Cabinet of Curiosities and Marbles

Several floating islands hovered high above the sea, joined by crystalline walkways and bridges. Though the sizes of the islands varied, they all shared a similar outline — that of a puzzle piece — and stayed afloat due to the bright crystals covering them from below. These islands formed the city of Stemnbloss, which was the largest and most well-known sky port in the world.

It has been three days since the robbery of a museum, called “Cabinet of Curiosities and Marbles” in the Weeping Glass district, located on one of the larger islands. Many valuable objects had vanished during the night, such as a large crystallised spider, a floating marble rock with eyes, and a thousand-year-old sea-snail trumpet, to name a few. The owner of the museum, Obrei Sintar, was deeply upset and closed the museum until they were found, and most importantly, brought back. He had contacted police, detectives, and bounty hunters, and none of them knew where to begin. Then, two days after the robbery, Obrei encountered a strange woman called Rosmund Veutira. She was visibly disappointed in the unexpected closing of the museum, but after a bit of glancing at the museum and squinting at its owner, she announced with a smile that she would solve this mystery. Hesitantly, Obrei agreed, not expecting much.

Now, three days later, Obrei is sitting opposite Rosmund in a nearby café by the park. Apparently, she had figured everything out, and met with him to discuss it all.

“To sum it all up,” she said, looking directly into his eyes, “the theft involved a xylophone, a canoe with rubber ducks, an octopus, a spatula with googly eyes, and lots of beetles, orchestrated by a marine biologist.”

She then drummed her fingers on the table a few times and continued to drink her herbal tea, while Obrei's expression only got more confused. It took him a while to make sense of the words and how they connected. Was it a joke? Who was this woman, really, and what did she mean?

Obrei looks down at his cup of spiced tea, untouched, and shifts his gaze back to Rosmund. Her gaze searched not just his face but also above and around him, as if he were surrounded by flies or something of the sort. He dismissed that and thought about the task at hand.

“Miss Veutira, what in the Sun's name do you mean?” he asked desperately and waved a hand around, not able to think of a better reply to that combination of words. The woman smirked again and seemed delighted by his discomfort — it didn't help. After a moment of staring at each other across the table, Obrei realised that that was only the beginning of the explanation, as Rosmund placed some papers on the desk in front of him with a toothy grin.

“Well, Mr Sintar, let me start from the beginning.”

***

Rosmund laid out the papers in front of the Marble Museum owner, forming a mixed media collage of handwritten and typewritten notes, photographs, drawings, and sketches. This was the satisfying part, she thought, where she got to explain what really happened. But first, before all that exciting stuff, she had to mention one thing.

“Before I explain the mystery, you need to know this: I can tell when someone is lying, or telling the truth. Including for myself.” Before Obrei could interrupt, she quickly added, “I'm like a lie detector. I see the answers in the form of a veil floating around people, colour coded for everything you say, so I know what's true or not. It's a blessing and a curse,” she explained with a slight chuckle as if amusing herself. She didn't wait for her client, as she liked to think of him, to say something before she clapped her hands loudly.

“Now that we have that out of the way — let me explain what happened to your museum, Mr Obrei Sintar.”

This was like a game, a very enjoyable game, and Rosmund hoped he liked to see how she played it. She leaned over the table, towering over the rather intrigued yet uncomfortable Obrei, and began to talk.

“As soon as we met, what, two days after your museum got robbed, I instantly jumped into action. The most important thing is to ask the right questions, and so I did.”

Rosmund explained how she questioned the whole neighbourhood that day, especially nearby shopkeepers, and residents, for anything that they might have noticed, that night. Some teenagers tried to lie that they were too busy studying to hear anything, but she got out the truth that they were actually doing karaoke instead. She got a helpful answer, eventually, from one couple who lived closest to the museum.

“The first thing that they said is that they noticed nothing, which registered as a lie, an orange veil. After some prodding, I found out they heard shouting at the phone booth not far from their flat, before midnight. This had woken them up. They then said the person sounded like an angry woman, complaining about dirty aquariums, and arguing on the phone about money issues. She seemed frantic, and mentioned the museum once, but that's all they got before they got annoyed and went back to bed with ear plugs. That's clue number one.”

Rosmund got some help finding the recording from that phone booth, and it revealed several things. The angry person was a woman, who worked as a marine biologist at the Dramwood Biological Research Center, which had recently been cut funding, which explains the complaints in the phone call about no money. This is incentive to rob a place full of rare items, and sell them to the right buyers.

Rosmund then cut to what she searched for next: what did this biologist do after the angry phone call? With the help of a hacker, one she knew well, Rosmund looked through security camera footage outside, to find the woman going back to her car, and taking a bucket full of objects out, and locking the car. However, the footage was too low quality to see what was in the bucket, and the biologist was too far away. That was clue two: she did not go empty-handed.

Note: This is unfinished…! It's rushed, so hopefully I'll complete it by the next day. (Busy week, but I wanted to write this so badly!)