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

Incident Of The Letter:

It was late in the afternoon, when Ms. Sparkle found her way back to the bakery to see her pink friend, where she was at once admitted by Mr. Cake, and carried up past the kitchens and up to the second floor which had once been used for supply storage, to a hallway which was indifferently known as Ms. Pinkie’s quarters with its colorfully brilliant décor, which was adjacent to the dreaded hallway she had entered that morning. This was going to be the first time that the librarian had been received her friend’s quarter; and she eyed the charming decorations and structures with interest, and gazed round with a tasteful sense of curiosity as she crossed the hallway: the tables lined with streamers and their surface area filled in completely with plates of sweets, the floor strewn with crates of backing supplies and various ingredients, all viewable through the light falling through the cupcake-shaped cupola. At the further end a door could been seen, covered in a pink baize; and through this, Ms. Sparkle was at last received into the pink baker’s room. It was a large room, filled to the brim with the color the mare was infamous for; the excessiveness of the hue almost put a stain on Ms. Sparkle's eyes. The room was fitted round with decorations, foods of various sweetness, and seemingly edible furniture, and looked out upon Ponyville by three windows stained pink. The fire burned in the grate; a lamp was set lighted on the chimney shelf, for even in the houses the fog began to lie thickly; and there, close up to the warmth, sat Pinkie Pie who, horribly contradicting her surroundings, was looking deadly sick. She did not rise to meet her visitor, but held out a cold hoof and bade her welcome in a changed voice.

“So,” said Ms. Sparkle, as soon as Mr. Cake had left them, “have you heard the news?”

The baker shuddered. “They’ve been yelling it throughout town,” she said. “I heard it from my room.”

“Well, we need to talk,” said the librarian. “I assisted Derpy with her wills and such, but I’m also helping you; I need to know what I’m doing. Please tell me you aren’t crazy enough to hide this mare?”

“Twilight, I swear to Celestia!” cried the baker, “I swear to Celestia I will never see her again. I Pinkie-Pie Swear to you that I am done with her. It’s all over. She doesn’t want my help; you don’t know her like I do, Twilight; she's safe, wherever she is; I Pinkie-Pie Swear she will never be seen again.”

The librarian listened gloomily; she did not like her friend’s uncharacteristic manner. “You seem pretty confident in her,” said she; “and for your sake, I hope you may be right. If it came to trial, your name might appear.”

“I am sure of her,” replied Ms. Pinkie; “I know she's gone, but… but I can’t tell anypony why. But I need your advice about something. I've… I've received a letter; and I’m not sure if I should show it to the police. Could you please please do me the favor of keeping the letter and telling me your opinion of what I should do with it?” You would know what to do; I trust you more than anypony with this.”

“Are you afraid showing it to the police would lead them to Diane?” asked the librarian.

“No,” said the other. “At this point, I really don’t care what happens to her. I am done with that pony. I was thinking of my own reputation: I’m scared this whole situation might cause other ponies to group me with Diane if they found out about the letter.”

Ms. Sparkle ruminated awhile; she was surprised at her friend’s selfishness, but yet relieved by it. “Well,” said she, at last, “let me see the letter.”

The letter was written in an odd, upright hoofwriting and signed “Pinkamena Diane P.”: and it signified, briefly enough, that the writer’s benefactor, Ms. Pinkie, need labour under no alarm for her safety, as she had means of escape on which she placed a sure dependence. The librarian liked this letter well enough; it put a better colour on the intimacy than she had looked for; and she blamed herself for some of her past suspicions.

“Do you have the envelope?” she asked.

“I burned it,” replied Ms. Pinkie, “before I thought about what I was doing. But it didn’t have an address on it: it was hoof delivered.”

“Can I keep the letter and reflect about the whole situation?” asked Twilight.

“Please do! I want all the help you can give me,” was the reply, and with a sigh, “I really don’t have confidence in myself anymore.”

“I’ll do it for you,” returned the librarian. “But one more thing: was it Diane who made you write the terms in your will about your disappearance?”

The baker seemed seized with a qualm of faintness; she shut her mouth tight and nodded.

“I knew it!” exclaimed Ms. Sparkle. “She was planning to murder you. Well, hopefully you are fine now.”

“Ohh Twilight, I wish I was fine,” returned the baker solemnly: “I have learned a lesson- Ohh Celestia, Twilight, I've learned the hard way!” And she covered her face for a moment with her hooves.

On her way out, the librarian stopped and had a word or two with Mr. Cake. “By the way,” said she, “Pinkie told me there was a letter handed in today: what was the messenger like?” But Mr. Cake was positive nothing had come except by post; “and that was still only bills,” he added.

This news sent off the visitor with her fears renewed. Plainly the letter had come by Ms. Pinkie’s door; possibly, indeed, it had been written in the bakery; and if that were so, it must be differently judged, and handled with more caution. Some newscolts, as she went, were crying themselves hoarse along the streets: “Extra! Extra! Shocking murder of a mailmare!” That was the funeral oration of one friend and “client”; and she could not help a certain apprehension lest the good name of another should be sucked down in the eddy of the scandal. It was, at least, a ticklish decision that she had to make; and she began to cherish a longing for advice. It was not to be had directly; but perhaps, she though, it might be fished for.

Presently after, she sat on one side of her own hearth, with Mr. Spike, her head assistant, upon the other, and midway between, at a nicely calculated distance from the fire, a bottle of particularly old cider that had long dwelt unsunned in the foundation of the library. The fog still slept on the wing above the drowned city, where the lamps glimmered like diamonds; and through the muffle and smother of these fallen clouds, the procession of the town’s life was still rolling in through the great arteries with a sound as a mighty wind. But the room was gay with firelight. Insensibly the librarian melted. There was no pony (or dragon) from whom she kept few secrets than Mr. Spike; and she was not always sure that she kept as many as she meant. Mr. Spike had often been seen at the bakery; he knew the Cakes; he could have scarce have failed to hear of Ms. Diane’s familiarity about the house; he might draw conclusions: was it not as well, then, that he should see a letter which put that mystery to rights? And above all since Mr. Spike, being a great assistant and intelligent, would consider the step natural and obliging? The assistant, besides, was a dragon of council; he could scarce read so strange a document without dropping a remark; and by that remark Ms. Sparkle might shape her future course.

“It was so sad, what happened to Derpy,” she said.

“I know, right? It’s affected so many ponies; everyone loved Derpy,” returned Mr. Spike. “The murderer had to be just plain heartless.”

“Speaking of which, I want to talk to you about that,” replied Ms. Sparkle. “I have a document with me in her own hoofwriting; for now, only me and you know about it, because I don’t know what to make of it; all I know is it is bad news at best. But there it is; right in front of you, a murderer’s autograph.”

Mr. Spike’s eyes brightened, and he sat down at once and studied it with passion. “No,” he said: “not heartless, but a very odd pony.”

“And a very odd writer,” added the librarian.

Just then, Owlowiscious entered with a note lined with a pink outlining.

“Is that from Pinkie?” inquired the assistant. “Anything important, Twilight?”

“It’s just an invitation to dinner, Spike. Why?”

“Let me see it for a second,” and the assistant laid the two sheets of paper alongside and sedulously compared their contents. “Well,” he said at last, returning both; “that’s weird”

There was a pause, during which Ms. Sparkle struggled with herself. “What’s weird?” she inquired suddenly.

“Well,” returned the assistant, “the hoofwriting of both notes are really, almost scarily similar, basically completely identical, only differently sloped.”

“That’s interesting,” said Ms. Sparkle.

“It is weird, isn’t it?” returned Mr. Spike.

“Remember, this is only between you and me, Spike,” said the librarian.

“I know, I know,” said the assistant.

But no sooner was Ms. Sparkle alone that night, than she locked the letter in her safe, where he reposed for that time forward. She had no doubt in Mr. Spike’s words, being her assistant in such matters as hoofwriting and being her own personal scribe; she knew Mr. Spike’s words were relevant. “What?!” she thought. “Pinkie Pie forged for a murderer!” and her blood ran cold in her veins.