Chronicles of Mystery

Ghostbusters

Martha cleared her throat, satisfied.

 "So, as I was saying, a perfectly normal and of course very honorable family, yes. We may no longer have the luxury of yesteryear but we retain the dignity that our good origins gave us. You know, we even have a bit of noble blood, since my great-grandfather had married a young girl from a good family. Let me now explain to you the reason for your coming. My family jewels have disappeared! These are jewels of a very great importance for me and for all of us. Not only from a sentimental point of view but also financially. They are the symbol of our heritage and we have always treasured them, for all the memories and the value they contain. They were given as a wedding gift to my grandmother, by a powerful lord, her uncle, and they are of splendor! Magnificent! Worthy of the crown jewels. Brilliants like a thousand lights and constituted of a myriad of precious stones. Even I, who have no eye for such things, am well able to recognize their rarity. I have to find them! But don't worry, I've already started my investigation. I believe, I am almost certain even, to have found the culprit. It's my great-aunt Victoria! She's always been greedy, I'm sure she's the one who did the theft! This old owl, she remained a spinster until the end, no wonder no man wanted her, with her mule character! I just don't know where she hid them."

She began to cast inquisitive glances around her, hoping perhaps to detect the hiding place of her great-aunt. She then continued to expose long and wide the genealogy of their proud family, going back very far according to her. A tree with thick branches that Martha said was littered with dignified and respectable characters. She climbed to the thinnest twigs she could reach, sparing no leaf and raking every bit of that foliage she tried to make look thicker than it was. Men and women with admirable deeds, with alabaster foreheads that had since long risen to the skies, draped in their immaculate shrouds, holy men and women, among the others. Her descendants around her had no reaction to this long and eventful story which seemed to retrace the exploits of an entire race as it was provided and dense, like the foliage of a dense forest, contenting themselves with contemplating with sadness their lunch ruined by Martha's unwelcome intervention. She finally ended up concluding that the blood had perhaps weakened during the last few years, mixing with individuals of origin sometimes a little too commoner for her taste. But the power of the old dynasty still flowed through their veins, of brave merchants who had braved the waves so long ago to bring back some at the risk of their lives, battling against the raging foam, wealth and prosperity.

Lucy nodded, pretending to be genuinely interested, so as not to incur the wrath of the grandmother and take a blow to the head similar to the one that had just shaken the dining room.

 "Hmm...I see", Alistair nodded after a moment of silence as long as the distance between London and the New World. We would need to interview all members of this family who were present at the time of the crime.

 "Why? I've already introduced you to the prime suspect."

 "Hmm... Indeed, but, we think that your grandaunt must have had an accomplice or something like that. You see, being a ghost, she couldn't take the jewelry on her own. She couldn't have touched the objects," Alistair tried to explain without believing a single word of it himself.

The old woman looked at him dubiously at first, then her face lit up.

 "You are surely right. One can see that you are professionals, you guess this sort of thing immediately", she said with a delighted air. "Talk as much as you want with each of them."

Satisfied by these introductions, the old woman went to settle comfortably among the members of her family.

 "Jeanne is that right?" Alistair asked the maid.

She nodded while seeming to wonder what this fanatic was going to ask her.

 "Could you lead us to a room so that I can talk to my colleagues in private?"