culprit.” And he briefly narrated what the teacher had seen, and showed the broken sweet.

Ms. Sparkle had already quailed at the name of Diane; but when the candy cane was laid before her, she could doubt no longer; broken and battered it was, she recognized it for one she had herself presented many years before to Pinkie Pie.
“Was this Ms. Diane, perhaps, small and grey-pink, by any chance?” she inquired.

“Small, dull-pink, and particularly wicked-looking, is what the teacher calls her,” said the officer.

Ms. Sparkle reflected; and then, raising her head, “Follow me,” she said, “I think I can take you to where she lives.”

It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the first fog of the season. A great crème-coloured pall lowered over the town, but the wind was continually changing and routing these embattled vapours; so that as the two trotted from street to street, Ms. Sparkle beheld a marvelous number of degrees and hues of twilight; for here it would be dark like the backend of evening; and there, for a moment, the fog would be quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths. This quarter of Ponyville seen under these changing glimpses, with the sneering darkness, and lack of passengers, and its lamps, which had never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful reinvasion of darkness, seemed, in the librarians eyes, like a district of some city in a nightmare. The thoughts of her mind, besides, were of the gloomiest dye; and when he glanced at the companion of her walk, she was conscious of some touch of that terror of the law and the law’s officers, which may at times assail the most honest.

As the two drew up before the address indicated, the fog lifted a little and showed her a lovely street, a small hardware store, a low eating house, a shop for the retail of quills and sofas, many fillies huddled in the doorways, waiting for the fog to lift for a chance to play, and many mares passing out to have a morning glass of cider; and the next moment the fog settled down again upon that part, as dull and grey as smoke, and cut her off from her lively surroundings, and left her facing their destination. This was the home of Pinkie Pie and her favorite; of a mare who was heir to all of Pinkie’s bits.

A cyan-coated mare with a pink frosting-like mane was standing behind the counter. She had a caring face, and her manners were excellent. Yes, she said, Ms. Diane’s room was upstairs, but she was not home; she had been in that night very late, but she had gone away again in less than an hour; there was nothing strange in that; her habits were very irregular, and she was often absent; for instance, it was nearly two weeks since she had seen her till yesterday.

“Well, we would like to see her room then,” said the librarian; and when the cyan mare began to declare this was impossible, a gross invasion of privacy, “But Mrs. Cake, it’s an emergency,” she added, “Joining me is Marshall Law, the chief of Ponyville’s police force.”

A flash of odious joy shone in Mrs. Cake’s eyes like sunlight, but her voice hypocritically mimicked concern. “Ohh dear,” said she, “she is in trouble? What has she done?”

Ms. Sparkle and the inspector exchanged glances, catching the shimmering in the baker’s eyes. “This Ms. Diane doesn’t seem to be a very popular character,” observed the latter. “And now, my good mare, just let me and Ms. Sparkle have a look around.”
In the whole extent of the room, which remained mostly empty, Ms. Diane had only used a couple of the provided household wares; but the room was furnished with luxury and good taste. A closet was filled with cider; the plate was of silver and napery elegant; many fine-smelling candies were placed about the room, gifts (as Twilight supposed) from Pinkie Pie, who was much of a candy-hoarder of sorts. At this moment, however, the room bore every mark of having been recently and hurriedly ransacked; clothes lay about the floor, with their pockets inside out; lock-fast drawers stood open; and on the hearth there lay a pile of grey ashes, as though many papers had been burned. From these embers the inspector disinterred the butt end of a pink check book, which had resisted the action of the fire; the other half of the candy cane was found behind the door; and as this clenched his decisions, the officer declared himself delighted. A visit to the bank, where several hundred bits were found to be lying to the murderer’s credit, completed his gratification.

“You can count on us, ma’am,” he told Ms. Sparkle: “We have her in our hooves. She must have gone insane, leaving behind the other half of the murder weapon, and, above all, burning the check book. Why, money’s life to the mare. All we have to do is wait for her at the bank, and get out the hoofcuffs.

This last, however, was not so easy of accomplishment; for Ms. Diane had numbered few familiars- even the owners of Sugarcube Corner had only seen her twice; her family could nowhere be traced; she had never been photograph; and the few who could describe her were not enough to assist the case. Interestingly enough, one point they all agreed on was the haunting sense of unexpressed deformity with which the fugitive impressed her beholders.