With a flash of her lawyer badge, Mina coerced the concierge to let her and Raven know where Detective Croix-Saint was in the Venetian Hotel.

Ominously, he was on the 66th floor, provoking Raven to make remark, "Good thing there isn't another six after it!"

Mina remained serious. "I don't think you could make a building that tall for 666th floors. But being into numerology, I still have a bad feeling about this."

Raven smiled in his knowing way. "Or a bad feeling about six!"

"Touche!" the young attorney said as she reached the door.

Her heart thundered like a big bass drum as she reached to knock upon the door. Inspector Croissant wasn't exactly the smartest foe she had encountered, but there was so much about him that lay beneath his front of foamy fromage.

She heard footsteps and her heart performed a drum roll. The moment of truth was here. Or rather, the moment of lies.

The door opened and the snotty, snooty detective answered. He uncurled his mustache, allowing it to coil back together. "Ah, eef eet isn't my best fiends, the defensive attorneys defending an obviously guilty jewel thief. You should be ashamed of yourselves, but you are zee defense attorneys and they 'ave no shame or pride."

Mina gritted her teeth. His words were just as sharp as the stench of Camembert. "My pride," Mina answered. "Comes from finding justice for the wrongfully accused. And I firmly believe my client is innocent."

Inspector Croix-Saint widened his eye from behind his monocle. He adjusted it. "So then. Why are you 'ere, leetle miss crepe. Shouldn't you be consulting your client?"

Mina took a deep breath. "I am here because I have questions to ask you...about this!"

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

She thrusted the Canadian Star into the detectives face, expecting him to flinch or recoil or melt like it was the Star of the Covenant.

"What's wrong?" Mina asked. "Too starstruck to answer?

She flicked finger guns at Raven who returned them with a "nice one!"

Instead, Croix-Saint grinned widely beneath his twirly mustache. He held his fingers together. "Excellent work, I am so glad you have found zee loot that heinous Ms. Santiago has stolen! I did a bunch of detective work myself earlier and recovered almost all of it...except for zat sparkly bauble!"

Mina's hands dropped, almost allowing the trinket to drop from her hands. So he had willingly raided the Montero's apartment?

"My law! So you are admitting you stole from the Montero's?" Mina exclaimed. "You do realize that is a crime right?"

Croix-Saint twirled his long mustache again like it was black spaghetti. "You call eet a crime, but you see, I stole from a thief and now I plan to return all zee rocks she stole in the first place. This eez not a crime as much as eet eez what you call 'vigilante justice!'

The detective broke into an obnoxious round of haw haw haws.

Mina was silent. And even her squawking, garrulous friend was quiet, though he rubbed his goatee with a look of intrigue on his face.

"So you see," Inspector Croix-Saint said with his finger thrusted against Mina's button nose. "I am one step ahead of you! And tomorrow, eet will be a legal bloodbath for your client. She's not only a thief, but a murderer too. And zat robot boy eez going to prove it!"

Mina glared at the detective. He was right. He was one step ahead of her. And he was gloating in such a way that she wished she could smack that mustache right off his face.

"A murder?" Raven said, rubbing his soul patch. "Do you mean the museum curator, Jem Diamond?"

"Of course, you lout!" Croix-Saint said, still laughing. "Who else? She clearly killed him too! I mean she was clearly trigger happy that night! Looting and shooting!"

Raven nodded with a wry smile. "Thanks for the info, Mr. Croissant. Even if I tend to prefer baguettes a lot more!"

"Zat is your loss, bird boy!" Croix-Saint giggled. "Now eef you excuse moi, I have another round of 'haw haw haws' to get to! Maybe some 'hee here hees' on zee side!"

"I'm personally a 'fu fu fu!' guy," said Raven. "But I'll let you get to it!"

Without even a goodbye, the detective slammed the door in their faces. Raven and Mina both looked at each other. "I dunno about you my protege, but I feel like a round of laughs too. You know why right?"

Mina gave a cute giggle that sounded like 'tee hee hee'. She gave him a thumbs up. "We just have to prove Detective Croissant murdered Gem Diamond and we are home free!"