The servant led Edith up the stairs and into an unoccupied hallway that stretched for a while in front of her before turning off into some unexplorable region of the palace. They turned into a room only a few doorways down the corridor, which had a guard posted outside. Edith avoided glancing at the guard, but she could guess that he was watching her carefully.

Upon entering the room, Edith found herself in the company of someone dauntingly familiar. Niles Hawthorne, the captain of the royal guard, sat in a chair by the fireplace, his eyes distant as he seemed to study the patterns on the mantle. His stare didn't shift even as he spoke to her. "Please have a seat, Miss Curtis. Make yourself comfortable."

The only other place to sit was a small sofa situated directly across from him. Edith seated herself quickly. The servant turned and stood by the door.

"Good." The Captain's eyes finally moved to her. Edith preferred him looking away. That piercing, steel-gray gaze made her uncomfortable.

"Thank you for coming," he said. "I'm sorry if anything seems abrupt. The situation requires it. Because of this, there will be no beating around the bush for me. I will simply say that the crown has been stolen, and we ask for your assistance in finding both it and the thief."

Edith gasped. The crown had been stolen! How was it possible? Though she had noticed the doors closed....After reeling in shock over Hawthorne's former statement, her mind at last caught on to the latter. "You want my help?" she repeated incredulously. "How can I possibly help?"

Hawthorne rubbed a finger on the bridge of his nose. "We shall see. Lady Eglantine--our dear Queen's sister--has recommended you. There are many hundreds of suspects here, as you can imagine, and I admit I was quite overwhelmed when faced with the task of finding the crown amongst them. I and the royal family have already discussed the issue. We decided it was best to conceal the knowledge of the investigation from the general party before the culprit is found, but Madame Eglantine insisted that we include you due to your...experience."

Edith could tell by the way he spoke that he was as doubtful about her usefulness as she was. It did not make her any more eager. "What am I to do?" she asked.

Hawthorne picked at a loose piece of lint on his otherwise pristine uniform and flicked it to the side. "I already searched the crime scene for evidence, which I was told to relate to you. The glass case was shattered with something roughly fist-sized, by the looks of it. The room smelled of smoke, but there was no trace of anything that could have caused that. There is a window in the back of the room, but it appeared undisturbed. Because of this we believe that the thief has hidden the crown somewhere in the palace, or else he would have had to conceal it while making his way quickly outside, which seems unlikely."

"What of the closed doors?" Edith asked when the Captain stopped speaking. "Why were the display room doors shut?"

"That was my doing," he said dismissively. "As I said, we did not want the guests to detect anything amiss. We closed off the room and told them the crown was no longer to be viewed."

Edith processed the information slowly, hoping to be struck with some inspiration. Having assistance requested from her by the royal family was tremendously pressing, and she did not want to disappoint them. But there simply wasn't enough information. So far as she knew, anyone could have stolen the crown.

"When do you think the thief stole it?" Edith asked for additional information.

"There were plenty of witnesses in the room all the evening." He let out a sigh. "Until that mysterious lady showed up. Everyone crowded the main room to see her. It gave the perfect window of time for the crown to be stolen."

"Were there no guards in the room?" Edith asked, puzzled.

Hawthorne looked embarrassed. "There were. They left to see the spectacle as well. They will be punished accordingly."

Edith didn't respond. Instead, she let the details mix in her mind. Someone had gone into the room some time after she herself had left and before the guards had returned. It was a slim space of time. Whoever had done it would have been near it when Alouette had arrived--on that floor, around the stairs, or perhaps in one of the rooms near the bottom of the stairs. Then she thought of the way in which it had been stolen and paused. "Would the guards not have heard the glass shatter?"

"It was loud in the ballroom," Hawthorne said. He leaned back into a more comfortable position. Perhaps he had not expected her to ask so many questions. "I'm sure you were aware. The guards who left the room said they had heard something like glass shattering, but it was so stifled by the chatter of the crowds that they didn't think to inspect it until later. Lazy, idle...I swear they'll be punished."

"So they were not watching well enough to see someone enter and leave?"

Hawthorne was hesitant. "No." He shifted out of his relaxed position. "Oh, what a fine mess this is!"

Edith didn't wish to press any further. She could tell the Captain was frustrated with all that had happened, and any more questions she could ask would do nothing but aggravate that frustration. But the puzzle was starting to interest her. She needed some additional pieces. "May I inspect the display room?" she asked.

He eyed her dubiously, blinking a few times slowly before speaking. "Lady Eglantine insists that you will facilitate this investigation," he said, not immediately answering her question. "As for me, I will be frank and say that I simply cannot believe that a writer--and a lady, at that--could contribute anything especially valuable."

Edith felt herself inhale sharply, her mouth trembling indignantly to open and defend herself.

"Promise that you will not disclose any of this information to anyone," Hawthorne said, watching her warily. "And share no additional knowledge that you may...or may not...find. Only on these conditions will I allow you to search any further."

"I promise," Edith said, her mouth burning to say something sharper. But she restrained herself. She wanted to be allowed to pursue this mystery.

"Very well, then." Hawthorne waved over the servant, who came quickly to his side. "Let Miss Curtis examine the display room. Ensure that no one else can as much as glance inside."

The servant nodded and told Edith to follow him. She stood, bidding Captain Hawthorne a polite farewell. He returned it, then let his eyes rest on the mantle once again as she and the servant left the room.

As she followed the servant to the display room, Edith looked around at every person they passed by. There was a gentleman, laughing, his face rosy with wine. Could he be the thief? There was a lady with a hook nose and a wandering stare. Could it be her? But no matter how closely she examined them, there were simply too many to narrow down to one.

The servant turned to make sure that no one was watching, then swiftly unlocked the door. Before he let Edith in, he said, "Once you are done, knock softly. If there is no one around to notice, I will let you out."

Edith nodded, and with a final sweep of the servant's eyes and a turn of the latch, she was let into the display room.

Nothing in the room seemed amiss besides the shattered and empty case and the glass shards that lay scattered on the floor. Edith's eyes went to the vacant display cushion and she felt a throb of sadness. Such a beautiful thing, taken so roughly from its rightful place.

Edith went to the window first, doubting Captain Hawthorne's assumption that the thief had escaped into the rest of the palace. The sill looked undisturbed. But that didn't indicate anything. In a room less taken care of, there would have been dust where the thief would leave a track. But this was a palace. There was barely a speck of dust in the entire building. A person could still go through the window without leaving a trace.

Edith went back over to the case. She stared at the hole more closely. It was larger than fist-sized, but that was reasonable. The hole would be larger than the object that made it. Her eyes went to the glass on the floor, where they lingered with curiosity. She stooped over and gingerly picked up what she had seen. It was a small piece of blue thread, barely noticeable, that had been stuck on the edge of a glass shard. She smiled triumphantly. She had noticed it.

A picture formed in her mind of some person breaking the case, snagging some piece of his clothing on the glass without noticing. Edith looked around the room, nodding with surety. The carpet and upholstery were in red, gold, and white, not blue.

Edith walked, evidence in hand, back to the door and knocked softly. She waited for a minute, then another, but it didn't open. She knocked louder and waited again. Then she knocked the loudest yet. "Excuse me?" she said as loudly as she dared. The servant wasn't coming.

The door had been locked from the outside, but there was a latch on her side that she could open. She had just turned it when someone pulled at the other side of the door. Her grateful feelings turned to surprise when she saw not the servant, but Mr. Darling on the other side.

"Miss Curtis," he said. "I thought I had heard you. What are you doing in there?"

Edith remembered her promise to the Captain and put on a pleasant smile. "Nothing unusual." How fake that sounded!