Miss Winchester had found herself in quite a conundrum. It appeared
that she didn't have anything to wear, which was perhaps an ordinary
problem for a young lady in the finer circles of Eisenkrone Academy;
but in this particular instance, the conundrum pertained less to the
shifting fancies of fashion, and more to the fact that her wardrobe
appeared to have disappeared into thin air while she slept.
“Oh my,” was Miss Winchester's expert assessment of the
situation, “Oh dear me, my wardrobe seems to have vanished.”
It was an astute observation, owing to the fact that she was a well
educated lady with a keen eye for detail; it was also, fortunately,
an observation she made to herself, being dressed only in her
night-gown, beneath which she wore very little in the ways of
modesty, and above which she was similarly undressed. This left her
in the precarious state of having only a single layer of clothing
between her and the world at large, which was, of course, a dreadful
dilemma.
Had the matter vexing Miss Winchester been something other than a
matter of acute embarrassment, she should of course have summoned her
loyal butler Ralph; or failing that, her close friend Cecil. Alas,
she knew they were both quite passionate young men, prone to shock
and – in Cecil's case – behavior he might later regret. Given
that the situation presented a mystery, her good friend Mr.
“Sherlock” Lloyd Wilder might perhaps have suited the situation –
but Miss Winchester wouldn't dream of calling on a friend whilst
improperly dressed. Indeed, it seemed she must solve this situation
by her own accord.
Miss Winchester leaned forwards, taking good care that her backside
wasn't pointing toward a person, depiction of a person, or anything
that might with a helping of imagination resemble a person. She
knelt down towards the ground, narrowing her eyes, and nodded
solemnly to herself.
“I say! A clue!” she said, to herself. For indeed, there where
the wardrobe had been was instead positioned on the floor a small
copper coin, valued at five Teutonian pfennigs. Miss Winchester stood
up, straightening her back. It seemed perfectly clear to her that the
culprit must have left the coin there as some kind of calling card;
she imagined some manner of gentleman thief, calling himself Monsieur
Five-Pfennig, who no doubt crept about at night like a dreadful
rapscallion and made away with extremely heavy wardrobes. Presently
her eyes swept over the floor to see if the thief had left some other
manner of clue.
“I say!” said Alice, indeed saying it, as she spied something
sticking out from underneath her door. It appeared to be one of her
unmentionables, wedged between the door and the door-frame. “A
trail!”
Regrettably, the trail led out into the corridor. Miss Winchester was
getting quite excited about pursuing this dastardly thief, but not so
excited that she would even in her wildest dreams burst out into the
hallway whilst naked both beneath and above her clothes. That would
be dreadfully rude to her fellow club members, who after all even now
had nothing but a few dozen feet of solid stone between their virgin
eyes and her own indecent state of dress. But! What if some of her
unmentionables were likewise scattered in the corridor? Why, she
should die of embarrassment!
“I daresay,” she said, indeed daring to say it, “I shall
quickly have to formulate a plan!”
And so, grabbing needle and thread from her dresser, she began her work.
