The icy wind rustled the fur of our detectives’ hoods. The snow had crusted their creme white winter coats, and the three men who stood atop the great wall fortress, with binoculars in hand kept their eyes open for a special guest. John turned the brass gear to move the lense when he spotted black silhouettes appearing in the horizon. They saw a foot squad of a dozen, lead by a man in a black winter cloak.
“We should hurry inside for the greeting,” John said as he put away the binoculars.
“I still don’t understand why you out of all people were given the mission to be that man’s guard,” Aaron sighed.
Matt jumped ahead of the two and waited at the door to the warm insides of the fortress. “Come on! We’ll catch a cold if we stay out here for too long!”
“Yes, yes,” John and Aaron said almost simultaneously as they got inside and closed the large steel door behind them. John held a letter in front of Aaron’s face.
“This letter from the King clearly states that due to my characteristics, I am the perfect person for the job!” John bragged with a smirk before he scratched his head in thought. “Although I find it really odd that they didn’t hire a person with more experience in this field. I mean, me acting to protect an enemy general? That’s just insane.”
As they went down the stairs, they saw the special guest and his squad enter, standing in front of three generals from the fortress who were dressed in blue coats. Aaron shushed John and Matt as they continued downwards. The guest in front raised a hand, signalling his squad to turn back and leave. As the gates closed behind them, the guest stood alone in front of the three generals.
“Welcome, General Waltfeldt!” One of three old men dressed in blue coats greeted the guest. The blue coated general’s round physique and the twirled mustache was one of his prides as John got to learn a few days prior when he had arrived.
“General Michale, pleasure to meet you. Please, just call me Rowl; let us leave the formalities aside for this meeting, shall we?” the young guest said, pulling back the black hood of the coat to reveal his sun pale face and short brown hair.
“If you want, then it shall be done...Rowl,” said the second of the blue coats. A thin man with a defined face. His name was Jezza Mael.
“Please, follow us to the quarters where we will be staying at,” the third blue coat said, a small man with merely a tuft of hair left on his head.
“Gladly, Mister Harvey,” Rowl said. “However, first, I believe I was assigned a neutral guard. Where would he be?”
“Right here, John said as they made their way carefully down the slippery stairs. “I am Jonathan Sterling, pleased to meet you. These are my friends and assistants, Aaron and Matt,” John pointed at them respectively. While Aaron and John removed their hoods, Matt chose to leave his on, hiding his white hair.
During their walk to the quarters, they passed through long hallways decorated in large brass pipes through which whistling, rushing steam was heard. There were heaters for the inside of the entire fortress, and they could be found everywhere. Yet, Matt still chose to leave his hood on, even as the sweat ran down his face.
When they arrived at their quarters, Rowl was shown around the giant wall, which acted as a defensive line to the northern territory of the Grey Kingdom, separating them from the northern White Kingdom had a large interior; part of it was this sector which had been cleared due to the arrival of the White Kingdom’s fresh general, Rowl.
Three main chamber rooms had been accommodated to them; the first with three beds for John, Aaron and Matt, another one with three beds for the three generals and the last for Rowl. As this fortress was still a military base, the rooms were all rather small. The bathroom was opposite of the rooms. Around the corner was the kitchen and dining hall, however, all the way through, there was no soldier or personnel in sight.
“It is just like you asked for, we have relocated the soldiers from this area.” Mister Harvey smiled to Rowl.
Matt went off to his room to get changed while Aaron stepped into the kitchen to prepare a meal for the night.
Sitting around a large table, the remaining five men began to discuss their meeting.
“As your intel surely let you know, my father, General Waltfeldt died of old age just recently. Since I am his son, the military suddenly gave me a promotion to General. But, unlike my father who wasted his life in war, I want us to end this bickering,” Rowl said calmly.
John listened silently as he had neither authority nor experience to add to the conversation.
“You must, of course, understand Rowl, that this war has been going for nearly half a century. The battle for land will not cease without a good reason,” General Mael said with the corners of his mouth hanging low.
“I am fully aware of the circumstances, but don’t you believe it would be wise for both sides to lay down their weapons and be fine with what they have? Do our men really have to keep dying over a cold infertile land like this?” Rowl gestures at the reinforced window, through which one could only see mounds of snow.
While they continued to discuss, John found himself to be bored and made his way to his room where he found Matt still changing. Matt’s brown eye contacts reflected in the mirror as he brushed the wig in his hands and carefully covered his hair with a net, only to then put on the wig.
“You know you don’t have to hide yourself, right, Matt?” John asked concerned as he leaned against the wall. “If they have a problem with you, you know I will make them regret their words.”
“That is exactly why I am doing this,” Matt said as he turned around with his short black wig fitting. “I don’t want to cause trouble for anyone, simply because I know my appearance will cause them to think badly of you.”
“Of me?” John asked with a boyish voice crack.
“Yes, of you. Remember back at the ship? That man thought you held me as a slave, against my will. I can’t blame him for that, because if it wasn’t the two of us, it probably would have been the case after all. Also, let’s not forget that I am still wanted because of what I did back then, so I have no choice.” Matt put on his black scarf, looping it around his neck and over his shoulders, dressed in a black pullover and baggy pants.
John sighed long and loud before he turned around and said, “You don’t need to do anything. You are under my... no, our care and we will do anything to keep it that way.”
By the time the two of them had entered the dining hall again, the four men at the table had started to yell and speak loudly; hands smashed against the table and heads reddened in anger.
Without hesitation John walked up, slammed his right boot on the table and shouted, “Keep quiet already and start acting more professional, war is on halt outside for the next few days. So do not go starting a war inside of here now, you hear me?”
They had every authority to complain to him, however, aware of their own behaviour and the urgency of the situation they chose to nod and calmly continue.
“If we are to stop the war, the White Kingdom needs to allow us passage through their country or to at least let us open trade routes through them. There are half a dozen countries whom we cannot trade with simply because your country is blocking the entire north,” General Harvey said.
“You wish for open borders, then let us first sign a peace treaty. Afterwards, we can talk about further cooperation as it builds a stable ground for those matters,” Rowl said.
Matt sat down a few tables away from who he thought of as annoying and pulled out a set of cards, shuffled them, fanned out seven piles and an eighth deck of cards to draw from. Playing by himself to sort the deck in a game-like manner.
The blonde detective’s stomach started to growl, John hurried to the kitchen, but was caught off guard when Aaron came out the door with plates and cutlery along with a tablecloth.
“Dinner is almost ready, so I will leave the cleaning and preparing of the table to you,” Aaron said with his forehead in sweat and condensate from the cooking.
Peeking inside the kitchen with very little patience, John was hit on the head by Aaron.
“What was that for?” John muttered in pain, holding his head.
“Don’t just stand there like a child and help them prepare the table!” Aaron shouted, pointing at the four men who were too unorganized to decide who does what.
Only a few minutes later, after John had silenced the men again, Aaron came out with a large pot. “Here’s the roast. I cut it in advance to make sure everyone gets their fair share,” he said.
Moments after, he brought a basket of fresh loaves of bread, bowls of salad and several sauces. As everyone began to place the food onto their white plates, Aaron also brought out glasses along with wine, water and juice before sitting down between John and Matt.
Since the table was round, John also sat next to Rowl. Between Rowl and Matt sat the three blue coats.
The chunky general went straight for the wine bottle and filled his glass whereas both John and Matt went for water. Aaron had glasses of both, water and wine, while the others had a small sip of wine as well. Only half an hour into the meal, it was time for something sweet. Thus, Aaron went into the kitchen to bring the cake as it just hit eight pm. Matt looked at the clock and stood up.
“Do you not want to at least wait for the cake?” John asked, wondering why Matt wanted to pass up the chance when he knew that the boy was a sweet tooth.
“I don’t have all that much of an appetite; you can have my share if you want,” Matt said as he brought away his dishes and said good night to the crowd before going to his room.
“So who’s the father?” Rowl nudged at John in curiosity.
“None of us, he’s an orphan,” John said silently.
“Oh,” Rowl stuttered. “I-I am really happy for you two.”
Taking a while to understand what Rowl had just said, John laughed and replied with a stone cold tone, “No. It’s not like that. The boy appeared on a case of mine and since my father had an orphanage himself, I took him in.”
The plates of cake were put onto the table, which interrupted their conversation. Before starting the cake, General Michaele went to the bathroom, opposite of the sleeping rooms while General Harvey turned around to check his blood with a needle and small paper.
“No surprise,” Mael said. “He drank two bottles of wine on his own.” He commented on Michaele.
“That said,” Rowl stood up heading for the bathroom. “Even water and juice can do the trick.”
While the remaining men were finished with their cake, John asked Aaron in a whisper. “Could you go and cover this one up?” he said, pointing at the cake. “He can have it for breakfast tomorrow.”
“Breakfast?” Aaron sighed as he grabbed the plate. “Fine, but only this once.”
As Aaron headed for the kitchen, Rowl came back to eat his piece of the cake while General Harvey got up and headed to the bathroom. “I’ll go check on that fat fool, he’s probably too drunk and fell asleep taking a dump.”
Only moments after, he rushed back to the table, completely out of breath. “He-he’s dead!”
John glanced over to Aaron with a nod and like everyone, they rushed over to the bathroom, but John asked them to not enter for a second. Swiftly, he went to his room, opened the door and saw a light extinguish and a shuffled noise came from Matt’s bed. Paying it no attention, he flipped the lights, gas noticeably flowing through the pipes and being illuminated in the glass bulb on the ceiling. Wondering what Matt was doing, John quickly saw the book on the table next to Matt’s bed, wide open.
“What is it?” Matt scratched the sand out of his eyes, not wearing the wig or contacts.
“A blue coat is dead in the bathroom, you need to get up and dress yourself,” John said, pulling out the case from under the bed where he hid his sword. “We might have some trouble incoming.”
Matt, still tired and drowsy, slowly changed from his pajama while John equipped his sword to the belt. Together, within minutes, they came out and joined the concerned men outside the bathroom.
“Let’s go!” John said, heading inside as the blue coats immediately rushed to the fallen General. John’s first breath was a disgusted one. It was damp inside and the bathroom consisted out of two different halves. One half was cabins with toilets, and the other was a large sink.
“Stop, don’t touch-” John was too late as General Harvey already placed his fingers at the man’s throat. “-him.”
“No pulse!” General Harvey said in shock.
“Get away from him immediately. I will have a look at this myself,” John said as the short General ran over to Rowl.
“This is your doing! You killed him!” General Harvey said in a rush, his face glowing red.
“What? No!” Rowl defended himself. “Why should I have done that?”
“Your lies of peace were only so that you could kill us!” General Harvey continued to yell until a metallic noise sounded and a blade dropped right before his nose.
“If you won’t shut up, the blade might not stop next time, General,” John said, his sword drawn to divide Rowl from General Harvey. “I need you all, and I mean all, to go into the dining hall and sit still while I take a look at this mess.”
“You’d have us sit in the same room as this murderer? He’s just waiting for another cha-” General Harvey was suddenly silent as the whistling steam left the holes of John’s sword. “Very well, we will go back and sit still.”
“Matt, Aaron, I’ll need you to keep an eye out for them. If anything happens, knock and tell me,” John said, being replied with a nod by the two.
Everyone left the room, the detective took a deep breath and got to work. He kept his eyes sharp to get a sense of what had happened. His first glances paced between the position of the corpse and the sink he lied in front of, as John kneeled down to inspect the corpse closely..
“His forehead is covered in blood,” John thought out loud, carefully lifting the head to look closer. “A fracture most likely.”
Looking at the sink, a small blood mark was easily seen at the edge of the sink.
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“He might have hit his head right there as he fell, fell from what, though?”
John pinched his eyes as viewed into the direction of the feet, which pointed at a toilet stall. He walked up to the door and opened it. The toilet wasn’t flushed and was left open. A smell of alcohol still resided in the damp stall. “Must be where he sat,” he mumbled to himself until he noticed that the stall door handle was just hanging. He tried lifting it, and with no resistance, it just fell back down again; the lock not even moving out. “It broke,” he said, closing the door and looking at the part of the wall where the lock mechanism would rest to keep it shut.
“The paint is chipped. Maybe that’s normal?”
He went over to the stall next to this one to check the lock. “No, the paint is still intact.”
Checking the other stalls, he had the same result.
“Then would that would mean the door might’ve been forcefully opened. And that would explain the broken lock mechanism too.” John thought and shook his head.
He walked into a stall and closed it by first letting go of the handle, resting the first locking piece into the slot in the wall. Furthermore, he turned a circular knob below the handle, locking the door fully. “This is the safety so that people from the outside don’t just accidentally walk in,” he mumbled and opened the door again to walk out.
“I see, but now the question is if it is really as simple as that?”
John paced around the bathroom and tripped, slipping on the slimy damp surface of the floor. He wanted to hold onto the wall for grip but his hand also slipped off of it, falling onto his knees. “Damnit, this place really stinks, in more ways than one!”
Looking back where he had tripped, he found a small groove in the wet surface of the wall and the floor. And with interest, he stood up and started inspecting the flooring around the dead man.
“Nothing but prints of shoes, yet no sliding grooves. Maybe it has filled in again?” he wondered and leaned down to a closer look at the shoe prints. “No, even if they were filled in, you’d still notice it.”
Carefully tapping over to the head again, he put his fingers onto the man’s throat to check the pulse. He remembered one of the blue-coats doing that already, but John hadn’t checked it himself. No beat, nothing. Disappointed, he removed his hand fidgeted with them to think. “It couldn’t just be an accident, right? That would be too...” he noticed something slimy on his hands and paused his sentence. Looking at the fingers he had just used to check the pulse, he saw little blood.
A rush of interest quickly made him take a closer look at the throat, where he could see a small point where blood came out of. In an instant, he stood and walked over to a stall, which from there he sloppily approached the sink. Just before he reached it, he slipped. Having caught himself just barely onto the sink, since he was prepared to trip. His body formed a sloped bridge from the sink to the floor, and out of curiosity he carefully lied down and quickly stood up.
“So that’s why, he tripped, and because of how he fell, he dropped onto the grooves created by the sliding of his shoes. Then this hole...” John grinned.
John made his way to the dining hall to inform them of his findings. Inside, Matt and Rowl were sitting only a meter away. Being bored and having nothing of interest to look at; Rowl remembered the boy wearing his winter coat and hoodie for the entire time until going to change. It was still fairly cold inside, despite the steam heating pipes all throughout the room, yet Matt sat there in nothing more but a black shirt, a scarf and baggy trousers.
Rowl stared and thought, “Isn’t he cold now? He seemed like he wanted to be warm at all costs before, but now…”
Matt felt observed, his skin forming goose bumps, and turned his back at Rowl. Matt’s eyes were reflecting in the light, giving off a slight red shimmer through the contact lenses.
Now, even more interested, Rowl looked at the only place that wasn’t covered in clothes, the back of Matt’s head. The trims of the neck showed a few white hairs peeking through.
“Now I get it,” Rowl said, moving over to the boy and whispering to him. “Do you really need to hide who you are?”
Surprised, Matt turning around in an instant with his eyes wide open. “How do you know?”
“You probably put on your wig sluggishly when you got out of bed, right?” Rowl said in a chuckle. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
Self-aware, Matt acted as if scratching the back of his head to tuck back the stray hairs. “Why do you care?” Matt asked.
“Why? Well, you just caught my attention, that’s all,” he said and stared at the clear white ceiling. “Now it makes sense why they took you in; John said you were an orphan, yet I never imagined this.”
Matt didn’t pay any more attention, simply ignoring the man, waiting for John to return.
Then, with everyone eagerly waiting and the blue-coats swinging side by side, their fingers rattling on the desk in impatience, the door opened. An innocent face with an impish smile was put on by John, who said in a happy tone, “Now then, let’s see who the killer was!”
Everyone silently following, on edge about the results, they walked into the bathroom.
“Now then, if I may ask, Aaron would you be so kind to go inside this toilet stall? Just close the door from inside please,” John said, guiding Aaron inside and quickly stepping to the stall next to it. It was the stall with the broken lock.
“As you can see here, this stall has it’s lock broken,” John fidgeted around with the handle and showed the chipped paint. “It is likely that this was the stall that our dead General was in before he died.
“So then someone broke open the door and killed him, right?” General Harvey said impatiently.
John chuckled with a smirk, but quickly caught himself to get back to his innocent look. “Seeing as how Mister Waltfeldt was the last one inside this room before General Michaele’s death, I would like you to try and break open the door where Aaron is currently in.”
“So you also believe that I murdered the general?” Rowl said in a serious tone that was quickly calmed down when John squinted his right eye at him. “Fine then.”
Rowl positioned himself in front of the door, both his hands gripping the handle and pulled. Pausing for a second, taking a deep breath, he pulled again with more force and slipped on the wet floor, catching himself by holding onto the handle.
“One last try,” John said. “Give it your all.”
In a nod, sweat dripping from his forehead, Rowl put his foot against the wall next to the lock and pulled again. This time with more force and noises of exhaustion and pain leaving his mouth, a crack sounded and the door was quickly broken open.
“That just proves he is capable of breaking open the door!” General Harvey hollered.
“True, he can indeed break open the door if he really goes for it. However, if you noticed, he slipped at first and had to use his foot as counter weight,” John grinned.
“So? What of it?” the General barked again.
“Look at this stall over here: no boot prints can be found on the wall and even if he was to try and clean it off,” John grabbed a towel from the sink and wiped at the wall. “It leaves behind these slimy trails. Meaning, the door couldn’t have been broken from the outside without leaving behind anything.”
The blue-coats were surprised, stepping back.
“Aaron, you can come out again,” John said, now pointing at the corpse. “From what I could find, the victim most likely hit his head on the sink and died afterwards.”
“Afterwards?” Aaron asked. “Wouldn’t you be fine without saying afterwards?”
“Matt, would you be so kind as to close the bathroom door?” John said and kneed down to the corpse. “Because of how disgustingly humid it is in here, it is easy to trip. As we know, the man was drunk and probably didn’t remember to open the stall door again. He rushed, not even flushing the toilet, using the weight of his body, he broke through and tripped, hit his head on the sink and fell unconscious,” John said, gesturing at the blood on the sink and the corpse’s forehead.
General Harvey stepped back, towards the door.
“When news arrived, we all came inside and General Harvey was the first to check the pulse of the man, despite knowing full well of the regulations. Or at least, as a General, you should know that you aren’t supposed to touch anything on a crime scene without consent,” the detective stood up and rummaged through General Harvey’s coat pockets, pulling out a small case.
“I’m diabetic,” the General flustered.
“Oh, I’m aware of what this is, and if I am correct,” John paused to open up the case. “There’s a needle, a few cotton balls and blood test paper strips inside.”
He pulled out the needle and looked at it.
“Where do you generally poke your skin to do check your blood, General?” John asked.
General Harvey opened his right hand to show the small dots left behind by the needle on his fingers. Sweat ran down the short man’s head as John pulled him over to the corpse and held his hand to compare between those holes and the hole at the throat of the corpse.
“Aaron, please hold this man in place, Matt please go find something like a rope or handcuffs if you can find any. General Harvey, you are under arrest for murder on a fellow general of yours,” John announced and handed the man over to Aaron.
“What? But how can you be so certain, why would I kill my own friend? Isn’t it more likely that it was an accident?” The short man struggled.
“I also thought it was an accident before, but when I found that needle hole, it was all I needed. It was fresh enough to still make him bleed. So, to sum it up, the man wasn’t dead when you checked his pulse. He was just unconscious from being drunk and having hit his head on the sink. But when you checked the pulse while we were distracted, you jabbed the needle into his throat and killed him by poisoning him,” John said.
“Poison? Why is there suddenly poison involved?” General Mael wondered.
“Simple really, it was a tranquilizer,” John showed the small diabetic’s case again and held up a bottle of liquid. “This right here is used to make the sting of the needle not hurt so much, but it is also a strong tranquilizer if used in overdose, isn’t that right Aaron?”
“Indeed, it does. We had many cases back when I worked as a doctor, where people would accidentally numb their entire hand by accident due to overdose. They are starting to make different painkillers for it now, but some people are especially prone to flinching and still prefer the stronger painkillers,” Aaron replied.
“As for why you would kill your own ally, that is simple too, of course. You wanted to give all of the fault to Rowl, blaming him and resume the war,” John added and walked over to Rowl as Matt came back with a rope to tie the murderer’s hands. “I ask of you, Rowl, to head back to your Kingdom as fast as possible. Even with this amount of proof, it is likely they will use their prejudice to still blame you.”
“Indeed,” Rowl turned around with a sigh. “Thank you for all your hard work. If you need anything from me in the future, just tell me...well, of course, if the war should ever calm down enough to allow travelling.”
Rowl headed out in a snow jeep and returned to the White Kingdom. John had one of the guards in a different area of the wall ride with him and his company in a carriage. Steam powered cars wouldn’t have worked in the cold weather of the north. They had quickly packed their things and rode through the night. John had handed over the leftover piece of cake to Matt, who ate it on the way home. Hours passed until they finally left the snow behind them and headed for the next prison. Once they arrived, the carriage abruptly stopped and the guard shouted out, “Sir!”
Wondering what happened, they got out of the carriage and were shocked to see a man in grey short hair and purple robes stand before them. His eyes were gold just like the many rings on his fingers, “Detective Sterling, what brings you here on this night?”
Quickly, everyone bowed. Aaron even pushed Matt to lower his head while only John stood. “Your majesty, I should ask the same,” John said.
“My, my,” the man chuckled. “Can’t the King come out to take a look at what he has built? Well, to be honest, I already had intel that a murder would be planned over at the wall where you were. Hence why I sent you out there.”
“I see,” John said, pushing forward General Harvey. “This man is to be put under arrest for murder on a fellow general, Your Majesty.”
“I see,” the King said with a fiendish grin on his face, quickly reaching over to the back of his robe. He grabbed a pistol from a small pocket and held it right between the eyes of the general.
“My lord! Please, this is all wrong, I-”
“Silence!” the King shouted and looked over to John who was standing almost paralyzed. “You are sure that this man is guilty of murder on his own ranks?”
“Yes,” John stuttered.
“Very well.” The King tightened the grip on his pistol.
“Please don’t do this! You were the one who told me to-”
An explosion sounded, smoke left the barrel and blood sprayed over the ground. The general dropped dead. The King remained unfazed and started to clean his pistol.
“Your Majesty, why did you execute him?” John asked, his throat drying up.
“Why? For no other reason than you stating his guilt, of course! If he really did as you claim, then the traitor did not deserve to be kept alive.”
“I see,” John muttered, his fist tightening in regret. “Very well then, we will be off now. My job here is done.”
As John and the others got back into the carriage, the King recalled something. “Oh, right. I wanted to send you a letter, but since you are here anyways, Mister Sterling, I’d like you to come visit my Castle in two days. There is something I’d like to discuss with you.”
The young detective already had one foot in the carriage and mumbled. “As you wish, I’ll be there in the morning.”
Leaving behind the prison and the King, the three men were now brought home by the guard. However, the scene from earlier had engraved itself into their mind.
“Johnathan,” Aaron whispered with vocal shivers. “What are you planning?”
Matt sat in a corner on his own, rolled in like a ball. “That smell, it was gunpowder, wasn’t it? But wasn’t the King the one who said it was illegal to use?” His stomach started to turn and he started to regret having eaten the cake.
John just sat on the rightmost seat at the window, his face halfway illuminated by the moonlight. “He wanted to ban it to limit the power of opposing factions and to start collecting it for his own needs. Aaron, Matt, I may have found the one I’m after.”