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[retroductions]

( art credit )

[ INMATE REGISTRY ]

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[retroductions]

Very well, very well. Get comfortable now.

[A long puff of his pipe, a longer exhale.]

It started with a visit to an old acquaintance. An old acquaintance out in the vast country, no less, living in a grand old house. Reginald Musgrave. The visit was a social one at first, and I refuse to bore you with the details of... [hand wave] ...idle chatter between old university students. What is important is that, eventually, he came to me with a problem: two missing individuals from the staff, a maid and a butler.

[velluminous]

[ out of everyone in Reverie, she just may be the one person who would be interested in hearing about the conversations of two old friends from university, but Sholmes wisely follows it up with that hook. ]

Hm?

[ tilting her head encouragingly ]

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[Oh, university days were a bore. There were only so many teachers that kept his interest, and even then, Sholmes is a waffling man with impulsive desires for a very specific kind of knowledge. The fact that he met with an old uni friend at all was something of an anamoly.

Well, anyway.]

The pair vanished after the butler was dismissed rather quickly by Musgrave after being found rifling through his things. More specifically, and most enticingly, after reading through an old document scrawled with a riddle. It was entitled The Musgrave Ritual.

Would you like for me to recite it for you?

[Of course she would, of course she would.]

[velluminous]

[ of course she would! ]

Go on.

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[From keen memory, a clear call and response riddle:]

'Whose was it?'
'His who is gone.'
'Who shall have it?'
'He who will come.'
'Where was the sun?'
'Over the oak.'
'Where was the shadow?'
'Under the elm.'
'How was it stepped?'
'North by ten and by ten, east by five and by five, south by two and by two, west by one and by one, and so under.'
'What shall we give for it?'
'All that is ours.'
'Why should we give it?'
'For the sake of the trust.'

[velluminous]

[ her eyes have lit up— ] So where was "it" hidden?

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Ah, now you're skipping ahead. We must talk about the trees, and the math! The shadows, you know.

[velluminous]

[ knocks his foot with hers!!! ] Then talk, Herlock.

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[Knocks it back, playfully!]

Well, perhaps it is obvious that the riddle is but a set of instructions. So, 'over the oak', where a shadow was cast 'under the elm'. The issue being that there was no elm to speak of any longer!

But, taking in the angle of the sun, and the height of the oak, one could ascertain where the elm used to be, and count one's paces from there.

[Does she want an explanation regarding TRIGONOMETRY? She is getting one. I'm not typing it out.]

[velluminous]

[ type it out jen ]

And how did our eminent Mister Musgrave not realize these instructions himself?

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[refuse]

Because he had looked and found nothing. The trees, you see, is where it ended for him. And so, for years, he considered it nothing more than a strange ritual of the family, something simply to be recollected and recited out of tradition rather than practicality.

[velluminous]

Ahhh-h. But you knew better.

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Well, I knew that the servants would not have gone missing for nothing — that there must have been a connection.

So, from there, we were led to an old, stone house. There was nothing, until I recalled part of the riddle again — “and so under”.

And beneath us, there was a cellar. And in that cellar, there was a stone slab covering a hole. One would call it a hatch were it not so impossibly heavy. Can you guess at what we found beneath? I had to call the Yard in to assist at this point.

[velluminous]

First, tell me what "yard" is, then I guess.

[retroductions]

Oh, that is elementary. The police force in London, of course!

[velluminous]

Then... you found prisoners.

[ alive or dead! ]

This is my guess.

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Mm, in a way. We found the missing butler — his corpse. He had been dead for several days at that point.

And we also found a box that, when wrenched open, contained nothing at all. A treasure hunt gone completely awry, hm?

[velluminous]

[ she narrows her eyes at him, dissatisfied by this turn, but then— ] And what of missing maid, was it?

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Consider the weight of the stone slab, Ms Vaux. The fact that I had to call in help even to lift it. Do you believe the butler found the treasure on his own, knowing this?

[velluminous]

Betrayal.

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[Puffs at his pipe.]

Either betrayal or accident. Regardless, she had left him there to die. The contents of the box had been found in the nearby lake, presumably where she had run off, evidenced by her footprints in the area. In an old, soggy bag, there were bits of dirt-covered metal and stone.

Upon further inspection, it was found to be pieces of gold and gems, instead.

[velluminous]

[ she is, of course, inclined towards betrayal ]

My, my, Herlock. You found yourself in quite impressive adventure.

[retroductions]

Quite so. And do not forget:

'Whose was it?'
'His who is gone.'
'Who shall have it?'
'He who will come.'

That was referring to the treasure itself. The old crown of a king, I suspect. Yes, yes, my adventures are always quite thrilling — the ones worth publishing, anyhow.