F³ A first Test 03

           “Now what, Shamus, do you use this powder for? Know that, I may be able to help your cause.”

            I lifted up my thumb for him to look at. “The marks on our fingers are distinct. Whenever we touch an object, something is left behind.”

            He shook his head. “Not unless something already stained our fingers. Why, if you touch my counter, now, with clean hands such as yours, not a mark would be left.”

            I sighed. “Do you have chalk?”

            He shrugged and went to his cabinets, opening a small drawer and produced a whitish, lumpy rock.

            “And one of those poundy things with the bowl?”

            “The mortar and pestle,” he said, patiently.

            I used the poundy thing—I didn’t know which was the mortar and which the pestle—to break off a chunk and then proceeded to grind it to a fine powder. I had been careful to keep one hand out of the chalk, so I used that clean thumb to press down firmly on the wooden counter. The apothecary had kept a very clean shop, so I was sure the counter would take the print okay.

            I hefted up the wooden bowl, and very carefully tapped out a tiny amount of powder. When I had gotten a light dusting on top, I bent down and lightly puffed away the loose chalk, hoping this worked.

            It did. It was faint, but the whitish powder stood out against the dark wood of the counter, revealing the fingerprint.

F³ The Apothecary's Apprentice 02

           It took longer to figure out the name of what I wanted through asking awkward questions about powders and medicines—an apothecary—than it did to actually locate one in the town around Roderick’s castle.

            Of course, I was greeted by a stereotypical fairy tale character of a wizened old man with tufts of wild hair surrounding a bald pate. Thick, wire-rimmed glasses magnified his eyes until he took them off, letting them dangle to his chest by a string attached to the earpieces.

            “Good day to you, Shamus. What can I do for you? Perhaps some toilet water to give to a fair maiden, hmm?”

            My mouth was already open to ask him what I wanted, but then I closed it, quickly.

            What maiden? Who am I supposedly wooing?

            I shook my head, and then asked what I wanted. “I need a concoction of powders.”

            “Oh, I have many fine powders. Some relieve pain, others aid in sleep, some make a man stand tall,” he chuckled after that last.

            Okay, something’s going on that I don’t know about. Some kind of gossip, about me and a woman, I guess.

            “No, not like that, this is a tool from my homeland. My, er, apothecaries new the secret of it and made it for me, but I’m afraid I don’t know all the details. I was wondering if I could look through your ingredients and we could attempt to come up with the . . . substance, together?”

            “Oh, my, well, of course, Shamus. I would be honored to aid you in such an endeavor.”

            Score one more for Rule 16: Fairy tale folk are friendly and helpful.

F³ Youngblood 01

           As detectives went, I was a youngblood, still a grade three. I only had a couple of cases under my belt with Martinez, a grade one, who had quizzed me over everything and sent me to do all the grunt work. I still had a lot to learn. Only now, I didn’t have Martinez, a computer to look anything up, or even a procedure manual to consult since I was stuck in the Fairy Tale Realms.

            Still, the people here didn’t exactly have the skills of master criminals to cover up their crimes. One of Queen Catherine’s maids had pried open the settings of the jewelry, liberating stones here and there. While she didn’t pick them all clean, only taking a stone here and there, it had added up enough that Roderick asked me to look into it.

It didn’t take long to find a stone in the maid’s quarters where the mortar had been chipped away enough to pull a small block free. The block had even been hollowed out on the inside to create a pocket for the stones. A few more, and the maid would have had enough to retire on.

But instead of patting myself on the back as King Roderick and Andurias, the captain of the guard, had done, I heard Martinez’s voice tsking as all of the other clues started to make themselves known, and all of the procedures that I had missed. Sure, the Realms didn’t have fingerprint dust, so I couldn’t—or could I?