Sylvester's First Case

Focus: Culprit
A figure looked at the bottle in their hands and smiled before they pocketed it and headed out the door.

Focus Change: Silvester

A seven year old Silvester sat in his room as he waited for his parents. A book named “Steps to being a Detective Vol. 1” sat in his lap. While many children would find this book boring, Sylvester was fascinated by it. He always loved mysteries and his parents had even set up little treasure hunts for him. But they were never enough. He wanted to do something amazing. Do something important. Do something like solve a crime.

“The first step to being a detective is to gain the respect of many other detectives.” Sylvester read aloud, “This can be Diff-i-cult as usually det-ec-tives have one area they call their own and us-ual-ly a town has only one de-tec-tive, though there are a few detectives who wander, most do not. This means you will prob-a-bly have to move from town to town to get the respect and re-com-men-da-tions to take the Detectives Test of the Al-tha-nian De-tec-tive Bor-ough and become a Cer-ti-fied De-tec-tive.”

Silvester looked at the book before he sighed and thought ‘Dictionary’ and yelled “Call” an Althanian Basic (English) Dictionary appeared on the desk in front of him. He then put the two books side by side, the “Dictionary” on the left and the “Steps to being a Detective Vol 1” on the right.

“Okay, the first word I need to look up is ‘Cer-ti-fied’,” he said as started to flip through the dictionary. He stopped as soon as he found what he was looking for. “Certified means ‘having a cer-ti-fi-cate’, what is a certificate?” Sylvester looked for the word a read “A certificate is ‘a doc-u-ment ser-ving as ev-i-dence or as writ-ten test-i-mon-y, as of status, qual-i-fi-ca-tion, priv-il-ige, or truth of something’.”

Sylvester sighed as he thought ‘why can’t there be a dictionary for kids.’ Suddenly he felt a book fly off the shelf in the Infinite Library.

With excitement he yelled, “Call!” Another Dictionary, bigger than the one he had fallen next to the other Dictionary. The title was “Little Explorers Basic Picture Dictionary”. With excitement Sylvester opened the book and found pictures as well as definitions in the books. He then went and search for the word “Document” He couldn’t find it so he sighed and looked in his original Dictionary “A Document is ‘a written paper furn-ish-ing in-for-ma-tion or ev-i-dence, as a pass-port, deed, bill of sale, or bill of lading; a legal or official paper’.” Sylvester just blinked and then said, “Why doesn’t it just tell me it is a legal paper instead of adding all that other stuff to it. I can understand that.

After his little rant Sylvester continued on and decided to look up evidence next, he couldn’t find it in the child’s dictionary so with a sigh he looked inside the other one. “Ok so Evidence means, ‘Data pre-sent-ed in proof of the facts in issue and which may include the test-i-mon-y of wit-ness-es, records, doc-u-ments, or objects’. So it is just proof of something?”

As he was about to continue his search of words he heard a knock on his door. His mother then opened the door and said, “Hey my sweet boy, what you doing in your room on such a nice day?”

His mother was a fair skinned woman with golden blond hair and beautiful blue eyes. She wore a pink dress and a pearl necklace around her neck. She also had pink heals on that made Sylvester wince as he looked at them. He didn’t understand how women could stand those tight shoes.

“Reading mom!” Sylvester said with a scowl. He hated being interrupted while he read.

She just laughed as she walked up to the table. “What’re you reading?”

“A book!” he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Now son,” she said with fake disappointment, “I’m pretty sure you are reading more than one book since I see three open.”

“No,” he said with a huff, “I’m reading one book; the other two are Dictionaries since there are words I don’t know in this book.”

“Oh,” she said with piqued interest, “what words doesn’t my little Sylvest understand, maybe I could explain them better than those books on words.”

Sylvester scowled again, but this time at his nickname. He then sighed as he thought she probably was right. So he told her, “There are quite a few actually. First is testimony.”

“Ah,” his mother said with a smile. “Testimonies are facts given about an event. They are usually either written or given verbally. And describe the event to the best of the giver’s ability.”

Sylvester nodded with a smile. “So a testimony is one of the ways used to solve a case?”

His mother smiled. “Why yes actually, in fact, there are few cases where a testimony isn’t given as they tend to point a detective or knight in the right direction.”

Sylvester nodded again and said, “The next word is Qualification.”

His mother looked at him funny, “Qualification is a bit harder to explain. However I guess the best way to describe is the state of being qualified which gives you the right to do something or claim to be something. For example, in order to be a detective you have to be certified by the Althanian Detective Borough in order to claim to be a detective.”

Sylvester nodded and said, “Just like the book said.”

She looked at him in confusion, “What book?”

He smiled and said, “A book on how to become a detective.”

His mother just laughed as she shook her head. “I should have known.”

“Mom,” Sylvester then said just to get them back on subject, “the last word I don’t know is ‘Recommendation’.”

His mother blinked then said, “Well Recommendation means someone believes someone will do well with something to the point that they would tell others about that person if they need help. It is written in a formal letter.” After Sylvester heard this he nodded and then was about to go back to his reading. However before he could his mother grabbed his book and said, “It’s a beautiful day. Go outside and play.”

Sylvester was about to protest but his mother then glared at him with a look that said, ‘you have no choice.’ So with a sigh, Sylvester marked his place in his book and sent them all back to the Infinite Library then headed out the door.

‘I hope something interesting happens today,’ he thought as he walked down the path from his mansion into town.

Focus: Culprit
The figure poured the contents of the bottle into a glass of wine and threw the bottle out a window into the streets. A waiter then came in and took the wine to the outdoor eating area and handed it off to a robust man in fancy cloths. The man took a sip of the wine and suddenly began to choke and sputter before he fell to the floor. A woman at the next table saw the man fall and screamed.

Focus Change: Sylvester
Sylvester had decided to take a stroll through town and had just made it to the outskirts when he heard the woman’s scream. Sylvester ran to where he heard the sound and saw a waiter shaking a man who was not responding. Sylvester then ran up to the man and checked for a pulse, there was none.

Sylvester then turned towards the waiter and said, “It’s too late, he’s gone.” The woman screamed again as Sylvester suddenly noticed a strange smell coming from the man’s mouth. It smelled like almonds. Sylvester remembered that he had read something about almond smell before but he couldn’t remember where. Quickly he thought, ‘Almond smell, dead body’ and he felt a book be taken off the shelf of the Infinity Library. Sylvester then yelled, “Call!”

A book landed in his outstretched hands with it being opened. Sylvester looked at the title of the chapter which read, “Cyanide Poisoning” Sylvester blinked then started to read, “Cyanide poisoning is a common form of assassination. It is untraceable until it’s too late to save a victim and most people don’t know that the victim has been poisoned due in part to it only having one way of being discovered, the smell of almonds escaping from the victim’s mouth.”

There was much more that the book said and a few words that he didn’t know. However, he now knew this was a murder case. So with a steel look in his eye he ran over to the Knight’s Bell next to the cafe and rang it. The bell was made to send out a magic signal which told the knights that which bell rang. He then went back over to the crime scene and waited for the knights.

Focus Change: Culprit
The figure heard the bell ring and ran outside. He asked the waiter “Why was the Knight’s Bell rung?”

The waiter said, “I don’t know, that boy checked out the body then suddenly ran over and rang the Knight’s Bell, I don’t know why he didn’t ring the Moorage’s Bell? The man probably died by a heart attack.”

The child then looked up and said, “It wasn’t a heart attack, this man was poisoned.”

The other guests gasped and the waiter asked, “Are you sure about that?”

The boy nodded and said, “I’m positive. If you want, we can confirm this when the knights and the local detective arrives.” He then went back to looking at the body as all the people in the restaurant started to murmur about the possibility of a murderer and the boy who claimed to know it was a murder.

The figure then said, “Huh, like a kid would be able to tell if a man was murdered. He’ll be in trouble when the Knight’s arrive and find out that a kid was the one who called them. Not to mention the detective who hated to have his time wasted.” The figure then stood and watched as the kid looked over the body with only the tiniest hint of a shiver to prove that he was indeed affected by the body before him.

Soon the sound of horse hooves on the cobblestone road could be heard as the local knights made their way to the scene.

Focus: Detective Kingsley
Detective Kingsley was reading a book when a Knight’s Bell was rung. He looked at the map that showed where it was rung from and saw that it came from a restaurant on the outskirts of town. Kingsley quickly grabbed his detective hat and coat and jumped up on his horse and sent it into a full gallop to get to the restaurant before someone could disturb the crime scene.

As Detective Kingsley got to the restaurant, he noticed that the local knights had already set up the perimeter and refused to let anyone in. the forensic team was already at the scene and General Grant was already questioning everyone who was at the scene when they arrived. General Grant was decked out in pure gold colored armor that showed his rank as the local General. His right hand knight, Sir Watt was also there, decked out in his silver colored armor. The other knights were all decked out in their grey colored armor that made them hard to distinguish them as individuals… well except for the one female knight. He still can’t believe that the General allowed a female to join the Knights. Woman should stay home and take care of the house not fight criminals.

Kingsley dismounted his horse as he made his way to the General who had turned towards the detective as he heard the horse stop.

“Detective Kingsley,” the knight said with great respect.

“General,” the detective said with a grim look. “What do we have?”

“Poison detective,” the knight said with a sigh, “at least, if we believe what the boy says that is.”

“Boy?” the detective asked with a furrow of his brow. What would a boy know about poisons?

“Yes,” the general said as he pointed towards a kid who for some reason was talking to one of the knights, “Sir Corinth’s kid, a smart lad who, according to his father, wants to be a detective someday. Apparently, he has access to a library with all sorts of information. According to the woman who was sitting two tables away from the victim, the kid made a book appear out of thin air and after reading it ran over and rang the Knight’s Bell.”

“So the kid was the one to ring the bell?” Detective Kingsley asked as he looked at the kid. ‘Kid’s don’t belong at a crime scene.’

“Affirmative,” General Grant said to the detective. That was all Detective Kingsley need to hear before he gave the general a nod and made his way over towards the child who should leave detective work to a real detective.

Focus Change: Sylvester
Sylvester was talking to his father about what he knew when a hand roughly grabbed Sylvester by the back of his cloths and picked him off the ground.

“Go play detective somewhere else kid,” a man said from behind Sylvester before he was thrown across the street and rolled on the ground. Luckily his gambeson shirt softened the blow enough to not get hurt to badly. Sylvester then looked back at the man and saw that he was a detective. Sylvester frowned but then shrugged his shoulders. He already gave his analysis to his dad so Sylvester would have to wait for him to be called back. After all, he already told his dad who the culprit was; he just needed to wait for the detective to figure it out on his own. With that he walked away.

Focus: Culprit
The figure began to sweat as they saw Detective Kingsley ride up to the restaurant. But then smiled when they saw the brat who called the Knights get thrown across the street. ‘Serves him right,’ the figure thought with a smile. ‘He shouldn’t have interfered in the first place.’ The figure watched as the detective began to look at the crime scene still a little nervous about having such a well-known detective to try to fool.