Pandoramonium: A Detective Rarity Mystery

by RB_

Rating: teen
Tags: Mystery, Rainbow Dash, Comedy, Rarity, Fancypants, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 21399

Nothing ruins a vacation quite like blackmail.

The crime? Blackmail.

The crime scene? Two hundred meters off the ground.

The culprit?

Rarity had better find them quickly if she wants to keep her own secrets safe.

This story contains major spoilers for Who-Dunce-It?.

Published 2021-12-13 23:40:00 UTC
Last updated 2021-12-17 22:29:11 UTC

The Astonishing Airship

Imagine you are about to board a train.

The platform bustles behind you; the smell of soot permeates the air. You look up at the great beast of metal that holds its breath before you, waiting patiently—but not too patiently—for its handlers to set it loose down the tracks again. Its open maw beckons you inside.

As you place your foot squarely on the first step, do you feel that tingle down your spine? That jolt of electricity?

Whatever the reason, wherever you’re going, you’re boarding the train, and that little jolt runs down your spine, because as soon as you step into that cabin, your future becomes uncertain.

You’re about to spend the next little bit of your life—be it ten minutes, be it ten hours—in the belly of that beast, your only company people you’ve never met, people you’ll likely never meet again. As soon as you climb those steps, you’re sealing yourself in there with them. As soon as those doors close, the rest of the world stops observing. The train becomes something separate, detached from normal reality.

Perhaps you enjoy this feeling. Perhaps it unsettles you. Perhaps you’ve never felt it before, and you think this is all a little bit silly, and could we please get on with things? But whichever way you look at it, as soon as that door closes behind you, as soon as you’ve entered Schroedinger’s box...

Anything could happen aboard that train.

You climb the steps.

It’s electrifying, isn’t it?

Rainbow Dash wasn’t feeling very electrified. Nor was Rarity. Neither of them were about to board a train, and what they were feeling was bored.

“You know,” Rainbow said, “when you asked me if I had a couple days to spare for a field trip, I didn’t think you meant we’d be spending two days in a literal field.”

“A poor choice of expression on my part,” Rarity said, a noticeable edge to her voice. “Patience, darling.”

Where they were was a grassy field outside of Baltimare. The ground was relatively flat, although there were hills to the south. And they weren’t alone; theirs was an uneasy congregation, mostly of reporters, and a few faces Rarity would have recognized and Rainbow would not. And their congregation point was the foot of a small wooden stage, conspicuously unoccupied, which gave off the alarming air of having been hastily constructed an hour ago.

Which, in fact, it had. Rainbow and Rarity had arrived just as it was being completed. They’d initially been in high spirits, but those had gradually been exorcised over the course of an hour that, to Rainbow, had felt like a month. It didn’t help that the morning was ever-so-slightly too humid.

All in all, things could have been better.

“When were we supposed to take off, again?” Rainbow asked.

“Eight o’clock.”

“What time is it now?”

She glanced at a pocketwatch, which she’d retrieved from somewhere in the folds of her dress. Rarity, being Rarity, had dressed for the occasion; her attire was light, but modest; classy, but comfortable. She’d put a lot of effort into it, and she thought she pulled it off beautifully.

Rainbow Dash, being Rainbow Dash, had elected to wear nothing at all.

“Eight fifteen.”

Rainbow groaned.

“I’m sorry about all this, Rainbow,” Rarity said, re-pocketing the pocketwatch. “I had expected arriving slightly early would mean that we’d be here in time for the ceremonies. It seems I overestimated the accuracy of the timetable.”

“Hey,” Rainbow was quick to reply. “It’s not like it’s your fault these guys can’t stick to a schedule.”

“Oh? Well in that case, I apologize for nothing.”

Something seemed to catch Rarity’s eye, then, and she smiled. “Ah. Speak of the devil.”

She turned towards whatever it was she’d spotted, and Rainbow followed suit. It seemed their quarry had noticed them, as well.

“Ah! Miss Rarity! Miss Rainbow Dash!”

Rainbow’s breath froze in her lungs. For a moment she wondered if she was seeing things, but blinking didn’t dispel the vison, and then her brain reminded her that she’d heard him, as well, and so she wondered if both of her senses had betrayed her.

But no; they really were there, coming towards them through the thin crowd. And they were—

“F-Fancy Pants!?” Rainbow’s wings flared out slightly. “Fleur!?”

“Bonjour, mes amies,” Fleur said with a smile.

“It has been quite a while,” added Fancy Pants. “I trust you are both well?”

“Quite well,” Rarity said, stepping forward. “Though I am a little surprised that you’re only just arriving. Nothing too worrying, I hope?”

“Ah, no, nothing of the sort,” Fancy said. “There were a few last-minute adjustments to the engines that needed to be made. My apologies for the wait.”

Fleur leaned over and nudged her head against Fancy’s neck. “Fancy made them triple-check everything.”

Fancy nudged her back. “Can’t have anything going wrong today, of all days.”

Rainbow’s voice finally returned to her. “Aren’t you two supposed to be in jail!?” she asked.

“We’re on probation,” Fleur said.

“Probation for treason?”

“Attempted treason.”

“And if you don’t believe us,” Fancy said, “you can ask our very nice probation officers.”

He waved to the side; at the edge of the crowd, a pair of very out-of-place ponies scowled back.

“Good chaps, them.”

“Like kittens.”

“Wait wait wait.” Rainbow fell back on her haunches and crossed her forelegs. “Time out.” She turned to Rarity. “Fancy Pants is the one who invited us here?”

“Oh, did I forget to mention that?” Rarity said, tapping her chin. “It must have slipped my mind.”

Rainbow squinted at her.

“Well, regardless, yes. He’s the owner of the airship, darling.”

“And you said yes!?”

Rarity shrugged. “It would have been rude to decline.”

“Rarity, you got him sent to jail. For treason.”

“And if he does anything ungentlemanly, I’ll do it again,” Rarity said. “Well, apart from the treason part. Probably.”

“If I may interject,” Fancy Pants interjected. “It was part of my intent in inviting the two of you that this be a gesture of good will. ‘No hard feelings’, as it were.”

“Besides,” Fleur said, “It’s not as though you’ve ruined our lives. When you’re as rich as Fancy and I are, jail time is barely more than an inconvenience.”

“Were that we’d all be so lucky,” Rarity said with a flirtatious grin. This earned some polite laughter.

“Yes, well,” Fancy said, after it had died down. “We were given quite a generous sentence, all things considered.”

“Handed down by Celestia herself, I hear,” Rarity said.

Fancy withdrew a cloth from his suit-pocket and gave his monocle a quick polish. “Indeed. A little too generous of a sentence, really. I’ve come to the somewhat unsettling conclusion that the Princess may have liked her nephew even less than we did.”

Rainbow shook her head. “So… you’re not mad that Rarity got you sent to jail. For treason.”

“Heavens, no,” Fancy said, smiling. “My dear, I could hardly call myself a gentlestallion if I swore vengeance after every lost game of chess, could I?”

“A good thing, too,” Fleur whispered to Rarity. “Fancy is terrible at it.”

Fancy continued. “And the same is true of the battle of wits Miss Rarity and I partook in at Blueblood Manor. I have accepted my loss, and I now move on with dignity.”

His monocle returned to its usual place over his eye.

“Of course, should the opportunity for a rematch ever arise, well…”

He winked at them.

“Who knows what the outcome might be?”

Rainbow shivered.

“Now then! I must be going,” Fancy declared. “Mustn’t keep the crowd waiting any longer!”

He gave his wife a quick peck on the cheek and departed, heading for the stage. The remaining three turned to watch him go.

Rarity was the first to speak up.

“So, darling—”

“No,” Rainbow said. “Uh-uh. No way am I getting on a ship, or anything else, with a murderer.”

“Attempted murderer, darling.”

“Does that really make a difference!? He still tried to kill someone!”

Rarity smiled. “Rainbow Dash,” she said, in that sort of half-laughing way she sometimes did. “Relax. I have the utmost confidence that Fancy has no ill intentions towards us.”

“Oh yeah? How do you figure?”

“Simple. It’s been half a year since Blueblood Manor, and he hasn’t tried to have us killed yet.”

“Oh, well, that’s very reassuring.” Rainbow rubbed the bridge of her muzzle. “Look, Rares, I don’t like this. This whole thing stinks worse than Applejack’s farm.”

“Don’t you routinely sleep in Applejack’s trees, darling?”

“Not the point!”

“Si je puis me,” Fleur said, “I know that we didn’t exactly meet under the best of terms, but my husband is nothing if not a man of his word. You may not trust him, but least wait until after Fancy’s speech to make your decision.”

“Which appears to be about to begin,” Rarity observed. Indeed, Fancy Pants had just made it to the rickety platform. The low murmurings of the crowd died down as he climbed the steps, his hoofalls echoing in the hollows of the wood. He strode with aplomb to center stage with his head held high, exuding an aura of confidence and showmanship not dissimilar to that of a circus ringleader.

“Ladies and gentlecolts! Your attention, please!”

This was a formality, of course; he’d already ensnared everyone’s attention. “Thank you,” he said, again as a formality, and then he began.

“For many years now, the travel market has been dominated by the railways. I would not hesitate to guess that the majority of you arrived here by train.”

There was plenty of nodding, in the crowd, Rainbow and Rarity included.

“When the steam locomotive was first introduced,” he continued, “it fundamentally changed the way we think about travel. Grueling journeys that would have taken days on hoof could now be done in a matter of hours. Vacations and day-trips to other towns, other cities, became not only possible, but affordable. The creation of the train lines made our world smaller, more accessible.

“But,” he said. “But.”

“Locomotives are not without their limitations, and they are quite large limitations indeed. They are inefficient; they are dirty; and above all else, they are bound to their rails. The construction of a railroad is a long, arduous, expensive process, and even today there are entire towns which cannot be accessed by train because laying the tracks to reach them is simply too difficult a task. Not to mention the problems inherent in traveling over water! Our interconnected world extends only as far as our rail lines.

“But what if we could decouple travel from the rails? Well, that would change everything, wouldn’t it?”

“He’s really getting into this, huh,” Rainbow whispered.

“Fancy Pants never was one to do things by half-measures,” Rarity whispered back.

“You think the train pun was on purpose?”

“Not a doubt in my mind.”

“I believe,” Fancy said, “that—and the pegasi among us may agree—the next wave of innovation in travel will be found… in the skies!”

A buzz swept through those members of the press in the crowd. Fancy held up his hoof, and there was silence once more.

“For years, airships had been seen as nothing more than a novelty, too expensive and too fragile to make and maintain to be anything more than toys. But we at Fancy Freight proved that was hardly the case! The introduction of our cargo air-fleet revolutionized the way we distribute freight, and today I am here to tell you that we will be extending what we have learned to revolutionize the travel industry!”

He signaled someone to his side; a moment later a flare went off, soaring high into the sky and burning bright over their heads.

Fancy continued. “Our engineers have created a new breed of passenger airship. One which can be produced reliably. Affordably. One which can carry twenty passengers in modern comfort, with all the conveniences one may need… And one that can keep pace with the trains.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said with a flourish, “it is my great pleasure to announce that we have created the first truly commercially viable passenger airship! I give you: the Anesidora!”

He raised his hoof; it took the crowd a moment to realize he was pointing behind them. Turning, they got their first glimpse of the Anesidora as it rose up from behind the hills.

It was just a shadow, at first, silhouetted as it was by the rising sun; they had to squint to make out the details.

The first thing Rarity noticed was the sheer size of the thing. The sleek wooden gondola which hung suspended by a number of tethers was large on its own, being nearly (by her estimate) the size of a well-off house. But it was dwarfed entirely by its balloon—and the balloon itself was unlike any she’d ever seen. It was shaped a bit like a teardrop, but elongated, so that the rounded front was some distance away from the tapering-off back. What’s more, it appeared to be held to a frame; the sides of the thing were angular, and rigid.

The ship was propelled along by a pair of—well, propellers, mounted on struts that jutted up and out from the sides of the gondola. They turned lazily, but even at such a low speed the ship glided along at a decent clip as it passed over their heads. The Anesidora descended from the sky like an angel descending from the heavens, if the heavens were about a mile up, and the angel weighed nine tonnes and was shaped like an airship.

Sleek, but elegant; a fusion of classical aesthetics and modern utility, connected together by thread. Rarity could feel the inspiration bubbling up already.

Rainbow Dash, despite herself, let out a whistle.

Cameras flashed as the ship drifted down, its gondola (which was most definitely the size of a large house, now that it was right in front of them) touching down on the grass of the field some distance behind the stage, its tethers growing slack for a moment as momentum carried the balloon down with it. Fancy allowed the reporters their chance, then held up his hoof for silence once more.

“Of course, I couldn’t just boast about our accomplishments without a proper demonstration,” Fancy said. “’Putting my money where my mouth is’, as they say. Which brings me to the reason I’ve gathered you here today.”

“Ladies and gentlecolts, you are here today to witness the beginning of a historic journey. The first of its kind, a feat never before attempted in the history of mechanical aviation! A non-stop transcontinental flight!”

He put his hoof down.

“Ladies and gentlecolts, I tell you now without a trace of exaggeration that by tomorrow evening, my esteemed guests and I will have landed in Vanhoover!”

This set the reporters in the crowd abuzz, and there was no settling them down now.

“How did I do?”

“Wonderfully, dear,” Fleur said to Fancy, nuzzling him. “You’ll be the talk of tomorrow’s papers.”

“Well, can’t ask for better than that!”

“Quite impressive,” Rarity said. “You certainly know how to play an audience. You had them ensnared like a ringleader at the circus.”

“I will choose to take that as a compliment,” Fancy said, his pleasant smile unwavering. He pulled a pocketwatch from his suit pocket, glanced at it, and clicked his tongue. “We should perhaps continue this conversation once we’re aboard the ship. Shall we?”

“That depends,” Rarity said. She turned to her friend. “Rainbow? Will you be joining us?”

Rainbow bit her lip.

“Not that I trust you, or anything, but…” She eyed the ship. “How fast does this thing go?”

“Well, certainly not as fast as you, my dear,” Fancy said, smiling. “But I’m confident it would at least make you sweat.”

Rainbow’s eyes flicked to Fancy. Then back to the ship. Then to Rarity. Then back to the ship. To Rarity again.

She rolled her eyes.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll come. Under protest, so we’re clear!”

“Really, darling?”

“Well, someone’s got to make sure Fancy Fright over there doesn’t ‘accidentally’ stab you with a butter knife,” Rainbow explained.

“Protection from silverware-related incidents?” Rarity smiled. “I feel safer already.”

She turned to the other member of their little group.

“Will you be accompanying us on the trip, Fleur?”

“Oh, goodness no,” she said. “No offense to my husband or his work, but you would not catch me dead in one of his toys. I prefer to keep my hooves firmly planted on the ground, merci beaucoup.”

“Who else is coming, then?” Rainbow asked.

“Didn’t you read the guest list, darling?” Rarity asked. “There was one with the invitation.”

Rainbow squinted. “You never showed me the invitation. And who sends the guest list with the invitation, anyway?”

“Someone who is very confident that no one will say no,” Fancy said. “We’ll make introductions once we’re on board. Things are behind schedule enough as it is.”

He kissed his wife, and then he was off, towards the towering mass of metal and wood that was to be their home for the next two days. Rarity lit her horn and grabbed her bags (of which there were many) and followed suit, saying a quick goodbye to Fleur as well, and then she and Rainbow together followed after him. The crowd of photographers, waiting like hyenas for the perfect shot in a ring around the ship (the journalists had all already departed, their job done) parted around them, a few flashbulbs going off as they did so. Neither of them were strangers to the sensation of being photographed, but given the circumstances, things were just a tiny bit more exciting.

The shadow of the ship’s massive balloon came over them as they approached the ramp that led up into the belly of the beast. And as her hoof came down on the wide wooden plank, the hair on the back of Rainbow’s neck prickled up.

“Something the matter, darling?” Rarity asked her, glancing back.

Rainbow hesitated a moment… but shook her head.

“No, it’s nothing.”

And up into the box they went.

The Preposterous Proposition

The note Fancy received is reproduced here exactly as written, as a courtesy to the reader:

To the passengers of this most magnificent airship; I hope you are enjoying your trip so far.

My name is unimportant. What is important is what I’m about to say, so read carefully. Your fates may be decided by what happens in the next few days.

Underneath your chairs, some of you will find a box. You may be tempted to open yours now, but I suggest that you wait until you are alone. For you see, inside each of these boxes is a secret.

Each of you has something to hide. Something, I suspect, you’d like to stay hidden. For some of you, it may merely be a stain upon your honor. For others, it may be something far more serious. And for some of you, it may be a matter of life and death.

The contents of each of your boxes represent that which you so desperately want to keep hidden. You can take it as proof that I’m not lying about any of this.

I suspect the mood in the room is a somber one. Do not worry. I am very good at keeping secrets… but first, you’ll have to do me a little favor.

If you do not want the secret inside your box to stop being a secret, then all you must do is leave a sum total of one-hundred thousand bits at one or several of the six locations listed below within a week from the reading of this note.

If any one of you leaves the Anesidora before touching down in Vanhoover, then the contents of your boxes will be in the papers for everyone to read by the next morning. If any one of you contacts the police, then the very same will happen. I trust you all are smarter than that.

Have a wonderful trip.

“I have no idea how they got there. I don’t know anything.”

The chef was a middle-aged stallion, with a hairline that was receding from his horn. His apron was covered in malign stains, and he had the saggy skin of someone who might have been muscular once but certainly wasn’t now.

“I’ve got nothing to do with this, swear on Celestia.”

He was also a very bad liar.

“Clearly you must, sir,” Rarity said, taking a step towards him. “You were, after all, the one who delivered the envelope.”

“I don’t know where that came from. I found it here while I was making lunch.”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Where?”

The chef bit his lip. “Erm… on the counter.”

“On a plate?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t report it immediately because?”

“W-why would I? It was just an envelope. I figured it could wait until Mr. Pants got to the dining room.”

Rarity took another step forward; the chef took a half-step back.

“And you found it while you were making lunch?”

“I’d just put the souffles in the oven.” He looked relieved.

“Then…” Rarity smiled. “You must have seen who put it there, correct?”

The chef blanched. “Eh?”

“If it was just sitting on the counter out in the open, when you arrived, you would have noticed it immediately.” She gestured around the kitchen. “After all, the room isn’t exactly spacious. Such a thing would have been quite conspicuous.”

She took another step forward. This time, when the chef attempted to take a step back, his rear butted up against the counter.

“So,” she continued. “If it wasn’t there when you arrived, then it must have been placed there while you were working. Which of course means that someone must have placed it; and, again, in a room as cozy as this one, it’s somewhat unbelievable that you wouldn’t have caught them in the act. On top of that, the workstation faces the door; if you were indeed preparing lunch, anyone entering would have had to cross your line of sight. Right?”

“U-um—”

“Then,” Rarity said, “if someone came into the kitchen and placed the letter for you to find, then you must have seen who it was. Which, of course, means you would know the identity of the blackmailer.”

She turned to Rainbow. “It appears this case was easier than I expected!”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said, also smiling. “Good thing we have our prime witness!”

“So,” Rarity said, turning back to the chef. Her smile shifted from one of mirth to something far more predatory. “Who was it?”

“I-it… uh…” The chef swallowed. “It was…”

“Speak up, darling,” Rarity said, her expression unwavering. “You seem to be having some trouble. Cat got your tongue? Or did you just conveniently forget?”

“I— L-look, it wasn’t me who set all this up!” the chef said, looking like doing his absolute best to phase into the counter behind him. “I’m innocent in this! I don’t know anything.”

Rarity sighed. “Alright. Rainbow? Diplomacy has failed. I yield to your expertise.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “That’s what you call diplomacy, huh.”

“Close enough. Would you kindly?”

Rainbow nodded.

“Alright, buddy,” she said, taking a step forward, her wings fluttering. She grabbed the chef by his collar. He let out an ‘eep’.

“You’re gonna tell us what you know,” she said. “And you’re gonna do it now, before we get impatient.”

“I don’t—”

“You don’t want to make me impatient,” Rainbow said. “When I get impatient, I like to go flying. I’m a pegasus like that. And buddy, it’s a looooong way to the ground…”

“Alright! Alright!” He threw up his hooves. “I lied, alright! I was the one who set up the boxes. I brought them on board! But I didn’t know what was inside. Some guy gave them to me, and the envelope, and told me what to do with them!”

“When?”

“Yesterday!”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “And you just went along with it?”

The chef’s eyes wandered to the left. “He paid me.”

“How much?”

“Enough to get off this tin can and start a real restaurant.” He looked to the side. “I mean I like Mr. Pants and all, but not enough to refuse a good counter-offer.”

“And you didn’t think that was suspicious?” Rainbow said. “Like you didn’t think that maybe you were agreeing to smuggle a bomb on board, or something?”

“…No?”

Rainbow’s hoof connected with her face.

“This pony,” Rarity said. “What did they look like?”

“He was a unicorn,” the chef said. “Kinda tall. He was wearing a coat, I couldn’t see his cutie mark.”

“Anything else?” Rarity asked.

“I dunno, he was kind of plain-looking?”

“Doesn’t sound like anyone on board,” she murmured, then, to the chef: “It wasn’t any of the guests, I assume?”

“No,” he said. “I’d never seen him before, and I haven’t seen him since.”

Rarity sighed. “Ah, well, it wouldn’t be that easy, would it. You can put him down now, Rainbow; I believe we’re done here for the moment.”

Almost reluctantly, Rainbow released her hold on the chef’s collar. He leaned up against the counter, rubbing his neck with a hoof.

“You two are scary, you know that?”

“We will choose to take that as a compliment!” Rarity declared, turning about with a swish of her tail and a flick of her mane. “Come along, Rainbow.”

“Not very helpful,” Rainbow remarked as they exited the dining room.

“Oh, I think there were a few important points in all that,” Rarity said. “For example, we now know that there’s no point wasting time trying to trace the path of the boxes onto the ship; we also now know that the blackmailer has at least one accomplice, and that they have at least a moderate amount of funds to spare.”

“You don’t think that guy the chef talked to was the blackmailer?” Rainbow asked. Rarity shook her head.

“No, I don’t believe so. Or if it was, then they were well-disguised. Otherwise, the chef would have recognized them at lunch.”

“What?” Rainbow stopped. “You think the blackmailer is on board?”

Rarity took a few more steps before she realized she was no longer being followed; she turned around, not an easy thing to do in the tight corridor, and tilted her head.

“Hadn’t you concluded the same, darling?”

“Obviously not!” Rainbow said.

“Well,” Rarity said, smiling. “Allow me to explain my reasoning.”

“The blackmailer threatened to release our secrets if we crossed them; specifically, if any of us left the ship before we arrived at our destination in Vanhoover,” she said. “Such a rule would require enforcement; they couldn’t know if, say, you were to go for a flight unless they were directly observing us.”

“This presents us with three possibilities. One: the culprit, or someone working with the culprit, is on board with us. Two: The culprit, or someone working with the culprit, is watching the ship from the ground. Three: The culprit, or someone working with the culprit, is following us by air.

“Well, we can immediately eliminate two and three; given the speed this craft is traveling, it would be quite difficult for someone on the ground or in the air to keep up with us. It is unlikely they are following us by train, either, given the route we are taking. And any other airship that were following us would be spotted immediately. The only way I could see this working is if the culprits had an entire network of ponies on the ground stationed at intervals along our exact route, and frankly the logistics of such a thing would be both preposterous and frightening.”

“Therefore,” Rarity concluded, “it is much more likely that they are observing us from aboard the ship itself.”

“Huh,” Rainbow said. “Makes sense.”

“Furthermore,” Rarity said, “It’s probably one of the other passengers.”

Rainbow nodded. “Because if it wasn’t one of us, they wouldn’t have needed to use the chef.”

“Precisely, darling!”

“So,” Rainbow said, gears turning in her skull. “That means we have a list of suspects!”

Rarity beamed. “Indeed! Really, it’s quite lucky for us that our blackmailer laid out his rules as he did; if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t know where to even begin. Now, we have a chance.”

“Alright!” Rainbow pumped a foreleg. “Now we’ve just got to find them.”

“And so we shall!” Rarity declared. “We must simply investigate the details of this case. Because the devil is in the details, darling, and in the details, we’ll find our de—.”

She blinked. A hoof went to her mouth.

“Oh dear. I suppose I really do say that every time.”

“Told you.”

The rest of the afternoon was spent amongst the crew; Rarity wanted to know if anyone else on board had come in contact with their mysterious accomplice. Unfortunately, no one they asked had—or, at the very least, they weren’t telling.

And so it was that it came time for dinner.

They were the last two to arrive, it seemed, as they entered the dining room. They took their seats without remark, neither from them nor from those who were already assembled at the table. Plates of food had been put out, appetizers, but no one was availing themselves. A cloud hung over the table, and its name was silence.

Fortunately, cloudbusting was Rainbow’s specialty.

“So,” she said. “What was in you guys’ boxes?”

Tact, on the other hoof, was not. The other guests bristled.

“Perhaps, darling,” Rarity said after an awkward moment, “it would be best to leave that information private, for the time being.” She stood. “That being said, I have an announcement to make.”

Banner Byline also stood up. “Actually, I also have s-something I’d like to s-say,” he stammered. “Do you mind going s-second, Miss Rarity?”

“Oh, no,” Rarity said, sitting back down. “Please, go right ahead.”

He nodded, then turned to face the rest of the table.

“I have a p-p-proposal,” he said.

“Let’s hear it,” Fancy replied.

We all received a box—or, w-well, most of us did,” Banner began, casting a quick side glance at Rainbow Dash before resuming. “Myself included. It contained something incredibly private, and I imagine it’s the same for all of you, as well.”

Several of the guests nodded.

“However,” he continued, “what is inside my box—while quite serious—is not world-ending. I would survive its release, and though it would be difficult… I have a wife and child to support. I cannot afford to give up such a large percentage of my life’s savings.”

He paused.

“What I am trying to say,” he continued, following that moment of silence, “is that whatever is in our boxes cannot be worth having some… s-some madpony holding them over our heads.”

“What are you suggesting, exactly?” Ruby Gleam asked, though the look in her eye suggested that she knew exactly where he was going with this, and that she did not like it.

“I’m saying that we should all come clean,” Banner said.

He was met with silence.

“You think whoever is behind this w-will be satisfied with just one-hundred t-thousand bits?” he said. “And w-what will you do next month, when you receive another note in the mail asking for another hundred thousand? Or the month after that? There is no reason to assume that they are going to keep their w-word. They are a criminal!”

He swallowed, under the heavy gazes of the other passengers. “But if we all come forward with our secrets—”

“Oh yeah?” Mr. Morass said, standing up himself, his chair screeching across the floor. “Well, your secret may not be so bad, but mine certainly is!”

“Nancy!” his wife hissed, though somewhat half-heartedly. She was ignored.

“You want us to come clean? You don’t know the first thing about us!” he said. “Don’t forget, if any one of us comes forward, the rest of our secrets will be exposed, too! You can’t just drag us all down with you!”

“T-that’s why it’s so important that we all come forward together,” Banner said. “If we do, we can save face and get ahead of the news, giving us the advantage!”

“And who exactly do you suppose we’d be coming clean to?” Ruby Gleam asked. “The press? The police?”

“Of course the police!” Banner said. “That way, they can help us catch whoever it is that’s trying to blackmail us! They’ll have no leverage if we all agree to do this together. They’ll be on the defensive! Don’t you agree?”

It did not seem like Ruby Gleam agreed. Nor did it seem anyone else did, but she, most of all, had a foul look upon her face. Banner Byline looked from pony to pony, looking for anyone who might agree with him, desperate at this point.

It was at this point that Fancy Pants stood up.

“Ladies and gentlecolts,” Fancy said. “I may have another solution.”

The atmosphere cooled immediately. Banner Byline sat back down, his time apparently up.

“Let’s hear it, Fancy,” said Capital Idea.

“It’s a simple proposal,” Fancy said. “It requires no form of payment to our would-be blackmailer. Nor does it require any of us to come forward with anything unsavory. All we have to do is one thing.”

He looked at each guest’s face in turn.

“If we can uncover the identity of our blackmailer,” Fancy said, “then there will be no need to pay, and no need to disclose our secrets to anyone. They can be dealt with—within the bounds of the law, of course—and none of us will ever have to think about this again. A most satisfactory turn of events for everyone, no?”

“Sure,” Ruby Gleam said, with characteristic annoyance. “And how do you propose we do that, exactly?” The other guests seemed to fall in line behind her, nodding—she had that effect on people.

Fortunately, so did Fancy.

“It seems fate is smiling upon us,” Fancy said, “because the solution is aboard our ship, and in fact they are sitting right over there.”

And with that, he gestured towards Rarity, who smiled.

“Miss Rarity and Miss Rainbow Dash are detectives of some renown,” Fancy said. “You may have heard of some of their exploits.”

“Mostly Rarity’s exploits,” Rainbow admitted. “I’m usually just along for the ride.”

“Nonsense, darling,” Rarity objected. “You provide much-needed moral support! And also a much-needed extra set of hooves.”

Recognition flashed in Ruby Gleam’s eyes. “You’re the ones the Duchess Clearglass was talking about!”

Rarity nodded. “That would be us, yes.”

“Oh,” Capital Idea said. “That explains the trenchcoat.”

“I have personally taken the liberty of asking Miss Rarity to look into this matter,” Fancy said. “And as I have… first-hoof experience with her abilities, I have every confidence that she can deliver.”

Murmurs, around the table.

“How do we know she isn’t the blackmailer?”

The murmurs fell silent.

“If she’s as good a detective as you say,” Banner Byline said, quietly, “then it would explain how the blackmailer was able to dig up all this information on all of us.”

“A good question,” Fancy said. “I believe I can vouch for Miss Rarity’s character. Do you have anything to say for yourself, my dear?”

“I’m afraid I cannot prove that I am not the blackmailer,” Rarity admitted. “But, as I see it—I’m the only hope you’ve got. And it’s not as though it would change anything, regardless. If I am the blackmailer, then I’ll do nothing to jeopardize my payout. You’ll still be getting off this ship two days from now, and you’ll still have this hanging over your heads. The outcome does not change.”

“If I’m not, however,” Rarity continued with a smile, “then you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

“She’s got you there, Banner,” Capital said. “Okay. I’m in favor. It beats going to the police.”

“Hold on,” Mr. Morass said, sitting up in his seat with a scowl. “If you’re going to go poking about everywhere… what’s to stop you from sneaking a poke into one of our boxes, eh?”

“I swear that, no matter what may happen, I will not look inside your boxes,” Rarity said. “I’ll stake my hat on it.”

“I think we’re going to need a bit more than your hat,” Mr. Morass spat.

“Well, if it would help you trust me,” she suggested, “I’m more than willing to show you the contents of my box.”

That shut him up.

Rarity set the thing down on the table with a wooden clunk. She lit her horn; the lid cracked open. They all craned their necks to look.

Inside was what looked initially to be a bundle of fabric; as Rarity pulled it from its container, it became apparent that it was actually a scarf, a deep red in shade, which unwound across the table.

Rainbow looked puzzled. So did everyone else.

“When I was first beginning to expand my business outside of Ponyville,” Rarity explained, “I set my sights on getting one of my designs into the… into a notable fashion show that was to be held in Manehattan.

“It was a very prestigious, and very strict, affair. You couldn’t apply for it; you had to be invited. Well, I’ve never been one to back away from a challenge, and so I set about creating a new line. My intent was to bring it to a certain… influential voice in the fashion scene. If I could sway him with my designs, getting into the show would be easy. I worked on them for weeks.”

She held up the scarf. “This was part of my piece de resistance.”

“Well, I got him to look at my designs. He quite liked them, actually. Said I had a lot of potential.”

“But…?”

“But he didn’t want to invite me to participate in the show. Not purely on the merits of my work, anyway.” She scoffed. “I mean, some country bumpkin nopony? Entered into the most prestigious fashion show this side of Canterlot? His credibility would be put on the line just by inviting me.”

“But I was determined, and he was a capitalist. And so we… struck a deal. He’d get a cut of the money I made off the line, and I’d get into the show.”

“You b-bribed your way into a fashion show,” Banner Byline said.

“I’d hate to put it that way, but yes. I’m not proud of it, but this sort of thing is unfortunately quite common in my industry, and indeed necessary if one is to succeed in it. Still, I’d hardly want it getting out; it could put a sizable dent in my career.”

Rarity sat back into her seat. “There. Now you all know my secret. That puts me at a disadvantage. If I pry too far into any of your personal affairs, then all you have to do is leak it to the press. Of course, some amount of prying will be necessary—one of you is the blackmailer, after all.”

“One of us!?”

Fancy nodded. “I came to the same conclusion myself.”

Rarity explained her reasoning, just as she had to Rainbow earlier. The guests looked none too pleased, but none could shoot a hole through her logic.

“So it’s one of you,” Mr. Morass said at last, casting suspicious looks one way and the next. The only one he didn’t look to, in fact, was his wife, who looked similarly suspicious but was trying harder to hide it.

“I should think you would be relieved at the news,” Rarity said.

“And why is that?”

Rarity smiled one of her special little smiles.

“Because it means they can be caught.”

“It also gives us a time limit,” she said. “Once this craft has touched down in Vanhoover and its passengers—we—have disembarked, our opportunity will have slipped away from us. However, it is getting late—I propose to continue the investigation tomorrow. We have plenty of time, after all, and there is nowhere for them to run.”

“And to that end,” Fancy cut in, “I believe our dinner is here. Let us eat and be merry, everyone. We are in good hooves.”

“Well, I’ll just, uh… be going, I guess. To my own cabin. Alone.”

Rainbow bit her lip. They were in the hallway, just outside of Rarity’s cabin. Dinner had gone about as well as one could have expected it to have gone, and everyone was retiring to their own cabins for the night.

Rarity smiled. “You know, it may be a bit silly of me, but I don’t much feel safe sleeping by myself tonight. And seeing as I have an extra bed, would there be any chance you would be willing to—”

“Yes!” Rainbow blurted, before quickly recomposing herself. “I mean… yeah, sure, if you want.”

The night passed peacefully enough for the two, and soon enough the porter was knocking on their door to announce breakfast.

Rarity yawned. “Oh dear, I barely got a wink of sleep last night. What about you, Rainbow?”

“Slept like a foal,” she replied. Whatever had been ailing her the night before, she seemed to have recovered somewhat.

“I can’t have been the only one,” Rarity said. “I heard hoofsteps in the night. Quite late, too. The walls are dreadfully thin.”

“Maybe you should tell that to Fancy. It’s his ship.”

“Perhaps.”

Rarity spent some time putting her makeup together, and then they made their way to the dining area. “Good morning, everyone,” Rarity said, as they entered. She was met with much of the same, albeit with much less enthusiasm. Croissants had been laid out on the table, among other such breakfast delights. Really, if the circumstances had been better, she could imagine them all having a very nice time on this airship.

“Good morning, Miss Rarity,” Fancy Pants said, the only one in seemingly higher spirits. “Sleep well?”

“Well enough,” Rarity replied. “Is everyone else here? I should like to get started on interviews shortly after breakfast.”

At a quick headcount, she saw that they were not the last to arrive; someone else was missing.

“No,” Fancy confirmed, “We’re missing Banner.”

“He was in the cabin next to yours, wasn’t he?” Rarity asked. “Have you not seen him this morning?”

“No, I can’t say that I have,” Fancy replied, frowning. “You don’t think something may have happened to him, do you?”

“Perhaps it would be best to check in on him,” Rarity said. “I’ll come along, too. Rainbow?”

She turned to her friend, who had two croissants stuffed into her mouth and a third in her hooves.

“Hmph?”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “We really must do something about your metabolism, darling. Come along.”

The door to Banner’s room was shut when they arrived.

“Banner?” Fancy called out, rapping on his nameplate. Then a little louder: “Banner?”

No response. Frowning, Fancy tried the handle; the door slid smoothly open, like a curtain before a play, and upon that vile stage stood—

Rarity’s heart sank. She sighed.

“And there’s the murder.”

Banner Byline—what remained of Banner Byline—lay slumped over, back against the far wall of the cabin. His expression was one of surprise and panic, frozen onto his features. Blood stained the carpet beneath him, and splattered the wall behind him. A piece of paper sat atop his corpse.

“Celestia…” Fancy breathed.

Rarity stepped forward, over the bloodstains, and put her hoof to his neck.

“He’s dead,” she said, after a moment. “And by the looks of things, he didn’t go of his own accord.”

She turned to the Fancy Pants.

“Someone on this ship has a secret worth killing for,” she said. “And I am going to find out who.”

The Integral Investigation

“Heavens,” Rarity said, “this part never gets any less unsavory, does it?”

“It’s probably a good thing we aren’t used to it yet,” Rainbow replied.

“Good point.”

The two of them were standing over the dead body, hooves carefully positioned so as to avoid stepping in anything unpleasant. The first splatters of blood actually started closer to the middle of the room and made a trail to where the ex-pony lay now.

The cause of death was quite apparent—it was hard to miss the puncture wounds in the stallion’s neck. They themselves were quite small, but then ‘go for the jugular’ was an idiom for a reason.

“Where does ‘stabbing to the throat’ fall on your list of ways you wouldn’t want to die, Rainbow Dash?”

“Definitely up there now.”

Screwing up her face, Rarity reached out with her magic and turned Banner’s head, but there were no more wounds to be found there. Nor did there appear to be anything else of note with the corpse, which Rarity herself concluded after a brief and reluctant inspection.

That unpleasant task out of the way, she turned her attention to the note.

To the passengers of this most magnificent airship;

Make no mistake. This is a warning to all of you. Attempting to cheat me will not award you any favours. Continue your enquiry at your own peril.

“They seem to have it out for me,” Rarity said.

“Not surprising.”

She looked a little closer.

“Interesting,” she murmured. “Here, look around the edges of the newsprint. The red stain.”

Rainbow squinted at the paper. Indeed, the first few cut words and letters had a very slight red border along their edges.

“Is that… blood?”

“Most likely.” Rarity left the note on one of the empty bunks. “Given that and the… wounds… I think it’s fairly obvious what the murder weapon was.”

“…Scissors?”

Rarity smiled. “Very good, darling! We’ll make a detective out of you yet.”

Rainbow looked away. Rarity didn’t notice.

“Yes, I do believe Mr. Byline met his end to a pair of scissors. Odd choice of weapon, but I suppose one must make do.”

“So… all we have to do is find out who has a pair of scissors?” Rainbow asked.

“In theory? Yes.” Rarity turned away from the body. “In practice, I’m afraid not.”

“What do you mean?”

“The boxes,” Rarity replied. “If I were our blackmailer, and I needed to hide a relatively small object from a brilliant, fashionable, absolutely stunning detective, I’d put it in the one place she wasn’t allowed to look.”

“You promised you wouldn’t look in anyone’s boxes, so…”

“Indeed.” Rarity sighed. “It’s unfortunate; if I’d thought something like this was going to happen, I would have left myself a loophole. As it was, it never even occurred to me.”

She pouted. “Really, it’s all rather unfair.”

She stepped back, away from the body. “Doesn’t it seem odd to you,” Rarity said, tapping her chin in thought, “that our mysterious blackmailer would kill one of his own golden geese?”

“You mean why would he kill someone he was trying to blackmail?”

“Precisely,” Rarity said. “I suppose it could just be because he was trying to get us all to come forward to the police, but he wasn’t making much headway there, and the note makes it sound like they were going after me, not him specifically. But then why attack Banner and not myself? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe because we were together last night?” Rainbow suggested, but Rarity frowned.

“But we never told anyone we were bunking together, darling. No one should have known.”

“They could have overheard?”

“Hm…” She looked unsatisfied at this answer, but she followed it up with a “Perhaps.”

She sighed. “In any case, this has now become a murder investigation. And here I was thinking we’d finally gotten some variety in our caseload. We’ll need to act with twice as much urgency now that our culprit has shown themselves capable of killing.”

“At least this proves that whoever’s behind the blackmail is on board,” Rainbow said.

Rarity smiled. “Ever the optimist, Rainbow Dash.”

They began their investigations for the day with a quick search of the living quarters. The cabins were arranged as follows, starting from the left fork of the hallway: Ruby Gleam at the back, an empty room, then the Morasses, a second empty room, and then Capital Idea. On the right fork was Fancy at the back, Banner’s room next to his, an empty room, then Rarity’s, and finally Rainbow’s unoccupied room. Each of them was similar to Rarity’s, with the main difference being the tenants.

Not a one of them yielded anything useful. And so, it was on to interviews.

“Tell me about yourself, Mr. Idea,” Rarity said. They were in the lounge, Rarity’s chosen spot. Rarity was sitting in one of the chairs, Rainbow standing beside her. And across from them in another chair was Capital Idea himself.

“What do you want to know?”

“Where do you live,” Rarity supplied. “Where do you work, that sort of thing.”

“Well, I live in Manehattan,” Capital said. “I’m an investment broker.”

“What firm?”

“Equitrade.”

“You must be pretty well off, then,” Rarity said.

“Reasonably so. I’m certainly not hurting for cash.”

“What’s your relationship to Fancy Pants?”

“We have a mutual friend in Banner Byline,” he said. “Or ‘had’, I guess.”

“How did you know Byline?”

“We go back a long time,” he said. “He was one of my clients. We got to know each other pretty well.”

“Tell me about him.”

Capital Idea sighed. “He was a good guy. Trustworthy. Dependable. Bit of a boyscout. Never acted like he was as rich as he was, especially after he bought the Times.”

“How did he come into his money?”

“He started off with a modest inheritance,” Idea said. “Grew it into a fortune. He had a good head for money, Banner did.”

“Do you have any idea what might have been in his box?” Rarity asked. “We couldn’t find it when we searched Banner’s cabin.”

Idea stiffened. “No idea. I can’t even imagine what anyone could have on him. Like I said—he was a boyscout.”

Rarity nodded, then shifted topics. “What about the rest of the guests? Know any of them?”

“I’ve met Ruby Gleam before,” he said. “We travel in similar circles—she’s also from Manehattan. We used to be closer, but we had a bit of a falling out. I won’t go into the details.”

“Manehattan?” Rarity frowned. “Fancy said she was from Trottingham.”

“She travels between the two cities. She’s a Trottingham native, though, I suppose—I guess her accent gives that away, though. Sorry for the confusion.”

“Quite all right,” Rarity said. “And the Morasses?”

“Never even heard of them before.”

Rarity nodded again. “Let me ask you about last night,” she said. “How did you sleep?”

“I was awake for most of the night,” Capital Idea said. “I couldn’t help it. How is one supposed to fall asleep after that?”

“Understandable,” Rarity said. “I hardly slept a wink myself. I presume you spent the night in your own cabin, is that correct?”

“Yes, that’s right,” he said.

“So you wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary.”

“Well—there was one thing. I could hear hoofsteps, outside my door.”

Rarity quirked an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” he said. “A few times, actually.”

“Could you tell me more?”

“Well, I don’t know when any of this was,” said Capital Idea, “there’s no clock in my cabin, and I didn’t bring a watch, but three times last night I heard someone pass my door. On the second occasion, I think it might have been two ponies.”

“And was there anything strange about these hoofsteps?”

“No,” he said. “I just thought it was a bit odd that there was so much bustle going on in the night. Maybe it wasn’t that odd after all.”

“On the contrary,” Rarity said. “The small details are often the most important.”

Capital Idea smiled. “Well, in that case, I’m glad I could provide them. People have always complimented me for my memory.”

“Well, I’m glad we have that to rely on!”

They both laughed.

“There’s one last thing that’s stood out as odd to me,” Rarity said, afterwards.

“Shoot.”

“I couldn’t help but notice,” Rarity said, “That your name was not on the guest list I received with my invitation.”

“Was it not?” Capital Idea said. “Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that. You’d have to ask Fancy Pants.”

“Oh, I intend to,” Rarity said. “May I ask when you received your invitation?”

“About a week ago.”

“Interesting. I received mine closer to a month ago.”

“Really?” Capital Idea seemed a little taken aback. “You know, I did think it was a bit short notice. I suppose I was a late addition.”

“I suppose so,” Rarity said. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Idea.”

Ruby gleam was frowning when she entered the room, and she was frowning as she sat down.

“Is something the matter?” Rarity asked.

“Why would anything be?” Ruby Gleam replied, still frowning. Rainbow Dash was left to conclude that Ruby Gleam wasn’t displeased with anything in particular so much as she was displeased with everything in particular.

“Well, we’ll do our best not to waste any time,” Rarity said, and this seemed to placate the mare somewhat.

“While I already know who you are,” she began, “for the sake of procedure and for my assistant here, would you mind telling us a bit about yourself?”

“Well,” Ruby Gleam said, seeming to perk up, even. “”My name, as you know, is Ruby Gleam; my father was Brass Gleam, the famous inventor.”

“What’d he invent?” Rainbow asked.

“The duct-reverse carburetor.”

“The what?”

“Really now, Rainbow Dash,” Rarity said. “Who hasn’t heard of the duct-reverse carburetor?”

Rainbow shrugged. “What’s it do?”

“It would be better to ask what it doesn’t do,” Ruby Gleam said.

“What doesn’t it do?”

“Answer ignorant questions like ‘What is a duct-reverse carburetor’.”

“What it did do was make your late father fabulously wealthy,” Rarity said, regaining control of the conversation while Rainbow bristled. “And, by extension, you.”

“Naturally.”

“Which, of course, has now made you a target for our blackmailer.”

Ruby Gleam’s expression grew sourer. “Yes.”

“So, on that track,” Rarity said, “tell me about your relationship with the other passengers. Have you met any of them before?”

“I’ve met all of them before,” Ruby said.

“Where had you met them before?”

“Oh, here and there,” she said. “At parties and the like. Oh, except for Fancy Pants. Fancy was a friend of my father’s.”

“Which is, I suppose, why you were invited upon this airship.”

“Correct. There are several duct-reverse carburetors on board.”

“What about Banner Byline?” Rarity asked. “Did you know him any better than any of the others?”

“I wouldn’t say we were friends,” Ruby Gleam explained, “but I suppose we were more than acquaintances, too. We used to exchange letters.”

“What about?”

Ruby Gleam frowned. “I hardly think it matters what my personal correspondence is like, Miss Rarity.”

“If it’s so inconsequential,” Rarity said, “then surely you wouldn’t mind sharing just a little bit?”

Ruby Gleam glared at her and said nothing.

“Oh well. I tried.” Rarity concluded, after a moment of awkward silence. It was clear they weren’t going to get anything else out of Gleam, tight-lipped as she was. “Let me ask you something else. Did you hear any hoofsteps outside your door last night?”

“No, I can’t say that I did.”

“Your room is at the end of the hallway, though, yes?”

She nodded. “That’s correct. So I wouldn’t have heard anyone unless they came to my room, which no one did.”

“You’re sure no one visited you last night?”

Ruby Gleam shot her a look. “That’s what I just said, isn’t it? No one came to my cabin last night.”

“Did you leave your cabin?”

“No. I went right to bed.”

“How did you sleep?”

“Like an angel. I do need my beauty sleep, and I get up on the wrong side of the bed if I don’t get my full eight hours.”

“Does your bed even have a ‘right side’?” Rainbow muttered under her breath.

If anyone else heard, no one said anything.

“I don’t see why she has to interview us,” Mr. Morass said. “We certainly didn’t kill anyone.”

“Hush, Nancy,” his wife said. “It’s just procedure. Right, Miss Rarity? You don’t actually think we’re behind any of this, do you?”

“I can’t rule you out more than anyone else at the moment,” Rarity said. “That being said, you certainly wouldn’t be my first choice of suspect.”

“You see?”

Mr. Morass harrumphed.

The couple hadn’t insisted on being interviewed separately, but for some reason Rarity felt it would be inappropriate to separate the pair. Mr. Morass was sitting in the chair, his wife standing at his side. Rarity gathered that the elderly stallion had some sort of problem that was alleviated by sitting down.

“Tell me about yourselves?” Rarity asked. “Banner Byline said you’d been married forty years, before his untimely passing.”

Mrs. Morass laughed. “Forty years? Is that all?” She laughed again. “I kid, I kid. I suppose that must seem like a long time to a young pony like yourself.”

“I confess it does,” Rarity said. “Happily married?”

“Very happily.”

“What do you do for a living?”

“Oh, nothing anymore,” she said. “We’re retired. But I used to do floral arrangements, and Nancy was a stock broker.”

“You must have done pretty well for yourselves, being where you are today.”

“It’s mostly Nancy’s inheritance,” Mrs. Morass said. “He had a rich grandfather. Left everything to him when he died.”

“I see,” Rarity said.

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Mr. Morass interrupted. “We got on fine before the inheritance. I’m not the kind of stallion who has to rely on his relatives’ money.” He snorted. “Unlike some ponies on board this Celestia-forsaken tin can.”

“And which passenger of this Celestia-forsaken tin can would you be referring to with that comment, I wonder?” Rarity said. “I assume you mean Miss Ruby Gleam.”

Mrs. Morass looked aghast. “Nancy! Don’t say such things!”

Mr. Morass harrumphed. “It’s true though, and you know it.”

“I gather the two of you have met before,” Rarity said, leaning forward. Her notorious gossip side was getting the better of her.

“We have,” Mrs. Morass said. “Only once, at a party. I’m afraid Nancy didn’t come away with the best impression of her, as you can see.”

“And why is that?”

“They got into a heated discussion about money.”

“She made it clear in no uncertain terms that she felt we were wasting our money by not spending it,” Mr. Morass explained. “Better to save it for when you need it, that’s what I always say. A pony like her who’s had it good all her life doesn’t understand what it’s like to have to ration your pay. You understand, right, Miss Rarity? You’re a craftspony, after all, you must.”

Rarity nodded. She did understand.

“What about the other guests?” she asked. “Know any of them?”

“We’d met Banner Byline,” Mrs. Morass said. “Hadn’t we, Nancy?”

“We had?”

“Yes, dear. At that party we went to last year, in Canterlot.”

Mr. Morass looked perplexed. “News to me.”

“You just don’t remember,” Mrs. Morass said.

“My memory is perfectly fine, thank you very much.”

Mrs. Morass turned to Rarity. “Well, we did. Just briefly, mind you—just long enough to be introduced.”

“I see,” said Rarity.

“And of course, we know Fancy Pants,” Mrs. Morass continued. “We’ve known him since he was a little foal. Nancy was friends with his father.”

“A good fellow, Fancy Pants’ father,” Mr. Morass said. “Pity he died so young. Fancy looks a lot like him, you know.”

Mrs. Morass nodded. “He does.”

“So the only other guest you hadn’t met was Capital Idea,” Rarity surmised.

“That’s right.”

“How about this,” Rarity said. “Did either of you hear any hoofsteps last night? Past your door?”

The two looked at each other.

“I can’t say that I did,” Mrs. Morass said. “What about you, Nancy?”

“No,” he said, and he turned back to Rarity. “We weren’t up for long, though. Should we have?”

“Not necessarily. Did either of you leave your cabin?”

“No,” Mr. Morass said. “We stayed inside all night.”

“We both slept through the night,” Mrs. Morass added.

Rarity nodded. “Well, that’s it for my questions. You’re free to go.”

Mr. Morass nodded, stood, slowly. Mrs. Morass, however, hesitated.

“You don’t think what happened to Banner Byline…” She swallowed. “You don’t think that could happen to anyone else, right?”

Rarity shook her head reassuringly. “No, I think you’ll be quite all right. As long as no one sticks their neck out,” she said, “the only pony they should be after is me.”

This didn’t seem to do much for poor Mrs. Morass.

“They seem like a nice couple,” Rainbow said, after they’d left.

“They do,” Rarity said. “But looks may be deceiving. Remember: they got boxes, too.”

“It’s funny,” Rarity said. “You’re the first pony I’ve ever had to do this with twice.”

Fancy smiled. “Here’s hoping it’ll be the last, eh?”

It was Fancy Pants’ turn in the chair. Rarity had been particular about this, interviewing him last.

“Tell me what you know about the other guests,” she began. “What’s your relationship to each of them?”

“Where to start?” Fancy replied. “I suppose with Ruby Gleam. I was friends with her father, whom I’ve no doubt you already know was Brass Gleam, the inventor.”

Rarity nodded. “Of course. And I also gather that friendship isn’t the only reason you invited her on board.”

Fancy smiled. “I owe a great deal to her father. Without his invention, the Anesidora wouldn’t be around to make this trip. I suppose I felt I owed him. Plus… I confess, I also wanted to check in on his daughter.”

“Why is that?”

“There’s a rumor going around that she let all of her house staff go recently,” Fancy said.

“That might explain her temperament,” Rarity said.

“No, no,” Fancy said. “I can assure you, she’s always like that. Has been since she was a child. Not much like her father; I never met her mother. Died when she was young.”

“So, she’s broke,” Rarity summed up.

“If the rumor is to be believed. I haven’t had much time to talk with her since this whole business started.”

“Okay,” Rarity said. “What about Banner Byline?”

“Banner was… a good friend,” Fancy said. “And a major investor in this enterprise. I asked him to come along personally.”

“How did you two know each other?”

“We were school friends, at the academy, when we were both much younger. That friendship held strong for many years.”

“What about his friend, Capital Idea?” Rarity asked.

Fancy shook his head. “I’d never met him before yesterday. Banner wanted me to invite him.”

“I see,” Rarity said. “And the Morasses?”

“Like family to me,” Fancy said. “There’s not much more to it than that. I believe that’s everyone.”

“Who would have had access to the guest list?”

“Just those I invited and myself,” Fancy said.

“Did you hear any hoofsteps outside your room last night?”

“No, I did not.”

“And did you leave your room?”

“Yes, I did,” Fancy said. “I went to the bridge for a little while to talk with the captain, then went straight back to my cabin.”

“I believe I may have heard you pass by,” Rarity said. “The front walls of our cabins are very thin.”

“Are they that bad?” Fancy said, raising an eyebrow. “I’ll make a note of that. These are the sorts of kinks that will need to be ironed out before we go into full production.”

“We’re your lab rats, are we?” Rarity said.

“No, no, not rats,” was Fancy’s reply. “More like guinea pigs. Much cuter.”

The interview was wrapping up. However:

“One more question.”

It was Rainbow who spoke, not Rarity. She put her hooves on the table, leaned forwards so she could look Fancy in the monocle.

“What in the wide, wide world of Equestria is an Anesidora?”

Fancy blinked.

“One of the engineers came up with it.”

“Yeah, but what does it mean?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t the foggiest.”

“Well, that was less productive than I’d have liked it to be,” Rarity said, as she and Rainbow left the lounge. They were alone in the metal hallway that connected the rooms; they were on their way back to their cabin.

“I’ll say,” Rainbow agreed. “I don’t think we learned a single useful thing that entire time!”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Rarity said. “I think we learned several important things. Just not quite enough to tie things together.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Capital Idea’s hoofsteps in the night for one,” Rarity said. “Combined with what I heard last night, I’d say they paint a pretty interesting picture.”

Rainbow waited for her to continue.

“I heard five sets of hoofsteps pass our door last night,” Rarity said. “Two ponies on the second occasion. Given the placements of our cabins, I suspect one of those two ponies is our killer.”

“But no one said they left their cabin last night, except for Fancy Pants, so…”

“So one of them is lying,” Rarity finished. “Nothing new there. Someone had to be. But the question is: who?”

They’d reached their cabins in the meantime, and were now standing outside Rarity’s door.

“I think it best we share a cabin tonight, as well,” Rarity said. “If that’s alright with you, darling.”

“Of course!”

“Though I don’t know if I’ll be getting much sleep,” Rarity said. “No, I don’t think I’ll be getting any at all…”

Time passed. Dinner was had. No new developments occurred. And then, it was time for bed. Rainbow and Rarity chose to spend the night once again in Rarity’s room.

The sun had long set when Rainbow felt a gentle push on her shoulders.

“Rainbow,” Rarity whispered. “Are you awake, darling?”

“I am now,” Rainbow said, blinking. “What’s up?”

“Would you mind joining me on a little expedition?” Rarity said.

“What?”

“I need to use the toilet, darling.”

“Oh.” Rainbow’s eyes widened. “Oooh.”

“I was hoping you’d accompany me; I don’t much like the idea of moving about on my own in the night.”

Rainbow rolled out of bed; they made their way outside. Rarity cast her gaze down the hall.

“Good evening, Fancy,” Rarity replied. “Any troubles tonight?”

“None so far,” Fancy said. He yawned.

Fancy was guarding Banner Byline’s door. He’d announced his intentions to do so at dinner. He now seemed to be regretting that decision; he looked barely awake.

“Well, keep up the good work.”

He smiled.

“Yes ma’am.”

Rainbow and Rarity continued on their way. Their trip to the restrooms was uneventful; however, on the way back, they ran into some familiar faces.

“Oh, good evening,” Mrs. Morass said. “We were just on our way to the toilet. Nancy has a weak bladder, you know.”

“You don’t have to tell them that!” Mr. Morass countered.

“Not so loud, Nancy! Ponies are trying to sleep.”

Rainbow and Rarity nodded to them, then headed back to their own cabin.

They stayed there for the rest of the night.

Morning light streamed through the porthole window in their cabin. Rarity’s hoof poked at Rainbow Dash’s ribs. Rainbow groaned.

“Get up, Rainbow Dash,” Rarity said. “We’ll be starting a little early today. It’s the last day of our trip, and we still have a case to resolve.”

Rainbow mumbled something and turned over in her bed.

Rarity frowned. “Really now, Rainbow Dash, I know you’re not a morning pony, but we have a job to do.” She poked Rainbow in the ribs again.

“Five… more minutes…” Rainbow grumbled.

Rarity sighed. “Fine. I need time to think, anyway.”

Rarity retreated. Rainbow got comfortable again.

Then, there was a knock at their door.

“Curious,” Rarity said. “It’s a bit early for breakfast.”

She went to the door, pulled it open.

“Yes?”

“Come quick,” Fancy Pants said, his voice grim. “There’s been another murder.”

They followed Fancy Pants quietly into the room.

“Oh,” was all Rainbow could say, looking at the body. “Oh.”

It was Ruby Gleam’s turn to be the corpse, it seemed.

“Oh.”

Ruby’s face was grey, a painful, desperate expression on her face. Her neck was bruised an angry black. She was propped up against the back wall of the cabin, just as Banner Byline had been.

“Strangled to death,” Rarity observed. “Goodness, that’s quite high on my list of ways I don’t want to die. We’re getting quite the variety on this case.”

“I went around to check on everyone this morning, just to be careful,” Fancy said from the doorway. “There was no answer when I knocked, and the cabin was unlocked.”

“I hadn’t expected a second victim,” Rarity said. She stepped closer to the body. “This is a bit of a twist. Killing Banner Byline I can kind of understand, after his speech about turning ourselves in. But why kill Ruby Gleam? What did she do?”

She peered closer. “Hang on—there’s another note.”

The thing was tucked under Ruby Gleam’s limp foreleg. Rarity lit her horn and withdrew it from its hiding place. Once again, it was made up of cut-out pieces of newsprint pasted onto paper.

On this final occasion, the note is once more reproduced exactly as it was written for you, the reader:

This is your final warning. Cease your investigation at once or there will only be more blood on your hooves.

“Ooh! A direct threat to me. Spine-chilling! But I don’t know when the blackmailer expects to have time to kill again,” Rarity said. “We land this afternoon, no? And they’re hardly going to keep killing us after we’ve all gone home. Besides, what’s the point? Why do they keep killing off the ponies they’re supposed to be blackmailing?”

“Maybe they found out that Ruby Gleam was out of money?” Rainbow suggested.

Rarity didn’t seem satisfied with that answer. “It’s possible, I suppose,” she said, “but one would think they’d have figured that out before we took off. Which begs the question: why give Ruby a box at all?”

She re-examined the note. “Scissors, again,” she remarked. “The edges are clean. Presumably the same pair… interesting that they weren’t used as the murder weapon this time.”

Rarity looked around.

“Where is Ruby Gleam’s box? If I recall correctly from our cabin searches yesterday, it should be on her dresser, but it’s missing today.”

They made a quick search of the cabin, but the box was nowhere to be seen.

“Banner Byline’s box was missing, too,” Rainbow commented.

“Yes,” Rarity said. “The culprit must have hidden them somewhere, or…”

She trailed off. Something seemed to have caught her interest.

“Do you hear that?”

They all fell silent. Faintly, Rainbow could hear something: a quiet whistling, just barely audible.

“I think it’s coming from next door,” Rainbow said.

“That’s odd,” Fancy replied. “The rooms to either side of this one should be empty.”

“Shall we take a look?” Rarity asked. Together, they left Ruby Gleam’s corpse behind in the sorry state that it was and moved one room to the right. It took several moments for them to figure out what was out of place, but when they did…

“Aha!” Rarity said. “Look, the window’s open!”

The circular window at the back of the room was, indeed, open, just slightly; the air rushing through it was the source of the whistling. There was also a buzzing noise: the engines, just audible over the wind.

“But why on earth is the window open?” Fancy said.

“I suspect our culprit may have been using it to dispose of evidence,” Rarity said. “Did we pass over a lake last night, Fancy?”

“I believe we did.” he said.

“Good. I’m glad Ruby’s box isn’t going to hit anyone over the head, unless they were out in a boat in the middle of the night.” Rarity peeked out the porthole. “The real question is: why on earth is the window open in here?”

She closed the window; it shut with a click.

“If I was going to dispose of evidence from Ruby’s room, I would do it from Ruby’s room, wouldn’t I?” Rarity said. “Not from next door. What was the culprit even doing in this room in the first place? It’s quite bizarre, don’t you think?”

“It is weird,” Rainbow said, but she couldn’t think of a reason for it, either.

“Also, look at the bed,” Rarity said. “It’s rumpled, as if someone was sleeping in here. How odd.”

“Fancy,” she asked, “did you happen to see anything or anyone suspicious last night? You were out in the hall.”

“No,” he said, “I’m afraid the only ponies I saw last night were you two.”

They fell into a silence. No one had anything else to add.

Rarity pulled out her pocketwatch, gazed at its face. She grimaced. “What time do you expect us to be landing, Fancy?” she asked.

“Around nine,” he said.

“We’ve only got a couple of hours left, then,” Rarity said. “Rainbow! Come along, darling. There’s a question I need to ask one of the guests!”

“Tell me, were you awake again last night? Judging by the bags under your eyes, you must have been.”

Capital Idea did, indeed, have some heavy bags under his eyes. He was also looking quite cornered—which he was, literally; they’d encountered him in a bend in the hallway. Rarity had pressed him into the space between the two walls through sheer enthusiasm; he looked like a deer in headlights.

“Y-yes, I was up all night,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

“Ruby Gleam is dead.”

“Come again?”

“Ruby Gleam,” Rarity repeated, “is dead. Strangled in her cabin.”

Capital blinked. His mouth fell open, and he made a sort of gurgling sound.

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, I know. Now, this is important. I need you to focus. We’re running out of time.”

Capital idea seemed to come together a little bit. Rarity continued with her question.

“Did you hear any more hoofsteps past your door last night?”

Capital’s mouth opened, closed. Opened again.

“…Yes, I think so.”

“I need you to be absolutely certain,” said Rarity.

Capital Idea swallowed. “Yes, I’m sure. I heard one set of hoofsteps past my door last night, quite early in the night.”

“You’re sure it was just one set?” Rarity asked.

“Yes.”

“No, I couldn’t sleep at all last night,” Mrs. Morass said. “Nancy was fast asleep, though. Why do you ask?”

Rarity smiled. “I just wanted to know if you heard any hoofsteps past your door last night,” she said.

They were in the lounge, the four of them: Rainbow, Rarity, and Mr. And Mrs. Morass.

“Well, let me think,” Mrs. Morass said. She tapped her hoof to her chin.

“Yes,” I think I did,” she said, after a few moments. “Yes, I’m sure of it: I heard some hoofsteps past my door. On two occasions, actually.”

“And was it just one set each time?” Rarity asked.

“Yes, I think so,” she said. Rarity smiled.

“Thank you very much.”

“This case is just full of questions, Rainbow Dash,” Rarity said, pacing around the empty space in the middle of their cabin. “Absolutely brimming with them.”

Rainbow was sitting on her bed, watching the other mare go round and round, the tail of her trenchcoat fluttering along behind her. Rarity had a grimace on her face and a sense of urgency in her step.

About an hour and a half had passed; they’d spent most of the time on a brief re-examination of the other cabins, but nothing new had turned up. And so they’d returned to their cabin, and Rarity had begun to think. And while Rarity had continued to think, there had been nothing for Rainbow to do but watch.

Rarity gave off a sense of manic danger when she thought, and it only seemed to be getting worse with every second that ticked by.

“Five boxes,” Rarity was saying. “Two murders. But why those two? Why did our killer go after the ponies they did?” Her gaze was like a knife: sharp, incisive, and absolutely ready to bite into someone if it would get her the answers she wanted. “I think if we can find the answer to that, we’ll have the key to this whole thing. But what is it?”

Rainbow watched on in silence.

“There must be some connection… something we’re missing!”

There was a knock on their door. A moment later, Fancy Pants poked his head into the room.

“We’ve arrived in the skies over Vanhoover,” he said. “We’ll be landing in ten minutes.”

“Take us around the city,” Rarity ordered. “Call it a publicity stunt. I need time to think.”

She went back to pacing. Fancy looked to Rainbow Dash.

“She’ll get it,” Rainbow said. “Just give her a little more time.”

Fancy looked worried… but he nodded, and retreated from the room.

Rarity gave up on pacing. Instead, she flopped down onto her back in her bed. Her horn lit; three pieces of paper floated into the air over her face. She scanned each, line by line.

“Something we’re missing…”

Rarity’s eyes swept from the first note… to the second note… to the third… the first…

The second…

The first…

The second…

The first…

Her brow furrowed. Her mouth opened, then closed again.

“Rainbow,” Rarity said, with the brisk tone of someone whose thoughts are focused elsewhere. “I need a pencil. There should be one in one of my bags.”

“What do you need it for?”

“I need to make sure I’m right about something.”

Rainbow finally emerged with one; Rarity snatched it up in her magic.

“But there’s no paper—”

“Fancy will have to forgive me,” Rarity said, and she began to scribble furiously onto the wall. “I’m sure my saving of his derriere will lend me at least a little leeway!”

Rainbow took a step back. She didn’t want to come anywhere close to being in Rarity’s way; nothing good could come of it when she was like this.

At least it was better than the pacing.

Rainbow watched as a diagram of the cabins from above emerged on the wall of their cabin. Rarity began to draw lines over it, leading from one cabin to the next. Occasionally, she would stop, frown, and erase all the lines before starting again. This continued on for several minutes, until Rainbow could no longer follow what was going on.

“Aha!” Rarity announced, at last. She turned towards Rainbow Dash. Her chest was heaving, and there was an excited smile on her face.

She had that gleam in her eye; that passionate, predatory, positively alive gleam, and Rainbow knew what that meant.

Rainbow wasn’t going to deprive her of her moment, though.

“I know who killed Banner Byline,” Rarity declared. “I know who killed Ruby Gleam. And I know who started this whole mess in the first place.”

Something else Rainbow knew was what came next. What came after Rarity got that gleam in her eyes.

“I’ll round everyone up,” she said, standing up. “The lounge a good place?”

Rarity smiled.

“You know me so well.”

Author's Note

Detective Rarity has solved this mystery—but have you? Leave your answer and reasoning in the comments below, and then turn to the next chapter to see if you were right!

The Fierce Finale

Rainbow gathered everyone in the lounge. There was a bit of nervous chatter, aimless and confused.

Then Rarity walked in.

The chatter died.

Rarity strolled to the middle of the room. She pulled over a chair in her magic and sat down, facing the other guests.

Silence hung heavy in the air. Rarity swept her eyes from one guest to the next, from Fancy Pants, to Capital Idea, to Mr. Morass, and to his wife.

“I know,” she said at last, “who the blackmailer is.”

There was a moment of silence.

“I’ll admit, this case had me stumped for a little while,” Rarity said. “The pieces just refused to come together. Why did they choose this trip as the scene for their crime? Why the boxes in the first place? How had they managed to dig up dirt on so many ponies, and why would they waste some of that effort by killing two of their targets? So many mysteries… but in the end, it turned out to be quite simple, once I let go of a certain assumption I had been making.”

“The key to it all,” Rarity said, “was separating the roles of the killer and the blackmailer in my mind. Once I did, everything became clear.”

“What do you mean?” Capital Idea asked. Rarity shook her head.

“All will be revealed,” she said, “in due time.”

“Forget due time,” Mr Morass said. “I want answers now! Let’s get on with it!”

Fancy Pants put a hoof on the older stallion’s shoulder. “Let her have her moment,” he said. “It’s why she does this.”

Mr. Morass harrumphed. Fancy turned to Rarity, smiled. “If you’ll continue.”

“Thank you, Fancy.” Rarity draped herself over the back of the chair. She took a deep breath.

“The first clue to the identity of our blackmailer lay in the simple matter of the guest list. You’ll recall from your own invitations that one among us was not on it. That, of course, would be Mr. Capital Idea.”

Capital Idea nodded. “Sure, that seems to be the case. But how is that relevant?”

“Because of the boxes,” Rarity said. Everyone on the guest list received one—aside from you, Rainbow, of course, given you apparently have nothing to hide. That includes Capital Idea, which means that whoever put all of this together knew he’d be on board. That immediately narrows our suspects down to two. Quite a careless blunder on the blackmailer’s part—art least, that’s what I believed at first.

“Either way, that leaves the identity of the blackmailer to be either Fancy Pants, who arranged this trip, and Banner Byline, his partner in these matters. It was Banner, in fact, who asked that Capital Idea be added to the guest list. Between the two, I suspected Banner Byline, and I can now confirm that he was, in fact, the blackmailer.”

“B-Banner?” Capital Idea stammered.

“That’s right,” Rarity said. “Banner Byline was the one who assembled our boxes.”

“Banner Byline,” Fancy said. Even he sounded amazed. “But why?”

“It’ll make sense in a moment,” Rarity said. “Banner also had the means: his staff of reporters at the Manehattan Times, world-renowned for their investigative journalism. It would have been trivial for him to have his staff uncover some deeply-buried secrets, and on short notice, as well.”

“But what evidence do you have?” Capital Idea asked. “How could it be Banner—he’s dead, for Celestia’s sake!”

Rarity nodded. “And that is exactly why I know it was him: because he died. Or, more accurately—because he was murdered.”

“I thought he was murdered because he was trying to get us all to turn ourselves in,” Mrs. Morass said. Rarity shook her head.

“No,” she said. “That was also part of his plan.”

“Wait,” Capital Idea said. “Why would he want us to turn ourselves in if he was the blackmailer? That makes no sense!”

“On the contrary,” Rarity countered. “It makes perfect sense—if his true goal was something other than blackmail.”

Fancy Pants looked confused. “Something other than blackmail? Whatever do you mean?”

“I believe,” said Rarity, “that Banner Byline’s true goal was to have us admit to our secrets—to turn ourselves in. In fact, I think there was a certain someone—or someones—whose secrets he wanted to expose. What he failed to grasp was that someone on board was willing to kill to protect a certain secret. That was—for him—the fatal flaw.”

“Remarkable,” Fancy said. “What evidence do you have to support that claim?”

“All in due time,” Rarity said. “First, I think we should turn to the matter of Banner’s murder.”

“Yes, about that,” Mrs. Morass said. “I’m afraid I’m a bit puzzled. If Banner Byline was the blackmailer, then—did he commit suicide? Who killed Ruby Gleam, then?”

Rarity shook her head. “No. For you see—the one who killed Banner Byline was not the blackmailer.

“Based on the hoofsteps that Capital Idea and I heard pass our doors that night, it was clear that Banner left his cabin to visit someone on the left side of the hall. He and that pony then went back together to Banner’s cabin on the right side of the hallway. This was when the murder occurred. The culprit then fled Banner’s room and headed back to their own cabin on the left side of the fork. That narrowed the suspects down to just Capital Idea, Ruby Gleam, and the Morasses. Assuming, of course, that Capital Idea was telling the truth, which I believe he was. This left just Ruby Gleam and the Morasses.

“Then came the second piece of evidence, provided by the killer themselves.”

From a pocket in her trenchcoat, Rarity removed three pieces of paper: the notes.

“If you compare the writing on the first and second note,” Rarity said, “you may notice a discrepancy. A very difficult one to spot, mind you. I only realized it at the last minute—and it’s what broke the case for me.”

Everyone leaned in. They stared at the two notes, which Rarity held up to them with her magic. They looked from the first note to the second note, the first to the second, first, second…

“Well, I’m stumped,” Mr Morass said at last.

“Me two.”

“And me.”

“I’m done too,” Rainbow said.

Rarity smiled. “Look a little closer at these two sentences.”

She pointed to a passage on each note with her hoof. ‘For some of you, it may merely be a stain upon your honor.’ on the first; ‘Attempting to cheat me will not award you any favours.’ on the other.

Fancy’s eyebrows rose. “Celestia,” he said, his mouth twitching up into a bemused smile. “Can it really be so simple?”

“What?” Mr. Morass said. “I don’t get it at all!”

“The problem,” Rarity said, “lies in the spelling of the words “honor” and “favours”. “Honor” is spelled in the traditional Equestrian way: H-O-N-O-R. However, “favours” is spelled in the tradition of Trottingham: F-A-V-O-U-R-S. In other words, it’s spelled with a ‘u’.”

“Then… then the one who wrote that note was—”

“Correct,” Rarity said. “It was Ruby Gleam—the only one among us from Trottingham. It was she who killed Banner Byline.”

Rarity stood up from her chair, began to pace slowly back and forth in front of the assembly.

“Banner Byline went to Ruby Gleam’s door to talk to her about something. Perhaps she insisted that they go to Banner’s cabin instead, or perhaps that was Banner’s decision; it’s impossible to say now, as they’re both deceased, and there are no other witnesses. I’m afraid the exact details of their meeting will forever remain a mystery.

“Whichever occurred, they went together to Banner’s cabin. There, they must have had a discussion. Whatever it was about, it must have gone sour. Ruby Gleam stabbed him with a pair of scissors, as you already know.

“Where those scissors came from is not something I can determine. Ruby Gleam may have brought them from her room, suspecting she might need them, or perhaps they were in Banner’s cabin to begin with. Wherever they came from, they made a fine murder weapon.

“As for why she did it—I suspect the truth on that may come out in a minute, but for now, let’s just say she’d figured out Banner Byline was the blackmailer. So she used her scissors and the newspaper Banner Byline brought on board with him, as well as some glue—goodness knows where she found that—and forged a note from the blackmailer… not noticing that she’d made a fatal spelling error.”

“But why?” Capital Idea asked.

“Money,” was Rarity’s simple answer. “Ruby Gleam’s inheritance was running out. She had to dismiss her house servants recently—she must have been hurting for cash. Here, she saw an opportunity, and that is why she assumed the role of the blackmailer—and there was another reason as well.”

“What was that?” asked Mr. Morass.

“To protect her secret,” Rarity said. “Or, rather: their secret. A shared secret, something dark in their combined history. A secret that is also shared by at least one other—one of you.”

One of the ponies present’s jaw fell open—just for a moment. Rarity caught it—and smiled.

“And what is this shared secret?” Fancy Pants asked.

“I don’t know,” Rarity replied. “But whatever it was, it must have been quite heinous, to kill two ponies over. I believe exposing this secret was Banner’s true motive in all of this. Obviously, he must not have been able to expose it on his own—no, he needed all three culprits to come forward at once. And so he engineered this grand scheme to force their hands. Certainly, It should have worked on Ruby Gleam, who couldn’t pay the ransom… or, at least, that would have been his reasoning. As it turned out, Ruby had other ideas.”

“Now then,” she said, “let us turn to the murder of Ruby Gleam.”

Rarity stopped pacing.

“What I believe,” she said, “is that the third pony guessed correctly that Ruby Gleam murdered Banner Byline in cold blood. What’s more, I believe they became afraid for their own safety—and so, just in case, they set up a little scheme of their own.

“As Fancy was out in the hall on the right side all last night, I can say for certain that all activity took place on the left side of the cabin fork. That means it was either Capital Idea or the Morasses. Now, what happened is this: the guilty pony hid in one of the empty rooms adjacent to their own, and kept watch on the hallway from there. Ruby Gleam made her way to that pony’s cabin and knocked on the door. She probably meant only to reassure this pony that their secret would be safe, or something similar. However, this only served to fuel the pony’s suspicion that they were Ruby’s next target. And so, they slipped out of their hiding place, came up behind Ruby, and strangled her from behind. Ruby, of course, could not call out for help, and was unable to defend herself; shortly, she was dead.

“The murderer then dragged Ruby back to her cabin. A quick look in her box revealed the scissors, newspaper, and glue needed to forge a new note. They did this to cover their tracks, and to throw me off the trail.

“After their work was completed, they took Ruby’s box and retreated to the empty room next door to Ruby’s. There, they opened the window and threw all the evidence overboard. They remained in that room until morning.”

Mr. Morass looked flabbergasted. “How can you possibly know all of this?”

“It’s simple,” Rarity said. “From what your wife told me about the hoofsteps she heard in the night, and from the state we found the empty room next to Ruby Gleam’s in. It’s simply a matter of piecing all this information together.”

“But, then,” Mrs. Morass said, “who was the murderer?”

“Simple,” Rarity said again. “The murderer was the one who lied to me in order to cover his tracks—and the one who was in the wrong room, and so didn’t hear it when the two of you went to the bathroom in the middle of the night.”

She turned towards one pony in particular.

“Isn’t that right… Capital Idea?”

All eyes turned towards the stallion in question.

“Um,” he said. “I, er…”

And without saying another word, he bolted for the door.

Everyone watched, stunned for just a moment. Everyone aside from Rarity, that is.

“After him, Rainbow!”

They gave chase. Through narrow corridors, past portholes, up stairs, until finally, they reached the deck. Wind whipped through their manes.

Capital Idea stood at the front of the ship. Now, he really was cornered.

“Give it up, Capital Idea!” Rainbow called out. “There’s nowhere else to run!”

The stallion looked left, then right. Certainly, what Rainbow said was the truth… or, close to it, anyway.

With a shout, Capital Idea leapt over the railing.

Now, there is, of course, one major difference between a locomotive and an airship. If you jump out of a train mid-journey, and lady luck is in your corner, you might survive.

If you jump out of an airship? At cruising altitude?

Not a chance.

“Rainbow!”

“On it!” Rainbow shouted, already leaping off the side after him. She dived down after Idea, her wings at her sides, until she reached the falling stallion. Reaching out, she grabbed the him in her forehooves. Her wings snapped open, and she soared upwards, carrying her squirming cargo along with her.

Shortly, she landed on the deck. By now, they were no longer alone; the rest of the passengers had assembled on the deck as well. Capital Idea himself was white as a sheet; when Rainbow let go of him, he collapsed onto the wooden floor.

“See, darling?” Rarity said to Rainbow. “An extra pair of hooves—or, in this case, wings—can make all the difference!”

Rainbow fluffed her feathers.

“Now then,” Rarity said, striding up to Capital Idea, “I take this as an admission of guilt?”

Capital Idea nodded.

“I was right in everything I accused you of?”

He nodded again.

“Any words of regret?”

“I never wanted to kill her,” he said. “It was… it was self defense! I thought she was going to kill me!”

“We understand,” Rarity said. “And so will the police, once we land. But, before that…”

She put a hoof on his shoulder. “Would you mind filling in the one gap in my knowledge?”

Capital Idea sniffed; he looked as though he were about to cry.

Rarity tried again. “Would you tell us just what exactly happened between you, Ruby Gleam, and Banner Byline? What started all of this palaver in the first place?”

He nodded. Then, he began to speak.

“It was five years ago,” he said. “We… we killed a pony.”

“Who?”

“His name was Bolt Switch,” Capital Idea said. “If you’re familiar with Ruby Gleam’s past, you may already know who Bolt Switch was.”

“He was the pony who claimed to have invented the duct-reverse carburetor before Ruby Gleam’s father, no?” Rarity asked.

Capital Idea nodded. “He claimed Brass Gleam stole his invention. He tried to sue Ruby Gleam over it.”

“And you three killed him?”

“We let him die,” Capital Idea said. “You see…”

“Banner Byline and I were very good friends with Ruby Gleam back then. I might even have said I loved her, at the time. She was different back then. Sweeter.

“Well, after Bolt Switch’s allegations came to light, Ruby was very upset. She worried she was going to lose her father’s fortune to him. So, she arranged a meeting, to try to work something out outside the courts. She asked the two of us to sit in as well, as moral support. You must understand, she was terrified by this stallion. He was a threat to her very way of life!

“It was winter. Bitterly cold, I remember that, when we all convened at Ruby’s mansion. We had tea, made small talk, had lunch. Then, the negotiations started.

“Things went sour almost immediately. Bolt Switch was a very unpleasant pony, and he had a short temper, too. The negotiations quickly devolved into him shouting about what Ruby’s father had done to him. He was very indignant.

“Perhaps that was his downfall. In the middle of a sentence, he suddenly went silent and clutched at his chest. Then he collapsed. We assumed he’d had a heart attack.

“Banner was the first to move. ‘I’ll call an ambulance’ he said, and he ran for the hall… but then Ruby’s horn lit up, and the doors closed.

“’No,’ she said. ‘Not yet.’

“She stood up.

“’No one’s calling anyone yet.’

“’What are you saying?’ I cried. ‘He needs medical help!’

“’No,’ Ruby said again. She strode over to Bolt Switch, looked down on him where he was twitching on the floor. He looked up at her with wide eyes, but he couldn’t speak. He was in too much pain. They stayed like that for a minute.

“’Ruby’s horn lit again, and she took a pillow off of the chair he’d been sitting on. We watched in horror as Ruby placed the pillow over the stallion’s muzzle. She held it there for some time. Neither of us tried to stop her. We were too shocked.

“Shortly, Bolt Switch was dead.”

“We called for an ambulance after that,” Capital Idea said. “Too late, of course. We claimed he had just had the heart attack when we called. It was ruled a death of natural causes. Ruby got away with it cleanly—and there was nothing we could do without implicating ourselves. She threatened to bring us down with her if we told anyone. Banner had just bought the Times, then, and I was too afraid of prison. We couldn’t afford to come clean. But our friendship was ruined forever.”

“And so it remained, until today,” Rarity said. She stood up. “Well, it seems you’ll have to get over your fear of prison, Mr. Idea. You’ll be behind bars for quite some time after we land. May I ask what exactly was in your boxes?”

“A miniature duct-reverse carburetor,” he said, hanging his head.

Rarity turned to Fancy Pants. “I believe you can tell the captain to land, now. This case is over.”

“I’ve never been so happy to be back on the ground in my life.”

It was Rainbow who said this.

“Honestly, darling, I must agree,” Rarity replied. “This has been quite the taxing journey.”

They were off the airship, now; it had landed in the middle of a field outside the city, filled with photographers. This was about a half hour ago. Goodness knew what Fancy Pants was going to tell them about why there were two less passengers on board. They hadn’t stuck around for it. He’d find a way to hush it up somehow, Rarity was sure.

“So what did you ask Fancy for?” Rainbow said. “Your favour, I mean.”

“Carte blanche to use his eventual fleet of Anesidoras as needed for free,” Rarity said. “I figure that sort of transportation will be invaluable going forward. Oh, and I asked for the same for you, of course.”

Rainbow shivered. “Not going to use that any time soon,” she said. “I’ve had enough of airships. I’d rather fly on my own power any day.”

Rarity laughed. “I had a feeling you’d say that.”

They continued their walk towards the city. Hopefully, it would prove to be a better vacation spot than the airship had.

“You know, I’m still curious about one thing,” Rainbow said.

“What’s that?”

“What the heck an Anesidora is,” she said. “Oh, and what was in everyone else’s boxes. That too.”

“Well, perhaps a trip to the library can solve the first mystery,” Rarity said. “As for the second—me too, darling. I’m afraid we may never find out.”

She laughed again. “But, well, you saw what was in my box. I hope that’s enough to sate some of your curiosity.”

Rarity continued walking. It took her a few steps before she realized Rainbow was no longer beside her.

She turned around. Rainbow had stopped walking. A grim expression was on her face.

“What’s the matter, darling?” Rarity asked.

Immediately, the dark expression was replaced with an awkward smile.

“Nothing,” Rainbow lied. She took a few steps forward, and they resumed their walk.

But Rainbow’s mind was elsewhere. It was, in fact, stuck back on their first night on the Anesidora, when Rarity had gone outside the room to talk to Fancy Pants.

To when Rainbow had peeked inside of Rarity’s box. Before she’d revealed its contents to the rest of the ship.

And what had been inside hadn’t been a scarf.

Rarity smiled. “Well, at least it’s all behind us, now.”

Rainbow smiled back. “Yeah.”

No, the object Rainbow had seen inside Rarity’s box, the object that had made her go white as a sheet, had made her heart go frigid, had not been a scarf.

It had been a knife.

And its blade had been stained red.

The Boisterous Blackmailer

The immediate interior of the ship was as ostentatious as it was spacious, which is to say, not very. Still, it had a sort of utilitarian charm all to its own, what with the planked wooden floor and bare, riveted hull struts that lined its walls.

The group was led along the thin corridor, having to walk almost single-file. Rarity counted about eight of them, Rainbow, Fancy, and herself included. It seemed Fancy had been right; no one had declined his invitation. In fact, it seemed there was one more than was expected.

“What the heck is an Anesidora, anyway?” Rainbow murmured to her.

“I’ve no idea, darling,” Rarity said. “It sounds foreign. You should ask Fancy.”

Rainbow grumbled.

Soon enough they emerged into a more open area, a walkway between the two sides of the ship, and from here they turned off through a door into—well, into something Rainbow certainly hadn’t been expecting, and by the looks on the other passengers’ faces, neither had most of them.

It was like stepping off the ship and into some wealthy aristocrat’s lounge. The floor was carpeted; that was the first thing Rarity noticed, as her hooves made the transition. It met seamlessly with the wooden paneling of the walls, which in turn bled into ornately patterned red wallpaper. The room contained a number of small seating arrangements, armchairs and sofas, each gathered around coffee tables of varying styles. A number of bookshelves dotted the walls, and brass lamps illuminated the room.

It was a pocket of non-airship that had defiantly snuck aboard the vessel, and the only thing missing from the illusion was a fireplace.

“Well, here we are,” Fancy announced. “The lounge. Make yourselves comfortable; if you’ll leave your bags with our porters, they’ll be safely taken to your cabins.”

As if at his command, a number of colts in uniform appeared. Rainbow felt a small pang of pity for the one who ended up with Rarity’s mountain of possessions.

One of the other guests seemed against this, however; a shorty, motley stallion, who clutched at his briefcase.

“I’d rather hold on to mine, thanks,” he said. This, however, seemed to earn him the ire of the mare next to him.

“Oh, go on, Nancy,” she said, prodding him in the side. “Don’t make a scene.”

“I’m not making a scene!” he said, but still he held on to his luggage.

That settled, Fancy uttered a polite cough to regain their attention.

“Now, well I’m sure the majority of you are acquainted, shall I do a round of introductions for those who are not?”

He didn’t wait for a reply to his own question before beginning, and he began with a rather slender fellow wearing a grey suit and a checkerboard tie.

“Mr. Banner Byline, owner of the Manehattan Times, and a major investor in this enterprise.”

“How do you d-do,” he said, with a little stutter at the end. He was quite an unassuming stallion; he wouldn’t have looked out of place among the reporters on the ground, several of whom he apparently managed. A newspaper was folded under his foreleg.

“Mr. Capital Idea.”

Capital idea was a very round sort of a fellow, though not in terms of being overweight. No, while he wasn’t exactly trim, he gave off the appearance of being both quite soft and also devoid of edges, and he had a slight touch of pink in each of his cheeks. “A pleasure to make your acquaintances, and again in some cases,” he said, his voice turning out to sound just as amicable as the rest of him looked.

“Miss Ruby Gleam, of Trottingham.”

Gleam was a lithe, elegant unicorn, though you might not have known had you just been looking at her face. Indeed, her lips seemed perennially to be drawn into a small but tight frown, and one got the impression that everything around her was being judged and systematically found lacking. She just had that kind of face.

Her dress, however, was exquisite.
“Charmed,” she said.

“Mister and Missus Morass.”

He was referring now to the elderly stallion and mare who had quarreled before. The stallion was still clutching to his briefcase. The mare, on the other hand, seemed quite a bit more at ease. “Lovely to meet all of you,” she said, smiling. “And though he won’t admit it, I know Nancy feels the same way.”

“Harrumph,” the Mr. Morass harrumphed.

And Fancy came to our heroines. “Miss Rarity, fashionista extraordinaire…”

“A pleasure,” Rarity said, giving a polite little nod.

“…and Miss Rainbow Dash, of Wonderbolt fame.”

“Snrk… ‘Morass’.”

“So, Fancy,” Ruby Gleam said, turning to the stallion named the very same. “When is this contraption of yours meant to be taking off, anyway?”

Fancy burst into laughter. Ruby frowned.

“And what is so funny, exactly?”

“Nothing, my dear,” Fancy said with a smile. “But you see, Miss Gleam… we’re already in the air!”

“What? But surely we would have felt something, if the ship had taken off—”

“If you’ll follow me to the observation balcony,” Fancy said, spinning about on the heels of his hooves, “Then you may see for yourselves.”

And with that, he was off again, back through the door into the rest of the ship. Rarity and Rainbow Dash glanced at each other, but a moment later they, along with the rest of the passengers, followed.

A quick trip through the rat-maze of corridors later, they emerged onto the deck of the gondola. A metal railing surrounded the edge of the wooden platform, and beyond that…

“Celestia’s mane!” Banner Byline exclaimed. “Y-you weren’t lying!”

By Rarity’s estimate, they were already a good fifty meters off the ground, and that number was swiftly increasing.

Below, far below, she could see the incessant flashes of cameras. The very photographers they’d been among not ten minutes ago were now nothing but fireflies against the green backdrop of the field.

“Incredible,” she said. “Why, I didn’t feel a thing!”

“The power of modern aeronautics, my dear!”

With a sudden roar, the twin propellers on either side of the deck spun to life: slowly, at first, but quickly becoming a pair of blurring disks. The ship began to move forward, towing its balloon along with it. The wind whipped through their manes as the landscape around them picked up speed.

“Now,” Fancy said, having to shout a bit over the sound of the engines. “Shall I take you all on a tour of the ship before lunch?”

“I’m starting to regret this,” Rainbow grumbled, eying the enclosing metal walls, her wings twitching.

“Feeling a bit claustrophobic, darling?”

“No!” Rainbow hissed. “I just… don’t like not having enough space to fly, that’s all. It makes me nervous.”

“That’s called claustrophobia, darling.”

“You’re called claustrophobia, darling.”

"The Anesidora contains all the amenities you would expect,” Fancy was saying. “A fully-stocked kitchen and dining room; ten cabins, each with beds for two and room enough to be comfortable for four; two very meticulously designed bathrooms; and the lounge for recreation, which you have already seen.”

“At this point, he could say there was a swimming pool on board and I’d believe it,” Rainbow whispered to Rarity, who stifled a giggle.

“You are all, of course, free to explore the ship as you please,” Fancy continued, as they made their way through the intestines of the ship. “You can even visit the bridge if you’d like; the captain is a swell fellow. Should you get lost, directions are printed on the wall at each junction, but I think you’ll find it’s easy enough to find your way around once you’ve got the hang of it.”

“You certainly seem to have,” Capital Idea remarked. Fancy laughed.

“I’ve had my hooves on the blueprints,” he said. “I could navigate it by memory before construction had even begun.”

Fancy came to a stop. “And here are your quarters,” he said, gesturing. The path ahead of them split into two, connected by a short corridor so that the whole setup vaguely resembled a blocky letter Y.

“You’ll see that they are divided into two corridors,” Fancy said. “Miss Gleam, Mister Idea and Mister and Missus Morass, you are on the left; Mister Byline, Miss Rarity, Miss Dash and I are on the right. You’ll find your names on your cabins. Restrooms are down the hall behind us.”

“Does the tour include them, too?”

“I think you should be able to find your way around a bathroom just fine on your own, Nancy.”

Mister Morass harrumphed.

“They’re quite the pair, aren’t they?” Rarity murmured to Rainbow. Not quietly enough, it seemed; Banner Byline, standing beside them, stifled a laugh.

“T-they always have been,” he said, quietly. “That’s what forty years of marriage will do to you, I s-sup-suppose.”

Rarity raised her eyebrows. “Forty years? That’s quite the achievement.”

“Isn’t it?” He smiled, and offered his hoof. “I know Fancy i-introduced us earlier, but I’m Banner B-Byline. It’s very nice to meet you, Miss Rarity.”

“Just ‘Rarity’ is fine,” Rarity replied, extending her own hoof and shaking his.

“I ap-p-pologize for the stutter,” he said. “H-had it since I was little. I know I can be a little hard to understand sometimes.”

“Nonsense,” Rarity said. “You’re speaking quite clearly.”

“Hey! Rares!” Rainbow called out; the rest of the group had moved on a ways without them. “Come on!”

“Coming, darling!”

The two of them caught up with the rest of the guests, just as Fancy was finishing his tour.

“—down this way,” he was saying, “you’ll find the bridge, and—” he spun about, pointing now down the opposing corridor “—this hallway leads to the dining room. Now, I don’t know about all of you, but I had to skip breakfast today, and I am positively famished. Shall we?”

There was a general expression of agreement, and off they went.

The dining room wasn’t anything particularly impressive; in fact, other than the framed prints on the walls, it was rather unassuming, except of course for the single long table that took up its center. A door at the back led to (Rarity presumed) the kitchen.

Each of their places was set with a card adorned with their name; one by one, they filed in and took their seats. Rarity and Rainbow were next to each other, of course, and Fancy himself sat at the head of the table.

“Now then,” Fancy said. “I believe our meal this afternoon will be a delicate soufflé, prepared in advance by our cook. Some may say that a little bold. I say—let us start this journey off right!”

“Hear hear!” Capital Idea echoed. Fancy clapped his hooves.

The chef emerged from the doors at the back of the room—Rarity congratulated herself on another successful deduction—carrying a platter in his magic, on top of which sat a number of plates. He made his way clockwise around the table, placing a dish in front of each passenger in turn.

Rainbow’s eyes lit up as her plate appeared. Rarity smirked.

“Hungry, darling?”

“Always.”

It wasn’t long before the stallion had completed his round, and every person had a lunch in front of them. However, there was one plate left on his serving platter, and this he placed in front of Fancy. On this plate was something far less appetizing than a soufflé: an envelope.

“What’s this?” Fancy asked, his expression one of confusion—not something one would want to see in the leader of an expedition such as this one. The chef shrugged.

“It’s nothing to do with me, sir.”

The chef left, a little too quickly, scampering back into the safety of his kitchen, leaving behind a very perplexed Fancy Pants. He tore the top off of the envelope and placed it back on his plate, simultaneously retrieving the thing’s contents with his magic.

Fancy Pants did not know what he was about to unleash upon his ship. For you see, a pandora’s box may take many shapes and sizes, and this one took the form of a simple piece of stationary.

Rainbow caught a glance of the letter as he held it. She couldn’t make out what it said, not quite, but she could make out that it was written using cut-and-pasted pieces of letters and words on newsprint—a curious thing indeed.

Frowning, Fancy adjusted his monocle. His eyes scanned the sheet, and his brow creased even further.

“Well, Fancy?” Capital Idea said. “What is it?”

Fancy began to read.

“To the passengers of this most magnificent airship. I hope you are enjoying your trip so far.

“My name is unimportant. What is important is what I’m about to say, so read carefully. Your fates may be decided by what happens in the next few days.

“Underneath your chairs, some of you will find a box.”

This prompted confused action on everyone’s part. Rainbow ducked down, craning her neck to see, and was slightly disappointed when no such object appeared. She was almost jealous, then, when she straightened back up and saw that Rarity apparently had received something.

It was a wooden thing, about the size and shape of a music box. The lid was hinged at the back and latched at the front, and the wood was simply yet delicately carved. A letter ‘R’ had been burnt into the top. She set the thing down in front of her on the table.

Looking around, Rainbow saw that everyone else at the table save for herself possessed similar items, each with appropriate initials emblazoned upon them. She checked under her seat a second time, but no box had appeared in the few seconds since last she’d looked.

Left with no other choice, she made the hard decision to live life vicariously. “What’s inside?” she asked Rarity.

Rarity, frowning, replied: “I think we should wait for Fancy’s explanation first.”

“That may be prudent,” Fancy said, before continuing to read: “You may be tempted to open yours now, but I suggest that you wait until you are alone. For you see, inside each of these boxes is a secret.”

“A secret?” questioned Banner Byline.

“Each of you has something to hide. Something, I suspect, you’d like to stay hidden. For some of you, it may merely be a dark smudge upon your honor. For others, it may be something far more serious. And for some of you, it may be a matter of life and death.”

“What kind of game is it you’re playing, Fancy!?” Mr. Morass demanded, rising in his seat with his forehooves on the table. Several faces around the room had grown pale.

“Don’t look at me!” Fancy said, holding up his hooves. “I have nothing to do with this!”

“Like Tartarus you don’t—”

“Let him finish,” Mrs. Morass said, putting a hoof on her husband’s shoulder and slowly pulling him back down into his seat.

Fancy cleared his throat. “The contents of each of your boxes represent that which you so desperately want to keep hidden. You can take it as proof that I’m not lying about any of this.”

Suddenly, Rainbow Dash was okay with not receiving one.

“I suspect the mood in the room is a somber one,” Fancy continued. “Do not worry. I am very good at keeping secrets… but first, you’ll have to do something for me.

“If you do not want the secret inside your box to stop being a secret, then all you must do is leave a sum… total…”

Fancy trailed off, his shoulders slumping.

He swallowed.

“…then all you must do is leave a sum total of one-hundred thousand bits at one or several of the six locations listed below within a week from the reading of this note.”

The table erupted into chaos.

“This is preposterous!” Mr. Morass shouted. “I’ve got nothing to hide and nothing to say to such ridiculous accusations!”

“This is some kind of joke, isn’t it?” Capital Idea said, frantic. “It has to be!”

“Why?” Mr. Morass said, whipping around with speed surprising of a pony his age. “Have you got something you’re afraid to share?” He wrapped his hooves under the collar of Capital’s suit and pulled him up. “Maybe you’re the one behind this, huh?”

“T-that doesn’t even make sense!” Capital sputtered.

“None of this makes sense!” Ruby Gleam said, banging a hoof down on the table and making the plates rattle. “This is blackmail! Outright blackmail!”

Rainbow looked at Rarity. She was frowning, deep in thought.

“There’s more!” Fancy shouted, and that got everyone to quiet down. “If any one of you leaves the Anesidora before touching down in Vanhoover, then the contents of your boxes will be in the papers for everyone to read by the next morning. If any one of you contacts the police, then the very same will happen. I trust you all are smarter than that. Have a wonderful trip.”

Looking up, he said, “That’s the lot of it.”

“Let me see that,” Mr. Morass said, relinquishing his hold on Capital’s collar and using his horn to steal the paper out of Fancy’s grip. His eyes ran quickly over the paper’s contents, but whatever it is that he may have been looking for, he evidently didn’t find it as he slammed the paper down on the table. “This is preposterous,” he insisted again, but with a little less fervor this time.

The room fell into a silence, each pony at the table afraid to touch their boxes as if they were poison, as if merely observing them too closely would unleash some horrible fate.

Apparently unable to restrain his curiosity any longer, it was Capital Idea who was the first to pick up his box. He cracked the lid open just an inch with his magic and peered inside.

A choked cry emerged from his throat. The lid of the box slammed shut, and the box was all-but-tossed back onto the table, wood clattering against wood. The stallion himself swallowed, his eyes wide and his forehooves shaking.

This seemed to break the spell over the room. Fancy stood up, his chair screeching along the floor. “I suggest we all go to our separate cabins to calm down,” he said, a grave look upon his features. “We can discuss this issue at length at dinner with clear heads.”

No one seemed to have the heart to disagree.

Like zombies, they shuffled along the narrow corridors of the ship. Nervous glances were quickly shared and just as quickly averted, boxes carried under arms and held close by magics. The energy and camaraderie that had accompanied them when they boarded the ship seemed to have died with their appetites.

Soon enough, they were upon their quarters; The Morasses and Capital Idea split off towards the left, while Rainbow, Rarity, and Banner Byline took the rightmost passageway. Fancy had not accompanied them from the dining hall. Rainbow was slightly relieved to see that Banner Byline’s door was in between theirs and his. Her room was the closest, the first after the split, and Rarity’s the next. Stopping at the door with her name, Rainbow hesitated a moment when Rarity marched onwards to her own, then moved to accompany her. The fashionista made no objection.

The rooms were mostly utilitarian in nature; aside from a small table, the only furniture were the two bunks, one on each side, which had been set into the walls. Rarity’s bags lay stacked against the corner of the room.

“Huh,” Rainbow said, inspecting the bunks. “Y’know, I was kind of expecting hammocks.”

“Hammocks?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said. “Like, made out of cloth or something.”

Rarity looked at her quizzically. “Yes, but why would you expect there to be hammocks on a passenger airship?”

Rainbow shrugged. “I dunno. It just felt right, I guess.”

The normalcy of the conversation cut through the tension in the air. Rarity flopped—in a very ladylike manner, mind you—down onto one of the aforementioned beds and put her hooves over her eyes. The wooden box fell onto the bed next to her. She groaned.

“I should have known something would happen. It’s the classic set-up! You get a bunch of strangers together in a confined space, and—”

She groaned again.

Rainbow stood in the middle of the room, not really sure what to do.

“Fancy’s invitation was a bad omen. You were right, darling.”

“Well, I appreciate you admitting that for once,” Rainbow said, “but here was no way anyone could have predicted any of this.”

“You’re right darling,” Rarity almost exactly repeated. Twice in one day—a new record. “Usually it would have been a murder.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“Never mind.”

“So,” Rainbow said, eying the box next to Rarity’s head. “Are you… going to look?”

“I very honestly do not want to.”

Rainbow had to marvel at Rarity’s self-restraint. If their roles had been reversed, she would have opened the box the second she’d found it.

Then again, she reflected, if their roles had been reversed, they wouldn’t even be on this ship to begin with.

“Well, I mean, it can’t be that bad, right?” she said, forcing a smile. Rarity revealed one eye and looked at her. “I mean, you’re you! The Rarity! What kind of skeletons could you possibly have in your closet?”

Rarity grimaced. “I might have… a few skeletons. Small ones! Rat skeletons. Skeleton rats, with grubby little skeleton paws, nibbling away at… skeleton… cheese… Oh dear, this metaphor’s quite gotten away from me, hasn’t it.”

“I think you need to buy some mousetraps.”

They both fell silent for a moment; there had been a noise outside their door: muffled hoofsteps.

“It seems the walls to the hallway are quite thin,” Rarity observed. “Oh well; at least we’re insulated from the engines.”

The hoofsteps stopped. There was a knock at their door, and Rainbow flinched.

“Who the heck would come to visit now?” she whispered.

“I suspect I already know,” Rarity murmured. Sliding off the bed, she trotted over to the door and pulled the latch. She was seemingly unsurprised to find it was Fancy Pants himself who had come by.

“Miss Rarity, may I… speak with you for a moment?” he said. His eyes flicked to Rainbow Dash, who was, knowingly or not, glaring at him. “Privately?”

“If we must,” Rarity sighed. “I’ll just be a minute, Rainbow.”

She followed him out into the hall, and the door slid closed with a click.

“I’ll get right to the point,” Fancy said. “I—”

“You want me to catch the blackmailer.”

He shut his mouth, smiled slightly. “Sharp as ever, I see.”

“It’s not a hard prediction to make,” Rarity said. “You’re familiar with the conditions of my employment, I assume? I’m not going to make an exception just because I’m involved.”

“You assume correctly,” Fancy said. “I admit, I’ve been following your career quite closely since you, ahem, put me away. A favor, to be named after the completion of the job, if I remember correctly?”

“You do.”

Fancy nodded. “The truth is, Miss Rarity, that I quite need this demonstration to go off without a hitch. Though I may do everything I can not to show it, the stunts we both pulled at Blueblood manor have put Fancy Freight in a bit of a… difficult position.”

He sighed. “As a matter of fact, this endeavor is somewhat of a ‘last hurrah’, as they say. Several of those on board are major investors in this enterprise. If this blackmailing is allowed to proceed—if indeed, it ends up casting a shadow over this entire event, and we lose their support—then I may well be finished as the head of my own company. And, my dear, I am far too young to retire.”

“As unfortunate as that is,” Rarity said, “you must have known the risks when you were drawing up your little scheme.”

Fancy smiled a bitter smile. “Indeed,” he said. “So know now that I mean it when I say that I will provide you with whatever it is you may desire once the villain behind this stunt has been caught and quietly put behind bars.”

“No need for the explanation. I know you’re a stallion of your word.”

“You agree, then?”

“I agree to try, Fancy. I agree to try.”

Fancy raised a monocle’d eyebrow. “You seem to be lacking a bit in your usual bravado, Miss Rarity.”

Rarity sighed. “This whole business hasn’t exactly put me in the best of moods. I received a box as well, you know.”

“Well,” he said, grinning slightly. “That just gives you more incentive to solve this mess, doesn’t it.”

“As shrewd a businessman as ever, I see.”

“I’m putting my faith in your abilities, Rarity,” Fancy said. “I don’t do that lightly.”

Rarity saw him off, then turned around and let herself back into her room. She sighed as she slid the door closed again behind her.

“It appears,” she said, partly to herself, “that we have a client… and a case.”

She looked up, then, and was taken aback. “You’re looking positively pale, darling,” she observed of Rainbow, who was sitting stock upright on the bed opposite hers. “Is everything alright?”

“What? No!” Rainbow said. “It’s just—this whole situation’s got me a bit shaken up, y’know?”

“Why? You didn’t receive a box.”

“Yeah, but you did,” Rainbow said.

Rarity grimaced… but then her brow furrowed, and she hummed. “Yes, I did, didn’t I,” she said. “Likely to discourage me from investigating, I suppose. Anyone digging for dirt on me would have to know about the detective business, and I’m not exactly your typical blackmail fodder…”

She hummed again. “Curious order of events, there. Well, regardless I appreciate your concern, darling.”

She crossed the room, and retrieved the box from her bunk with her magic. “I suppose there’s no more putting it off; time to see what our mysterious blackmailer has on me.”

Holding the box close to her, she grit her teeth, cracked the lid, and peered inside. She said nothing for a good two seconds, and then let out a laugh.

“Oh, is that all?” she said, through her chortles. She shut the box again and set it back down on the bed; she was smiling. “Well, it seems I was worried over nothing.”

“O-oh?” Rainbow said. “How come?”

The secret they seem intent on blackmailing me on is really quite a trivial one,” Rarity replied. “Not something I’d admit to under normal circumstances, of course, but hardly world-shaking. If this is the best they could do, then we have nothing to worry about!”

Rainbow let out a breath. “Well, that’s a relief.”

“In fact, I plan on revealing it to everyone at dinner.”

“R-really?”

“Yes,” Rarity said. “I figure getting it out in the open will make it easier of everyone to trust me, and that will go a long way towards helping me figure out who among us is behind all this.”

She smiled. “And, of course, I’m sure you’re dreadfully curious about it as well.”

“I—well—I wasn’t going to ask…”

“Well, you’ll get your answer shortly,” she said. “I’m afraid I’d rather not have to explain it twice. In the meantime…”

She crossed the room and pulled out one of her suitcases. After a moment of rummaging, she pulled out a now-familiar article of clothing.

“You brought your trenchcoat?” Rainbow remarked.

“Of course, darling,” Rarity said, slipping her dress off. Rainbow looked away out of politeness. “In case I needed it. It helps me get into the right headspace.”

She donned her hat, and the transformation was complete.

“Now then,” she said. “Shall we go pay the culinary staff a visit?”