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falseroar · 8 months ago

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Murder on the Warfstache Express

Part 11: Spoiler Alert

((After discovering Wilford's not the only stowaway on this train, Abe decides it's time to gather everyone together and finally solve this murder, even if he doesn't like where it leads.

Just a warning beforehand: This is definitely the longest chapter in the series. Read more link, please don't fail me now.

Link to Part 10: A Ticket to Ride, and here's one to the masterlist for the series that I finally got around to making.))

“Who the hell are you?” Abe and the stranger pointing his own gun at him asked in almost perfect unison.

“Oooh, jinx! You both owe me a soda!” Wilford declared, and Abe spotted a flicker in the stowaway’s eyes before she focused on him again.

Maybe she’d been distracted by Wilford’s nonsense, which he was becoming worryingly used to, or maybe she was eyeing the doors on either side of him that led directly out into the darkness and snow, weighing her options for escape if she managed to get past the two men standing in the doorway of the mail car she’d been hiding out in.

Abe on the other hand was rather fixated on his gun, what with not being used to seeing it from this angle.

“I’m supposed to be on this train, which I’m going to go out on a limb and guess is more than you can say,” Abe said, his voice only a little bit strangled before he recovered from the initial shock. “I thought train bandits went out of style along with cowboys, but you’ve definitely updated the look, whoever the hell you are.”

“You don’t need to know who I am,” the bandit responded, after taking a moment to acknowledge the compliment. In the lanternlight, Abe had mistaken the black band around her eyes for the traditional bandit mask, but as she stepped closer he realized it was some kind of…makeup, maybe? Or a tattoo? Even what he first took to be an eyepatch appeared to be a strange device with an assortment of lenses, the purpose of which he suspected had something to do with how she got into the safe to steal his gun. Her whole getup in fact, the black and brown leather and cloth with straps everywhere, as much as she pulled the look off it felt…wrong.

Out of place.

Like a few other things Abe had seen tonight, now that he thought about it.

It was one of those things he had in mind when the bandit gestured with the gun, saying, “Move, now, stay where I can see you and maybe we’ll figure this out without anyone getting hurt, huh?”

“Anyone else,” Abe said, moving slowly with his hands up. She was directing them into the mail car, where he could see bags and boxes of mail piled up haphazardly around a snug nest she’d made for herself back here during the trip.

“What?” she asked, reaching for the door to the mail car behind Wilford as he shuffled in behind Abe. Once that door shut, how long would it take for the others to notice he was gone? Wilford wasn’t even supposed to be here, but surely someone would look over and realize Abe wasn’t in the dining car anymore and start searching for him, right?

But a lot could happen, in between now and then.

“You do know why the train stopped, don’t you?” Abe asked, watching her carefully. As much as she waved that gun around, her grip wasn’t quite right, her finger not even close to the trigger. He didn’t doubt she knew how to wield a weapon, but her inexperience with this particular one showed.

“Yeah, that idiot up there got distracted and ran us into a snowbank or something,” she said, once again training the gun on Abe. “What have you heard, how long until this thing gets moving again?”

Abe shrugged. “Hard to tell. Help probably won’t come until daylight, and with the murder…”

“Murder?” The surprise on her face looked genuine enough, especially when she shook her head and said, “Oh no, I know what you’re thinking, and whatever drama you people have going on has got nothing to do with me.”

“No, you’re just here to steal that rock of the professor’s, aren’t you?” Abe asked and the bandit shrugged.

“Maybe, maybe not. What do you know about it?”

“That it wasn’t worth killing Happy over,” Abe said quietly.

“…What?”

“Agent Apless,” Abe corrected himself, but if anything, the bandit looked even more puzzled.

“The USA agent?” she asked.

“I don’t know where he was from, but his ID wasn’t exactly from any American group I know of,” Abe said, glancing at Wilford who just shrugged.

“No…no,” the bandit said without listening to him, her brow crinkled as she tried to reconcile this new information. “No, he can’t be dead. Believe me, it takes a lot more than that to kill a guy like him.”

“A lot more than what?” Abe asked and she visibly hesitated.

It was just a second, but that’s all he needed. Abe’s hand moved faster than thought, trained by years of practice to reach for the weight in his pocket, and in that single moment of distraction the bandit found herself looking down the barrel of Happy’s gun.

A moment of silence passed as both stood there, “borrowed” guns trained on each other, until Wilford made a noise and patted down his own pockets before belatedly drawing his gun and waving it back and forth between the detective and the bandit.

“Didn’t feel right, being the only one here not pointing a weapon at somebody,” Wilford explained.

“Point it at her, not me!” Abe snapped before catching himself. “Actually, don’t point that thing at anybody!”

“Why don’t you both put your weapons down?” the bandit suggested, keeping Abe’s gun trained on the detective despite being visibly concerned when Wilford shrugged and began to lazily spin his gun around on his finger with a nonchalance that personally made Abe break out into a cold sweat. “No need to play games here, right?”

“This isn’t a game, and this thing isn’t a toy, even if it looks like one,” Abe answered, hoping that was true for this stupid-looking thing he’d found on the agent’s body. He had never actually got around to testing the thing, after all. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

She glanced down at the strange gun in his hand and he swore he saw a flicker of recognition there.

That is, until her lips twitched into a sneer and she asked, “Do you even know how to use that thing?”

A sneer that slipped when Abe shrugged and said, “Got a trigger, doesn’t it? Beyond that, I guess we could find out together if you don’t drop the piece, now.”

“…Piece?”

“The—your gun—my gun,” Abe corrected himself, pressing forward in his irritation until the barrel of the sci-fi looking blaster was pressed up against the underside of the bandit’s chin, his own gun pressed up against his chest in turn. “Drop it, or test me.”

The bandit’s eyes narrowed, searching his for any sign of a lie. “Do you even know what setting it’s on?”

Abe shrugged one shoulder up and down, keeping the blaster steady without looking down at the settings on the side. “Couldn’t even begin to tell you. Might be on whatever Happy had it set to last, might not be. Again, do you want for us to find out the hard way?”

An involuntary gulp on the bandit’s part tested Abe’s grip on the trigger, and she shuddered at the sound of the gun slipping out of her open fingers and hitting the metal floor of the train car.

“Okay, okay! I give, alright?” She raised her empty hands and stepped back, giving enough room for Abe to bend down and pick up his gun.

Which is what he would have done, if his hands weren’t full between the lantern and Happy’s blaster, neither of which he was particularly eager to put away or set down while she could take advantage of it.

Instead, Wilford dipped down and straightened up with the detective’s gun in his other hand, only to find Abe pressing the blaster against his chest now.

“What?” Wilford asked, all innocence.

“You know exactly the hell ‘what,’” Abe said. “Do you really think I’m going to let you walk around this train armed? With my gun?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Wilford said, gesturing with both occupied hands while he spoke. “I am nothing if not a responsible—”

The gun went off in his hand, Abe and the bandit both shrieking while Wilford himself jumped a little as though surprised by the noise or the new hole in one of the overstuffed mailbags on the floor near Abe’s foot.

Abe stared at the smoking gun in Wilford’s hand, extremely aware that it wasn’t his gun that just fired. “…What happened to that one being a toy?”

Wilford studied the gun before shrugging and saying, “Must have forgot to put the safety on, my bad.”

“That doesn’t—” Abe struggled to find the words to explain how that didn’t explain how a gun could fire a flag one moment and actual bullets the next, and settled on, “As if you even know what a safety is!”

“…Fair enough, I just kind of made that up,” Wilford admitted, shoulders dropping when Abe stuffed Happy’s gun in his pocket and gestured toward him to hand over the gun.

“Both of them,” Abe insisted, holstering his gun and holding his hand out for the other.

“Aw, come on, I’ll be good,” Wilford said, pouting when the detective refused to budge but ultimately handing over his gun. “But I’m keeping the knives.”

“Knives? As in plural?”

“Well, of course, what kind of gentleman doesn’t have a selection at hand?” Wilford asked.

Meanwhile, the bandit rubbed her eye and muttered to herself, “This is so stupid…”

“Oh, the stupid’s just getting started,” Abe snapped. He gestured for her and Wilford to go through the door first, explaining as he did so, “We’ve still got to go back to the others and figure out what the hell’s been going on around here, after all.”

The bandit took her time walking out of the car, determined to hold on to some of her dignity even as she looked back over her shoulder at him and asked, “That was a bluff, right? It’s still set to stun, isn’t it?”

Even that much bravado slipped a little when the detective looked her in the eye and asked, “What kind of gun has a stun setting?”

---

Benjamin, Dorene, the chef, Mack, and Richard M. Bags all turned as the door to the lounge car burst open, letting the trio in from the freezing cold between the cars.

“We got the power back on!” Professor Beauregard announced with a beaming smile, matched by those of the conductor/engineer Peter and Illinois.

“Yeah, we kind of noticed,” the chef answered, gesturing at the lit lamps on the walls around them.

The professor deflated slightly and said, “Well, you don’t have to go and sound too excited…”

“Thank you very much, dear, this light really does make everything much more bearable,” Dorene said, smiling gently but turning a questioning eye on the engineer. “And does that mean we have a chance of getting moving again?”

“About that—” Peter started, only to be interrupted by the sound of the door sliding open again, only this time from the opposite end of the car.

“Oh, good, you’re all already together,” Abe said, ignoring the bandit’s weak protest as Wilford took her arm and led her toward the plush seats. Although the snort she made when Wilford whispered something in her ear on the way there was a bit harder to ignore, he forced himself to stay focused. “That makes this all a lot easier.”

“Who the hell is that?” Chef asked, those others who had been seated around the lounge also rising to stare, the bandit returning their stares with a sneering smile while Wilford beamed and waved.

“I don’t remember getting your tickets,” Peter said slowly, his confusion changing into recognition and outrage. “Hold on, you’re the one that threw those snowballs at me!”

“Only because you wouldn’t let me on the train,” Wilford protested. “And after I gave you a very good bribe, I might add.”

“All you needed was a ticket! I even pointed out where you could get one and everything,” Peter whined.

“Now hold on here,” Benjamin said slowly, staring at Wilford with a furrowed brow. “Is that man...?”

“The guy I told you was on this train from the beginning, and you didn't want to listen to me?” Abe asked. "I don't know, why don't you tell me?"

“Colonel, is that you?” Benjamin asked in a tone of disbelief, Chef's head whipping around at that name.

“Only my friends call me that,” Wilford said, the response so quick and natural that it must have been purely instinct. And then he titled his head, a faint smile playing around his lips. “Do I know you?”

“Do you—” Benjamin sputtered before pointing a gloved finger at the offending man. "You—you cad, you scoundrel! You...”

“Asshole!” Chef supplied.

“You don't remember us? From the manor?” Benjamin scoffed and said, “Well, that should hardly surprise me. After all, you couldn't even be bothered to attend the funeral of one of your oldest friends!”

“And that would be...?” Wilford prompted, fishing for some kind of hint.

“Master Mark, of course!”

“Mark had a funeral?” Abe asked. Did they ever even find a body to bury?

Chef shrugged and said, “Yeah, it was okay. Food was pretty decent, paparazzi hanging all over the place, Benjamin cried like a baby, about what you'd expect.”

“Right, right, of course,” Wilford said, before grimacing and giving the others in the room a look that clearly said he still had no clue who the two of them were.

Abe stared at the former butler and the chef, trying to make sense of this complete underreaction and failing. “Are you...are you telling me you're mad at Wilford because he skipped out on a funeral? That's it?”

“Well, there is that, and that time he shot Master's prized vase,” Benjamin answered.

“And he still owes me twenty bucks,” Chef added.

At those answers, Wilford's face lit up in recognition. “Oh, that's right! Good times, good times. I’m good for the money, I just have to fetch a bear first, you know how it is.”

“But...but he...” Abe stuttered, looking from them to Wilford as though he would actually help explain things. It's like they didn't even know, but how could they not know?

Except...except he'd kept his suspicions close to the chest, like the bullet that would replace them. Sure, he'd pointed his fingers, same as the rest, but when it came down to working out the details and piecing the evidence together, well, it didn't do to share too much until he could be sure who to trust.

And these two hadn't been there, when he confronted the Colonel, had they? When he laid it all out, when he told the Colonel he knew all about the affair, that he knew he was the one who killed Markiplier.

And the Colonel had returned the favor by shooting him and the only other witness.

“Detective, are you okay?”

Abe blinked, the room slowly pulling back into focus at the sound of Dorene's voice, and she wasn’t the only one looking at him with obvious concern.

“...No,” he muttered. But what did that matter, when there was still a murder to solve, right here and now?

“This is everyone on the train, all together in one place,” Abe said, looking around the room as though to confirm that fact for himself.

“Minus the agent,” Wilford corrected him.

“...Yeah, minus the dead man.” Abe had been from one end of this train to the other, he'd checked everywhere, which is why he felt confident enough to continue, “All of us, and one murder to explain. And I'm going to tell you all right now, no one is leaving this train car until we get that explanation.”

At his words, they all stared at him, and then at each other as the realization sank in.

The crew: Benjamin, Peter, and the chef whose name Abe still hadn’t managed to catch after all this time and for all he knew might actually just be named “Chef.”

The passengers: Richard M. Bags, his assistant Mack, Dorene Whitacre, Illinois, Professor Beauregard, and himself, minus one Happy.

And the stowaways: Wilford Warfstache and the Bandit.

“Well, I can’t speak for anyone else here,” the bandit said, although her look around the room before landing on Abe suggested she could certainly judge them all the same, “but whatever issues you people have going on, it’s got nothing to do with me. I’m just along for the ride, that’s all.”

“Eh.” Abe made a face at that and said, “I think Professor Beauregard would disagree, even if Happy can’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Beauregard asked with a confused chuckle. “I don’t know this person at all.”

“But she knows of you, or at least that rock you’re traveling with,” Abe said. “That’s why she snuck into the baggage car after we were all asleep to try and steal it.”

The looks on both women’s faces were enough of a reward to compel the detective to continue. “She went for the weapons safe first since it’s the only safe on the train, but turns out the only thing in there was my gun. Despite the many, many other weapons everyone else was allowed to bring on to this train.”

He pointed a glare at the conductor, but Peter just stared back at him owlishly and asked, “Like what?”

“Like these?” Abe said, drawing Happy’s gun from his pocket and gesturing with it before dropping it on the table, then following it with Wilford’s gun. His own he decided to keep in his holster, just because they had been apart for far too long. “Not to mention whatever the hell else Wilford’s got on him, or the blaster in the professor’s room, or Illinois’ whip, seriously, who travels around with a whip?”

Peter held up a hand and said, “Hold on now, it’s not exactly my place to go and judge what things a man might be into.”

“Very good of you,” Illinois said, struggling to keep a straight face as he continued, “But for the record it’s…it’s just a whip. It helps out a lot on my adventures.”

“I’m sure it does, buddy, I’m sure it does,” Peter said, giving Illinois a reassuring nod.

The detective sighed and decided to let it go for now. “The point is, she looked in the safe first and not the big, obvious crate covered in locks because she knew what she was looking for is only about…yay big, would fit in the palm of your hand maybe? That sound about right?”

The bandit stared at him and said, “You can’t make me admit to anything, and you have no proof I ever left the mail car.”

“Proof like how I found you holding my damn gun?” Abe asked. “Or how about the postcard that got stuck to your shoe until you lost it in the baggage car?”

He held out a hand without looking and Wilford, after a delayed second to realize this was a cue of some kind, passed him the postcard he’d found.

“One postcard, from a Herr Ring to a Norbert Moses, found in the baggage car with a shoe print on it,” Abe said, flourishing it for the others to see before glancing at the bandit. “I thought I’d stepped on it, but how much you want to bet the print matches your boots and not mine?”

“…Okay, fine, I snuck up front and picked the safe,” the bandit said, thankfully not calling Abe’s bluff on that one. “When that turned out to be a useless bust—”

“My gun is not useless!”

“I started picking the locks on the crate, but if you look you’ll see it’s still locked, the crystal’s still there,” the bandit said with a shrug. “What can I say? The train suddenly slammed on its brakes and I panicked and went back into hiding. For all I knew, the crystal wasn’t even in the big box.”

“How did you even know it was on the train in the first place?” Professor Beauregard asked. “The only ones who knew were me and—”

She stopped short, hand going to her mouth and so obviously not trying to look that Abe took pity on her and said, “You and the guy footing the bill to research the rock, Big Dick Moneybags over there. And Mack knew too, I’m guessing?”

Mack opened his mouth, but before he could start denying everything Richard shrugged and said, “Sounds about right. I’d trust Mack to keep a secret, and the professor’s under the strictest NDAs money and a team of lawyers can devise. The investors we’re showing it to in a couple of days have been properly teased, but I find it best that the less they know, the better.”

“No one else knew about the crystal except you three?” Abe pressed, catching the briefest of doubts in two sets of eyes. “Moneybags?”

“Well, okay, I did have a supplier,” Richard admitted. “Guy who passed me the crystal with a few recommendations to ‘look into what it can do,’ but he’d have to know it was traveling with us to tip someone else off. Besides, this guy isn’t exactly the kind to go around sharing secrets with just anyone.”

“Oh, really, and how could you tell that?” Abe asked.

“I am an excellent judge of character,” Richard said, completely failing to miss the general disbelief at that in the train car. “And the man struck me as a trustworthy, well-dressed gentleman.”

“What does being well-dressed have to do with anything?” Abe asked.

Wilford shrugged and said, “You may not know anything about that kind of thing, but a nice white suit can be very persuasive, believe you me.”

Abe wondered when Richard had mentioned the color of the suit, but instead asked, “And do ‘trustworthy’ people generally go around handing out rocks that blow up if they get hit?”

“It didn’t blow up,” the professor protested over the alarm of the other passengers. “It just got a little…excited when it absorbed a blast of kinetic energy and, uh…knocked out the train’s power system, that’s all.”

“You’re the reason we’re stuck in the snow?” Benjamin asked and the professor shook her head.

“No, no, I packed the crystal properly so it would be exposed to as little outside influence as possible, it’s not my fault someone went and shot at it! I told you it was potentially dangerous, but you wouldn’t listen to me—”

She directed the accusation at Richard, who shrugged and said, “If I stopped doing everything just because it could be ‘potentially’ harmful, I wouldn’t be the outrageously rich man that I am today.”

Once again, the rich man was painfully oblivious to the mutters and general atmosphere in the room around him.

“Which is why a responsible, sensible person might alert certain…authorities to a potential hazard,” Abe suggested slowly. Unlike Richard, he was well aware of the warning look the professor gave him at those words, but that didn’t stop him from deciding to screw it and say, “Which is how Agent Apless ended up on this train in the first place.”

“What?” Professor Beauregard shook her head, the nervous laughter back. “I don’t know where you’re getting that from. I mean, do we even know he was actually an agent?”

“Oh, I know,” the bandit said, at the same time Abe pulled Happy’s badge out of his pocket and showed it to the room before dropping it on a nearby table alongside the postcard. “He was with the USA, for sure.”

“You keep saying that,” Abe muttered even as he pulled out Happy’s letter. “If you know so much, can you tell what this says?”

The bandit took the sheet of paper and scanned it over. “It’s a mission brief from the agency, telling Agent Apless to keep an eye out for any…rogue elements, and to make sure the energy source reached waiting agents at the next station for retrieval without any mishaps. Also, there’s a reminder at the end to change his password for some reason. Don’t know what that’s about.”

“We’re just going to take her word on that paper says?” Mack asked.

“Not like we’ve got anything else to go on, unless you feel like deciphering it,” Abe suggested, a prospect that the assistant looked a little too interested in actually following up on. “Either way, we know Richard didn’t tell this agency about the rock. What about you, Mack?”

“Of course not!” Mack protested, and all eyes turned on the professor.

“…Okay, fine, I blew the whistle,” the professor admitted before laughing. “Wow, it’s actually a relief to get that out, do you know?”

“You traitor!” Richard said, managing to sound genuinely offended.

“Yeah, like I was going to let you have access to an unknown, potentially unlimited source of energy that from all of my study appears to have an undue influence on its surrounding environments or even on the nature of reality itself?” The professor rolled her eyes and looked at the others. “I mean, come on, really?”

She sobered up quickly and added, “But I had no idea that man was with them. I mean, all of the agents I saw were very ‘men in black,’ you know? And I was told Agents Wubba and Bubba would be waiting to pick up the crystal just before the investor showcase, not that they’d have somebody on the train or at the station.”

“Wubba and Bubba?” Benjamin asked in disbelief.

“Code names, maybe?” Beauregard suggested, although she didn’t seem too sure about that herself.

“Clearly the plan changed,” Abe said, gesturing at the letter. “Maybe because they suspected word had gotten out about the crystal?”

He pointed a look at the bandit, who didn’t dignify it with a response aside from dropping the letter on the table alongside the guns and Happy’s badge. Her hand skirted toward said guns, and after spending half the night with Wilford Abe didn’t even think twice about smacking her hand away.

“Happy was scoping out the train and its passengers all day, and he knew enough about your work to comment on it,” Abe continued while the bandit scowled and moved to lean against the bar instead. “He also knew the rock could be dangerous and a target, which is why he went to the luggage car in the middle of the night and caught our bandit here just before she could get through the last lock and found her armed with my gun. Cue the shootout.”

He gestured toward the agent’s toy-like gun on the table.

“That piece of his is set to ‘stun,’ apparently—just enough to knock someone out when it hit, but I’m guessing it’s not so kind to inanimate objects, which explains all the blast marks on the crate.” A glance at the bandit confirmed the statement and Abe said, “The agent shoots at the bandit, who’s hiding behind the box, and he accidentally hits the crystal, knocking the power out. Meanwhile, she managed to get her own shot in, but my gun doesn’t exactly fire blanks.”

“So she did kill him,” Mack said, his smirk fading before her scowl.

“I did not! Even if the bullet did hit him, it didn’t stop him from coming at me in the dark! He was still alive when I managed to get away from him!”

“And how did you get away from him?” Abe prompted, before turning on the engineer. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“I don’t know anything about anything, anyone could tell you that,” Peter said without a trace of shame, looking to Benjamin and the chef to back him up and getting confirming nods from both.

“Really? You didn’t hear the gunfire going on literally feet behind you? You didn’t pick up that giant wrench you’re holding right now and go into the baggage car when the lights out, or start swinging that wrench around when someone lunged at you in the dark? That wrench right there, which I might point out still has the man’s blood on it?”

Peter glanced down at the red stain on his wrench, obvious and hard to miss now that the power was back on, and tried, awkwardly, to hide it behind his legs. “…Okay, so see what happened was—”

He stopped in the face of Abe’s stare and sighed, sinking in on himself. “Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. Felt the thump and all, but then I realized the train was still going in the dark and ran up front, which is when I pulled the brakes. By the time I went back and looked, there was no one there, and it’d been so dark at the time I thought…”

Thought, or hoped, that he hadn’t actually hit someone with a piece of metal big and thick enough to easily split a skull.

Benjamin spoke up and asked, “So this man, shot and bludgeoned with quite a large wrench, managed to drag himself back to his room before expiring?”

“Eventually,” Abe said. “But he wouldn’t have had time to get back before we were all out in the hallway, or before you and I went up front to see what was going on. He was there in the luggage car when we walked through, hiding in the dark until the coast was clear before making his way back to his room.”

He’d felt it then, hadn’t he? The presence in the darkness, the sense of eyes watching him. He just had no clue it was the gaze of a dying man hiding for his life.

“Now, hold on.” Illinois, who’d been quietly nodding along with this explanation of events, spoke up at this. “I seem to recall you saying you saw our dead man walk into his room before that.”

“I thought it was him at the time,” Abe admitted. “I saw his door close, but that doesn’t mean he was the one to shut it. Our bandit here may have gone haring off as soon as the conductor accidentally whacked her assailant, but that doesn’t mean she would have had time to get through the passenger car before people started waking up. You should know that, Illinois, you bumped into her in the hallway.”

“…Pardon?” Illinois said, his usual calm faltering slightly.

“I heard you, telling someone to watch where they were going,” Abe said. “Same as I heard more than one set of footsteps running around, even though by the time I opened my door nearly everyone was still at or near their room. In the dark it would have been impossible to tell it was someone who shouldn’t have been there, just as she couldn’t have known that the very first unlocked and unoccupied room she came to just so happened to belong to Happy.”

“Okay, well that still settles it, doesn’t it?” Mack asked the room at large. “We know she shot him, and that guy hit him in the head—either one alone would have been enough to kill the man, so at least one of them has to be our murderer.”

Abe, Benjamin, and the chef all froze at his words, sharing a knowing look amongst themselves when the rumble of thunder failed to happen. Wilford, meanwhile, was the picture of ease, his feet kicked up on the chair opposite while he watched the reveal play out, as though all he were missing was a tub of popcorn to enjoy it with.

The detective shook himself and recovered enough to say, “It would, if Happy had just been shot and bludgeoned.”

“There was more?” Benjamin asked in disbelief. “What else could the man have been put through in the time it took to get back to his room?”

“Yeah, about that…” Abe sighed and rubbed his face. This was the part where things were going to get really complicated. “God, where do I even start?”

“How about we go back to what that man was doing running around in the hallway at the same time as our potential murderess?” Richard asked, gesturing at Illinois.

“Huh?” Abe stared at him for a second before answering, “Oh, he was just stealing something from your room, he didn’t have anything to do with what was going on with Happy over in the next car.”

“What?!” Richard looked from the detective to the adventurer, who for once looked visibly shocked by this turn of events. “You were in my room? You stole something, from me?!”

“You told me yourself you heard someone walking around,” Abe said. “And if any of us could have gotten around in the dark and found what he was looking for without a light, I think it’d be the guy who goes into strange caves or temples or whatever to take things for a living.”

“And sometimes to return things,” Illinois said, shrugging at the compliment. “But you searched my room, friend, and you didn’t see anything stolen then, did you?”

“No, but then I didn’t exactly get a chance to search that trunk of yours after you had to go and show me that…thing from Ohio,” Abe said, the professor barely able to repress a shudder at the memory. “And for someone who’s never been inside his room, you certainly had an opinion about the quality of Richard’s collection on display in there, didn’t you?”

Illinois cracked a faint smile at that and gave the detective the merest tilt of his head.

“I demand you return to me what you stole, now,” Richard said, stepping forward to poke the adventurer in the chest only to shrink back when Illinois fixed him with an unblinking stare.

“You mean what you paid to have stolen from its rightful owners?” Illinois asked.

“Acquired is the word you’re looking for, and do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?” Richard spun around to look at the detective for help. “Detective, Abe, tell this—this thief what will happen to him when we report him to the authorities!”

“We? Well, you can make a report at the next station, and I’m sure as long as you can provide proof of purchase and point them to the forgery Illinois replaced it with, they’ll have cause to search him and his belongings,” Abe said. “Shouldn’t be that hard, right?”

At his words, Illinois stifled a laugh, causing the rich man to turn on him again.

“Do you think that’s funny?” Richard asked. He snapped his fingers at Mack and said, “We have receipts for everything in that room, right?”

“Er…” Mack’s hesitation made Richard turn to stare at him, forcing him to explain, “Not…all of them are exactly…compelling.”

“They’re receipts, shipping manifests, whatever the hell, they’re not supposed to be compelling!”

“I mean that they wouldn’t stand up to close scrutiny. And might, in fact, uh…suggest some things you may not wish to have…uneducated law enforcement making assumptions about.”

“Uneducated in how certain art and antiquities buying and selling might look incredibly illegal to those not in the know?” Abe suggested and Mack nodded, so obviously glum and downtrodden that Abe almost wondered if it was his imagination, how tight the man’s lips were as though struggling not to smile.

“Oh, actually, don’t discourage the man from seeking help,” Dorene said with a wicked smile that she was definitely not trying to hide. “I would love to see how that played out.”

“I’m starting to feel like I’m being ganged up on, even though I’m the victim here,” Richard protested.

“No,” Abe said, his quiet voice still making all eyes turn on him. “The only victim here was Happy, although you’re right about everyone ganging up on you. After all, no one here meant to kill Agent Apless, but they all sure as hell wanted to kill you.”

“…What?” Richard asked, his mouth turned up in a disbelieving smile. “You’re joking, right?”

The stare the detective gave him more than answered that question.

“Why would any of these people want to kill me?” Richard protested.

Abe shrugged. “You said it yourself, you’ve made a lot of enemies on your way to the top. And funny thing, aside from our thief over there, literally everyone on this train either works for you or has been offered employment except for Dorene and Wilford. Hell, you just met me and Happy yesterday and you tried to hire us both to save you from a murderer.”

“I create jobs, it’s what I do,” Richard said, shrugging with palms up and looking around as if expecting everyone to agree with him. “That hardly seems like any reason to want to kill me. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“…Wow. You really are clueless, aren’t you?” Abe asked over the murmuring of the others. “Okay, let’s start with Illinois: you’ve tried to hire him multiple times to ‘acquire’ something of value for you, right? Only he has what the rest of us like to call ‘standards’ or possibly even ‘morals,’ if you’d like to look those words up later, and he always turned you down. Cue him discovering you actually managed to get your mitts on a real artifact that rightfully belongs to someone else and performing his little heist.”

“Now, of course, Illinois could have been working on his own, but it’s risky and getting caught stealing would put his career in jeopardy, not to mention get people questioning all that stuff he’s donated to museums in the past. Sound about right, Illinois?”

“That it does, but it also sounds a bit like you’re working against yourself there, friend,” Illinois answered.

“Good thing you found an ally on the train then, isn’t it? A Ms. Dorene Whitacre who also prefers museums over private collections and who’s funded a few of his expeditions,” Abe continued. “And she happens to have employed a certain chef in the past, who like the other employees on this train isn’t happy with the new owner’s slash and burn way of making a profit out of the railway. That already starts looking like the right combination of people who’d like to pull one over on our rich idiot.”

Said chef snarled and said, “You better watch yourself there, detective,” while Benjamin said, “Hold on now, these accusations are rather baseless, are they not?”

Abe sighed. “Are you all really going to make me spell it out?”

He waited a beat, but then he was already on a roll here. Might as well finish the job.

“A plan gets made, to make sure Illinois doesn’t get interrupted while getting the artifact, yeah? A little something, just to make sure the mark stays asleep despite being paranoid that someone’s out to kill him, what with all of the threatening letters and murder attempts.” Abe pulled the empty bottle out of his pocket and placed it on the table, explaining as he did so, “Potent sleeping pills from the butler—sorry, bartender’s room, empty despite only being filled a few days ago. Put enough of those in someone’s drink and I’m sure they could sleep through anything. Add a few more, and they never need to worry about waking up again.”

“While I don’t need to explain my prescription medication to you, I’ll have you know I…accidentally spilled those pills the other day and had to toss them out,” Benjamin said, his hesitation not doing his bad lying any favors. Seeing the detective was less than convinced, he added, “And aside from that, while I may have served drinks at the bar and during dinner, the only time I gave Mr. Bags anything to drink was the wine from the same bottle I poured out for everyone else, yourself included, detective, and you didn’t seem to have any problems with it then.”

“I seem to recall you taking that wine from me,” Abe shot back.

“Because you preferred a whiskey, and I was trying to keep you from overindulging! Again!”

“Pardon me from interrupting this riveting argument, but what’s this about threatening letters and murder attempts?” Illinois asked.

“Oh, did Mack not tell you about that?” Abe asked. “Yeah, someone’s been trying to kill the rich guy over there for weeks now, and failing at it. Probably why he had to resort to working with you all.”

“What?” Mack chuckled in disbelief. “You honestly think I had a hand in any of this?”

“And like any of us would go along with anything that little snitch tried to talk us into,” Chef added. “He’s practically Big Dick Moneybags’s shadow, you seriously think he has the spine to do something like what you’re talking about?”

And if Abe hadn’t been sure before, the chef of all people vouching for Mack (admittedly by insulting him) confirmed it. It was all the detective could do not to laugh, even if none of it was particularly funny.

“Yeah, sure, maybe you all just happened to be on the same train as the mark and the stolen piece, and you just happened to have the sleeping pills on hand. This poison though, that requires a bit of planning ahead,” he said, pulling the bottle of poison out of his pocket and dropping it on the table, followed by the smaller bottle from Dorene’s room. “Same as the antidote to go with it.”

“Poison?” Benjamin said, his surprise genuine enough. “What does that have to do with any of this?”

“Same thing that the booby trap I found has to do with it,” Abe said, looking around before realizing that he left the spring-loaded knife trap back in the dining car.

Or at least, he thought he had, but once again Wilford helpfully dropped it on the table amidst all of the other evidence, the clang of metal and the flash of the blade encouraging everyone in the room to take a healthy step back.

“What the hell is that?” Chef asked, but he wasn’t the one Abe was watching for a response.

He had to give it to Illinois, the man had one hell of a poker face.

“Murder weapon, same as the gun, the poison, the wrench, all of it,” Abe answered. “Agent Harold Apless was poisoned, shot, stabbed, and bludgeoned before he died. Knowing that, does anyone else want to step forward and confess to the other bits we haven’t gotten to yet?”

A silence filled the lounge car, broken only when Abe sighed.

“Fine then, how about I tell you all what happened, and we see how close to the mark I am?”

Easier said than done when he suspected most of it would be him filling in the gaps with his own guesses, but confidence could go a long way. And if there was one thing Abe was good at, it was plunging in blindly and confidently until he hit that rock bottom.

“Richard over there, as he’s told me many times since we met, has a talent for making enemies. Comes with being a rich asshole, nothing I haven’t seen before. He starts getting threatening notes, a couple near misses on his life, and decides to take the train to this big investor meeting because every other vehicle he gets in has a tendency to crash lately. Whose idea was it, to take the train?”

“I’m sure I came up with it,” Richard said, and Abe raised an eyebrow and looked at Mack.

“I might have suggested it, but it was Mr. Bags’s idea to follow through on that suggestion,” Mack said carefully. “We knew the train was going that way, as Professor Beauregard had already made plans to travel with the crystal via railway.”

“Mack and I talked it over, and it seemed the safest way at the time,” Beauregard chimed in. “But that was ages ago.”

“And any potential assassin might think twice about disabling an entire train just to get at one man, instead of another car,” Abe said, getting a confirming nod from Mack. And yet here they were, on a train stuck in a snowbank, but he held his tongue on that point. “At the same time making it a whole lot easier for any potential thief than trying to get into a high-class hotel, considering Bags has a habit of traveling in ‘style’ with the choicest bits of his collection even if it means making the rail staff completely overhaul an entire compartment just for him.”

“Three,” Benjamin muttered. “We had to combine three compartments just to fit his specifications.”

“And now that space is much more valuable to future riders, so you’re welcome,” Richard said.

“Unfortunately for Illinois, all of those death threats and murder attempts tend to leave even a guy with that kind of ego paranoid and suspicious,” Abe continued. “Not helped when he almost drinks a glass of poisoned wine while trying to hire me to protect his life.”

“Hang on,” Mack said when all eyes turned toward him again. “I know what you’re suggesting, detective, but I really had nothing to do with that! I just opened that bottle because it’d been left sitting out on the bar as a welcoming gift when we boarded, I had no idea there was something in it.”

Benjamin paled, one gloved hand going to his mouth, the small motion all Abe needed to zero in on him.

“Got something you want to say about that?” Abe pressed.

“This bottle…perhaps, did it have a yellow and pink bow on it?” Benjamin asked and Mack did a double take.

“Uh, yes? I thought it was a little odd, not matching the train colors, but I figured it was just the winery’s colors.”

“What do you know about it?” Abe asked.

“What—nothing! He gave it to me, ask him!” Benjamin said, pointing a finger at Peter like a little kid tattling.

Peter shrugged. “I don’t know anything about it, except it’s one of the things that guy tried to give me instead of a ticket. Didn’t know what else to do with it, and Benjamin’s the bartender so I figured he’d like it.”

All eyes traveled in turn to Wilford, who also shrugged. “It was just a joke?”

“You could have killed someone with that stuff!” Abe shouted, mostly remembering how he’d been given a glass of the wine.

“It wasn’t very good wine, was it?” Wilford admitted. “My bad, next time I’ll get something that will really put the hair on your chest.”

“…I think I’m good,” Peter said slowly.

“…Okay, that explains that. I guess,” Abe said, his mind struggling to shift gears after that little detour. “Longshot of it is, Moneybags doesn’t finish his glass of wine at dinner, and doesn’t get the full effects of the sleeping pills put in it. No full dose meant he woke up earlier than expected, while Illinois was still in the room. Meanwhile, I’m guessing the rest of you barely even sipped your wine over dinner, which is why none of you had any trouble getting up after the train suddenly stopped either.”

Certainly not compared to him, who’d fallen to the floor and could barely operate a door in the first few minutes after being jolted back into wakefulness.

“Did you drug my drink at the bar too?” Abe asked Benjamin.

“Don’t be ridiculous! Even if I had slipped some sleeping pills in the wine, which I’m not saying I did, I certainly wouldn’t give you a triple dose—”

“Triple—” Abe stopped, eyes closing as it sank in. “You put a double dose in my whiskey, didn’t you? That’s why you took away my wine.”

Benjamin wavered and looked at Illinois before breaking. “They were just sleeping pills, detective. No one was exposed to enough to cause any lasting harm, and to be frank I rather thought you could use something to help you relax.”

“And if I just happened to doze off in the lounge car and spent the whole night there, it would mean one less potential witness to spot Illinois entering Moneybags’s room using one of the staff copies of the keys,” Abe said, trying to ignore the sick feeling in the back of his throat at Benjamin’s words. “And maybe you and Illinois would have been fine leaving it at that—Illinois retrieves a stolen item he can return to wherever it belongs, while you have the satisfaction of knowing your terrible boss has had one pulled over on him. But that’s not enough for everyone.”

The chef bristled when Abe’s gaze turned on him. “Watch yourself, dick. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really? So you don’t know anything about this poison?” Abe asked, picking up the bottle of poison on the table and glancing at the label. “Bit stronger than sleeping pills, that’s for sure.”

“What the hell, man?” Chef asked. “You think I go around putting poison in perfectly good food?”

“Not even to kill that guy?” Abe asked, gesturing toward an affronted Richard.

The chef hesitated and Abe said, “When we woke you up and told you someone had been murdered, you said, ‘that dick.’ Didn’t think anything of it at the time since you hate nearly everyone, but I never told you who was dead. You were surprised when you got to the lounge car and saw Big Dick Moneybags over there still alive, right?”

Chef bared his teeth and said, “Yeah, maybe when I heard you talking about someone getting offed I hoped another rich asshole was dead, but that don’t mean nothing. Benjamin can tell you, I don’t know which plate is going to which table, and you all got the same food but only one of you is dead. You’re not telling me you all didn’t eat that delicious dinner I provided, are you?”

“No, chef,” nearly everyone in the car answered when he looked around at them, Dorene and the professor in particular throwing in a couple of compliments about his cooking.

“Funny thing about this poison,” Abe said, shaking the bottle so that the viscous red liquid sloshed around. “It’s only lethal when ingested and takes a while to kick in, but if prepared correctly there’s hardly a taste at all. You wouldn’t even know you’re poisoned until the symptoms start kicking in.”

He set the bottle back down and traded it for the smaller antidote as he added, “All you have to do is make sure the antidote gets to everyone who ate the dinner except the person you want dead. Those cookies you made really were delicious, Dorene.”

She smiled and said, “There really is no problem a plate of cookies can’t solve, isn’t there?”

“Problems including rich assholes who won’t get their comeuppance just because one trinket goes missing, no matter how valuable,” Abe said, and her smile didn’t so much as waver. “I found the antidote in your room, but the poison, now that ended up in my bag. Of course, the chef could have easily planted it there after dinner while I was sleeping in the lounge, but what kind of sense would that make? If anyone on this train would know enough about this poison to guess how it was used when Moneybags turned up dead, it would be me.”

The chef shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell you. I don’t have those keys to get into the passengers’ rooms like Benjamin does, why would I need ‘em? And you got no proof I ever even used the poison in the first place, considering that dick over there is still alive, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

There it was again.

Abe sighed and put the bottle back down, his hand hovering over the trap but careful to stay well out of range. “And then there’s this. Illinois, what do you know about this thing?”

“You called it a booby trap,” Illinois answered. “Looks to me like a pressure-sensitive trap that attempts to stab anyone who activates it.”

“It looks to you?” Abe repeated. “This isn’t yours?”

“I don’t seem to recall you finding that in my room.”

“No, I didn’t. I found it in Mack’s, but he claims someone must have hid it in there after he went to stay with Moneybags after the power went out,” Abe said.

“It’s the only logical time it could have happened,” Mack said.

“Yeah, I guess logically you would be the one to know that,” Abe shot back. “Considering you were the one who hid it there in the first place, after retrieving it from the bed you’d hidden it in before then.”

“Now why would he do that?” Illinois asked, slow and calm as ever. “So far all these plans you’ve been cooking up were laid against Richard here, but I don’t see how Mack would be able to get a trap out of the man’s bed without him noticing.”

“Because it wasn’t in Moneybag’s bed,” Abe answered. “Mack hid it at the same time he planted the bottle of poison in my bag, right after dinner when most of us were still here in the lounge. My guess is Dorene took the bottle from the kitchen and passed it to Mack during dinner at the same time she was handing out those cookies, knowing he would have the easiest time getting rid of the evidence as soon as possible.”

“Like I said, you’re assuming a lot, detective,” Mack said. “Even if I had any reason to hide evidence to a murder—one that I told you before would only hurt me—why would I plant a trap in your room, only to remove it later, knowing it had failed to kill you?”

“You also think I’d trust that guy with evidence that I’d killed someone?” Chef asked. “What, do I look crazy to you? Not to mention you’re accusing Ms. Whitacre of being involved in this!”

Murmurs of agreement went around at that last point at least, even though so far Abe was sure Dorene was the only who hadn’t denied being involved in the plot to kill Richard.

“Mack, wasn’t it you that suggested a double blind before? Something about complicated knots and simple solutions?” Abe asked. “Because I think the simple solution here is that one day, you reached your breaking point. Maybe it was realizing how dangerous that rock the professor is working on in Richard’s hands, or maybe you saw the agents she’d tipped off following you one day. Or maybe you just know all of those investigations Happy mentioned back at dinner are going to turn up something. You said it yourself, you’re Mr. Bags’s right-hand man, as wrapped up in all his dirty business as he is, except when the hammer comes down, you know he’s not the one who’s going to suffer for it.

“So you hatch a plan, find some like-minded people, and contrive events to make sure they’re all on the same train as you and Big Dick Moneybags. And like I said, some of ‘em are fine with the idea of just taking the artifact back, maybe even playing the game so that he gets caught on insurance fraud or starting an investigation into just how he got the thing in the first place. Something good that’ll make his wallet and maybe even his pride hurt a bit.

“But Chef’s got experience working with a rich asshole, enough to know it takes more than that to really drive the knife in, and I’m guessing Dorene’s been around enough of the same type to know the tricks he’d pull to slip through any real trouble and end up right back where he started. So you three decide to take it on yourselves to take a more permanent option, figuring the shared meal would provide enough of a cover and alibi.”

After Abe finished his spiel, Mack smirked and said, “Clever, if a bit too simple. You forgot the booby trap, remember? Where does that fit into all of this?”

Abe shrugged. “Maybe you just wanted me dead after I immediately fingered you as a suspect?”

Mack laughed and rolled his eyes. “Please, like I would resort to something as crude and unreliable as…whatever that thing is.”

“It doesn’t exactly have the highest success rate,” Illinois admitted.

True, that answer didn’t exactly sit right with Abe even as he’d said it.

Double blind, he’d said.

“Or maybe you expected me to find the trap after Richard was dead,” Abe said slowly, sounding the idea out. “You talked to Benjamin at dinner, maybe you knew he was planning to give me a larger dose of the sleeping pills and expected me to pass out before I ever made it back to my room. Trap like that would be easier to spot in the morning, in the light of day, especially if I’m on high alert with a dead body on the train.”

“Again, what would be the point, detective?” Mack asked, the tone of his voice annoying Abe into thinking harder.

“To get me pointing fingers at Illinois, like you tried to do when I showed you the trap earlier. Would make sense, since it came out of his room, except then you’d be pointing the finger at one of your accomplices…” Abe trailed off, remembering that wasn’t the only thing Mack had planted in his room. “At the same time, everyone would be ‘looking’ for the poisoner, and lo and behold the poison’s in my bag. So I’m pointing the finger at Illinois, while I’m guessing Dorene and maybe even the prof over there would be ready and willing to vouch that they saw him return to his room and never left it last night to cover for the theft, while Happy, knowing that I’d turned down the job to protect Moneybags, would be suspecting me. A few more false leads and you could have us all accusing each other with not enough real evidence to convict anyone by the time we reached the next station and the authorities there have to sort it out.”

Richard surprised Abe and everyone else in the train car by suddenly breaking out into laughter, a high, nervous laughter that suggested someone very close to the edge of losing it.

“Oh, bravo, detective! That is quite the theory, but there’s one key problem with it: Mack would never do something like that. I’d trust that man with my life, he depends on me for everything, he’s simply not capable of throwing all that away just to, what, kill me? What good would that do?”

“Yeah, I seem to recall him saying as much when I questioned him earlier,” Abe admitted, but he was watching Mack closely as he continued. “He’s well-paid, he’s put all of his money and investments into your companies, and all of that will tank if something happens to you. All the financial motives in the world to keep you alive and well. What more reason could a man need?”

“Exactly!” Richard answered, tone deaf as usual.

Abe looked Mack in the eye and asked, “And how much of that would you give, to make sure Richard M. Bags paid for everything he’s done?”

“…All of it,” Mack answered, wiping that smile off of Richard’s face with just three words. “Even if you saw through all of it, even if I had to take the fall, it would have been worth it.”

“…Mack?” Richard said, all trace of color washed out of his face as he stared with wide, disbelieving eyes.

But Mack didn’t even look at him as he shrugged and said, sounding a little too-cheerful about it, “But I guess we failed, huh? All those plans, and nothing to show for it.”

“I wouldn’t say nothing,” Abe said. He looked around the room, trying to tell who had pieced it together yet and who hadn’t, but no luck.

He sighed again, feeling the weight in his chest more strongly than ever.

“Agent Harold Apless was on this train because he was sent here to protect that blasted crystal, thanks to the professor’s warning. Over dinner, he asked me to switch rooms with him, saying he needed a double—I’m guessing now because he thought he might need the extra space to restrain and hide the person after the crystal without alerting the other passengers,” Abe said, tilting his head toward the bandit. “That’s also when he drank nearly two glasses of wine, his own plus Richard’s since Moneybags was still freaked out from nearly drinking Wilford’s poisoned wine. On top of that, I offered him my whiskey after only a few sips since something about it tasted off.”

“My heavens,” Benjamin breathed quietly, adding up how many sleeping pills that would be. “That much would have surely…”

Abe nodded. “He ate the same food as the rest of us, only he felt sorry enough for the sadsack over there to give him his cookie when Dorene ‘accidentally’ missed him when she was passing them out.”

For the first time, Dorene looked visibly shaken as she and the chef shared a look of horror and guilt.

“After dinner, he hangs out around the bar for a bit before heading to the compartments, where he switches our belongings but not the trap Mack planted in the bed no one was supposed to use. Maybe he tried to sleep then, maybe the sleeping pills and poison had numbed him to the point he didn’t even realize he’d been stabbed by the trap. But he still has enough in him to go to the luggage car when he hears someone moving around in the hallway, to get shot by the bandit trying to steal the crystal and bludgeoned by the engineer who thought he was fending off an attacker. While Benjamin and I go up front to talk with Peter and check out the damage outside, Happy returns to his room—to my room,” Abe said, faltering a little.

If he hadn’t given him his whiskey, if he hadn’t agreed to changing rooms…

Abe plunged his hands into his pockets as if hoping to find another piece of evidence hidden away there, something to help it all make sense, but all he found was his light, a pack of cigarettes, and a couple slips of paper which he pulled out to have something to look at besides all the faces around him.

It was his ticket to ride the train. His ticket, and…

Abe looked at Wilford, feeling the hopelessness sink in as he finally said the words that had been lurking in the back of his mind all this time.

“We all did it.”

“Every one of us is the reason Agent Harold Apless is dead, in one way or another,” he said, and there wasn’t a single objection in the room. He took a deep, sucking breath, and then asked the world at large the question he still hadn’t found an answer to, after years of trying. “Now what?”

((End of Part 11. Thank you for reading!

Thanks to Wilford (and the original story), we all knew where this was going, but hopefully this mystery's still been fun even with the built-in spoilers? Meant to post this one a lot sooner, but wound up doing a lot of rewriting. Final chapter coming soon, I promise.

Tag list: @silver-owl413 @asteriuszenith @withjust-a-bite @blackaquokat @catgirlwarrior @neverisadork @luna1350 @oh-so-creepy @95fangirl @a-bit-dapper @randomartdudette @cactipresident @hotcocoachia @purple-star-eyes @shyinspiredartist @avispate @autumnrambles @authorracheljoy @liafoxyfox @hidinginmybochard))

#markiplier #fanfiction #wkm abe #wilford warfstache #iswm bandit #wkm butler #wkm chef #big dick moneybags #iswm mack #agent harold apless #dorene whitacre #ahwm illinois #the reveal we all expected

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falseroar · 9 months ago

Text

Murder on the Warfstache Express

Part 6: Room by Room

((Abe starts his search of the other rooms on the train, looking for clues or even a motive in the murder, with Wilford tagging along to "help."

Link to the previous chapter, Part 5: Buddy System and one for the series masterlist.))

There were still windows in the doors between the cars, so to keep anyone from the lounge car noticing the intrusion, Abe turned down the light of his lantern and motioned for Wilford to keep to one side of the car as, starting at the rooms at the far end and making their way toward the front of the train, they unlocked and entered one room after the other.

The very first compartment they went in to clearly belonged to Benjamin. It was absolutely pristine, somehow cleaner than Abe’s room had been when he first entered it yesterday, the bed so neatly made that the corners looked sharp enough to cut a finger on while the pillow’s case had been smoothed so completely that it was impossible to believe a hair so much as a head had come into contact with it recently.

There was also the framed portrait of an all too familiar man dressed in red hanging on the wall, his once friendly smile now appearing cocky and mocking without ever reaching the dark eyes above it.

“Did he take that from the house?” Abe asked, before realizing who he was talking to.

There was no answer, and when Abe looked at Wilford he saw the man who used to be the Colonel staring at the portrait, his lips a tight line as though being pressed into place to keep them from curving one way or another, his eyes too bright and crinkled around the edges, leaving it impossible to tell if the expression there was happy, sad, or some mixture of both.

And then, suddenly and without warning, Wilford broke eye contact with the painting and looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. “Yikes! Old Benji isn’t one for letting loose, is he?”

For a moment, Abe considered pressing the man further, forcing him to confront what he had done instead of once again changing the subject, to keep hammering until that happy-go-lucky façade broke and he finally, finally faced reality and all the pain that came with it.

Instead, he said, “Guess that’s why he needs these, huh?” and reached for the bottle of pills tucked inside of the small black bag sitting on the luggage rack above the bed. He’d only noticed them because the not quite completely closed zipper on the bag stood out like a sore thumb when everything else in the room had been so carefully kept.

“Oh, it’s empty,” Abe said, the silence when he shook the bottle confirming the statement. “Sleeping pills, and strong stuff too.”

“Clearly not strong enough,” Wilford said, kicking the foot of the untouched bed. “Anything else good in that bag?”

Abe was too focused on the bottle’s label to stop Wilford from rifling through Benjamin’s clothes, which included a worrying amount of pressed white gloves.

Not only was the dose high, but based on the date it was filled and the amount that was supposed to be in the bottle, there was no way Benjamin could have gone through the whole thing already. At least not if he was a fan of ever waking up again.

Abe, weighing the empty bottle in his hand, stuck it in a jacket pocket and asked Wilford, “What the hell are you doing?”

Wilford froze, a pair of white gloves on either ear.

“…Well, I think it’s fairly obvious, now that you mention it.”

Abe yanked the gloves off and took the bag back while he was at it, stuffing everything back inside in a way that would have sent Benjamin into hysterics if he were there to see it before tossing it back up onto the luggage rack.

Seeing it up there, another thought occurred to Abe. The bag not being completely closed suggested the former butler had been in a hurry when he stuck the pill bottle in there, obviously hoping it wouldn’t be found. Something that could have easily happened when everyone went back to their rooms before going to the lounge car, except there had been enough time to not rush it.

Unless…

Abe looked back down at the pristinely-made bed and nearly face palmed as he finished the thought aloud.

“Unless he was more worried about making up his bed. The man was more worried we’d see his unmade bed than learn about whatever drugs he’s taking.”

“Think there’s something hidden in there?” Wilford asked, and before Abe could stop him the man did a full body flop on the bed where he stared up at the luggage rack overhead for a moment before declaring, “Nope, just a normal bed.”

“Get off of there!”

By the time Abe was done doing a more thorough search among the sheets and blankets, careful to check under the mattress and in the pillowcase, the once perfectly made train bed now looked like a disheveled mess with nothing to show for it.

“Huh. Guess he really did just want to clean things up in here,” Abe said.

He and Wilford looked at each other, at the tangled ball of sheets, and without discussing it further left the room to move on to the next compartment.

Although Abe did pause at the door and, considering that maybe it wouldn't be good for his health if he allowed Wilford to continue trashing every room they investigated in the name of searching for clues, said, "You stay out here, got it?"

"Excuse you? Do I need to remind you of the buddy system that you suggested?"

"Only because I didn't think it would apply to me," Abe blurted out. "Okay, look, it's still technically the buddy system if you're watching my back, right? Which you would be doing if you wait out in the hall and warn me if you spot anyone coming."

They stared at each other for a moment until Wilford said, "Be honest now, do you really think this is going to work?"

"Nope, but you're still staying out here and out of my way," Abe answered, pulling open the door and walking into the compartment before Wilford could protest.

A compartment that was a little more occupied than it should have been, as Abe realized after the light from his lantern fell on the shape lying on the bed that suddenly sat up with a shout.

“What do you think you’re doing in here?!” bellowed the chef, leaping up with a knife somehow already in his hand.

“Whoa, easy, easy!” Abe yelled, hands up. “Everyone is supposed to be in the lounge car—have you really been sleeping through everything going on?”

“Depends,” Chef said, still keeping his knife trained on Abe, who couldn't help but notice the lack of backup coming from his "buddy" out in the hall despite all the shouting. “What’s been going on?”

“Oh, just that the power’s out, the train’s stuck in the snow, and, oh yeah, there’s been a murder!”

At Abe’s words, both he and the chef looked up and around as if expecting something to happen at the word, a habit impossible to shake no matter how much time passed.

The chef shrugged and lowered his knife slightly as he said, “Well, easy enough to sleep through when none of that’s got a thing to do with me. You got a problem with the food, you call me, otherwise I couldn’t care less.”

He paused and added, “Also, that still doesn’t explain what you’re doing, sneaking in here when you think I’m somewhere else. What, you think I had something to do with that dick getting murdered?”

“Everyone’s a suspect,” Abe said and the chef scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Look, just tell me what you’ve been doing since dinner last night.”

“You mean that fantastic dinner that I slaved over, then spent hours cleaning up after while you snoozed away in the lounge car?” the chef asked, and when the detective reacted to that he said, “Oh yeah, I saw you snoring away in there after I was done cleaning up. As far as I saw, you were the only one still hanging around outside of their room when I turned in here for the night, and here I slept until you had to go and wake me up.”

“What time was this?” Abe asked and the chef shrugged.

“I don’t know, man, maybe ten or something? I work myself to the bone cooking and cleaning up, then I gotta get some sleep so I can get up at the crack of dawn and do it all again for breakfast. This train really needs two or three of me to be doing full dining service, but instead they’re going around cutting corners and getting rid of as many workers as they can. Says it’s because we’re not getting as many ticket sales as we used to, but who wants to pay twice as much to ride for half the service as it used to be? Least I wasn’t stupid enough to agree to do someone else’s job on top of mine, like those other guys.”

He grumbled to himself a bit at that, and Abe let him get it out before bringing him back to the subject by asking, “So you didn’t see anyone else in the lounge car or hanging around in the hallway of the passenger car last night. Did anyone pass through the kitchen at any point?”

The chef snorted. “Are you kidding? I’m not about to let anyone go walking through my kitchen, getting in my way and messing everything up. Besides, there’s no point in going through there. Nothing on the other side of the kitchen car except the mail car, and that’s locked up tight to keep anyone from digging around where they shouldn’t.”

“The mail car is locked?” Abe supposed that shouldn’t have been too surprising, considering there was probably valuable enough stuff getting mailed from one place to the other, or at least personal enough the company had to provide some proof they could keep it safe. “And did you hear anyone moving around last night, or see anything out of the ordinary?”

“I didn’t even notice the train stopping,” the chef pointed out. “Once I’m out, I’m out, I don’t mess around with that tossing and turning and going to look and see what other people are doing in the middle of the night nonsense.”

Abe didn’t see why the chef had to give him that kind of look when he said that, but then he had clearly been asleep when he walked in.

“One more thing before we go, you said you don’t like anyone else in your kitchen.”

“Like? No, no, it’s just not a thing you should go around doing if you value your health,” the chef said, his smile even more worrying with the light from the lantern underneath it.

“…Right. But you let that woman, Dorene Whitacre, come in and bake a batch of cookies during your busiest time of the day?”

“Look, unlike you, my momma taught me how to treat a lady,” the chef countered before breaking into a grin. “Plus, that lady knows some saucy stories that’d make even you blush. Add in giving me her recipe for those cookies and I don’t have to waste my time making dessert for the rest of you? Even you can figure that one out, ‘detective.’”

Abe felt the air quotes were unnecessary, but any answer at all from the chef that didn’t involve getting stabbed felt like a win at this point.

“But again, you really shouldn’t be staying in here by yourself,” Abe said to the chef. “There’s a murderer somewhere on this train.”

“You mean someone who can get through my locked door and do me in while I’m just trying to get some beauty sleep?” the chef asked, his glare pointed enough to make Abe shift the master key behind his back like that helped. He sighed and said, “Whatever, man, not like I can go to sleep now anyways. Benjamin will probably be here any minute to put me to work if everyone else is already awake.”

The chef’s shoulders slumped as he followed Abe out of the room, where he continued through the connecting doors of the two cars walking like a defeated man even though he would have been the first to start a fight if anyone else even suggested fixing something for themselves in his absence.

Abe’s eyes followed the chef through the small windows, and he swore he saw the man stop short just inside the lounge car as though surprised to see everyone there before strong-arming Benjamin out of the way, no doubt dead set on getting back to his kitchen or to the bar in the back of the car.

Still, the chef’s presence would be enough of a distraction that Abe felt safe enough continuing his search of the other compartments.

Not that he had to spend much time on the next few, as they all proved to be empty. Either Peter didn’t have a room with the other staff or he hadn’t bothered to put anything in it, because every room Abe checked was empty until he reached his own.

Or rather, Happy’s room, until they switched compartments after dinner.

“You’re checking your own room?” Wilford asked, leaning on the wall next to him.

“I believe in being thorough.”

That, and he maybe lost track of compartment numbers in the semidarkness and had already started to unlock the door before Wilford said anything, so it was a bit late to back out now. Still, it didn’t hurt to go over everything again in case the agent left anything behind during the swap.

Abe went through the sheets and blankets on the bed and then flipped the whole thing up, turning it back into a seat. Nothing, just as there was nothing in the private bathroom, and nothing in the luggage rack except his own bag which the detective pulled down and set on the floor so that he could raise his lantern higher, hoping the light would magically reveal some missed clue.

“Not to judge or anything, I know these things happen to the best of us, but your bag appears to be…leaking a little,” Wilford said, stepping back and twisting his foot around to look at what he had just stepped in.

"What happened to waiting outside?" Abe asked.

"And miss my chance to step in something interesting? I think not!"

In the lanternlight, the black sole of his white shoe glistened wetly, and when Wilford ran his fingertip over the substance and help it up, it was covered in a dark, viscous red.

Abe set his lantern down and opened the bag, pulling out and tossing aside spare clothes, notepads and pens, a spare gun holster, a flask he had forgotten was even there, and enough packs of cigarettes to make Wilford whistle before he found the culprit at the bottom of the bag.

It was a small glass bottle that hadn’t been closed properly, what remained of its dark red contents sloshing around as he pulled it out and stared at the label.

“Do not put that in your mouth,” Abe said, and behind him Wilford froze, his fingertip already dangerously close to his lips.

Wilford scoffed and wiped his hand on his pants, leaving a red smear in its wake. “Oh, come now, like I would just go around tasting random liquids I find on the bottom of my shoe.”

Abe ignored him as he sniffed the contents of the bottle before gagging and coughing, his eyes streaming so much he had trouble closing it properly. “Yeah, this is—ugh, that was such a bad idea—poison. As in high grade, illegal to buy for any reason in your country of choice, lethal stuff, not just your average cyanide or antifreeze.”

Wilford nodded in understanding. “In case you need to spice up your coffee in the morning.”

“Wh—no! What part of ‘lethal’ do you not understand?!” Abe looked back down at the bottle in his hands and said, “I’ve only heard of the stuff though, never come across it in the field. And I definitely never packed it in my bag. Someone planted this here, knowing once we found the body everyone’s rooms would be searched. Either they were hoping to frame me, or hide the evidence.”

“Or both,” Wilford offered helpfully. “And now your fingerprints are all over it too!”

Abe nearly dropped the bottle before he realized that would just make things worse.

“…Great,” Abe muttered. “But when did they plant this in my room?”

He wished he could narrow it down, but he was out cold in the lounge car for hours after dinner, and even when he got back to his compartment someone could have easily entered and left with him being none the wiser. Plus he went up front with Benjamin after the train stopped, which would have given enough time to anyone willing to brave going around the train in the dark, and that was assuming they didn’t already have a light source of their own handy.

In other words, anyone could have planted the poison in his bag at any time.

Abe groaned and tried to focus on the upside. It was still a clue, even if it was found in the worst place possible.

“This stuff you have to ingest for it to take full effect,” Abe said, and when Wilford continued to smile at him cluelessly, “Meaning breathing in the fumes or skin contact isn’t enough to kill anyone, lucky for you. And me. Point is, we’ve only had the one meal on this trip so far, and then there’s the bar in the lounge car. If Happy was poisoned after he got on this train, it was likely in one of those two places.”

He paused, remembering the incident in Richard Moneybags’ room. This wasn’t the same stuff as Abe had found in Richard’s private stash, but two poisoning attempts in one day was a bit too much of a coincidence to ignore.

Had Happy gone to Richard’s room to share drinks after dinner? Possible, if the agent had agreed to protect Richard from his would-be assassin, although surely the man wouldn’t have been stupid enough to trust anything else in his private bar after finding one bottle already tampered with.

Actually, no, Abe was completely willing to believe Richard was just that stupid, but as he was still kicking around that seemed less likely.

Abe took a second to look in Wilford’s room but seeing nothing there and the poison still on his mind he moved straight on to Richard’s room. He didn't even bother telling Wilford to wait in the hall, mostly because he suspected the man would just choose whichever option would cause him more trouble either way.

“Ah, Stańczyk, you old rascal,” Wilford said, immediately drawn to the jester painting hanging on the wall. He inspected the painting closely and nodded to himself, then seeing Abe’s stare felt compelled to say with a wink, “Stepped out a few times with an art aficionado—you tend to pick a few things up along the way.”

“And yet you can’t remember what year it is.”

“Well when has that ever mattered? Always one year after another around here if you’re going around keeping track of it.” Wilford disregarded the notion with a flap of his hand, his attention drawn to the objects on Richard’s shelves. “Oooh, now look at this!”

“Don’t break anything,” Abe said, and as an afterthought, “And don’t drink the booze. At least one bottle had already been poisoned yesterday afternoon, so who knows if any of it’s safe.”

“Crying shame,” Wilford declared, picking up one of said bottles and tossing it aside without a second thought. “Man’s got terrible taste in liquor. Art’s not half bad though, take this freaky-deaky looking statue here—oops!”

Abe winced, but the sound he expected when the honeycomb-like sculpture, falling as though caught in slow-motion, hit the carpeted floor didn’t come. There was no thump, just a weak little rasp and bounce as though the heavy-looking sculpture weighed nothing at all.

Which it didn’t, as Abe learned when Wilford picked it up again and tossed it to him. The detective caught the “sculpture” easily with one hand and stared at it.

“Paper mâché?”

This close to the lantern, it was obvious the once-gleaming honey-colored statue he had noticed earlier was not smooth metal but a paper facade plastered over a wire frame or something equally light—easy enough to miss in the dark or at a distance.

“But when I saw this earlier, it was definitely the real deal, or at least not made out of paper,” Abe said aloud. He clearly remembered the light reflecting off of the metal surface, and the neat, regular arrangement of holes had real, disturbing depth to them, they didn’t need spots of black paint to sell the illusion. “What about the other stuff on the shelf, are they real?”

Wilford examined each item in turn, picking up the porcelain mask and shuddering before setting it down carefully, then tasting the twisted statuette in the next alcove and smacking his lips like a connoisseur before shrugging. “Yep, that one’s definitely haunted, but the rest of it’s just clever knockoffs to look like the real thing.”

“Forgeries?”

“Sure, I guess. Good ones too, nothing as bad as that one you’re holding. Kind of like those animal hides he’s got all over the place—believe you me, I’ve come face to face with a big cat or two, and that thing on the couch didn’t come from any of them.”

Abe tossed the fake up and down, its minimal weight making each catch dissatisfying. He tossed it back to Wilford and said, “Put it back where you found it for now.”

The detective continued his search around the room, but nothing else stood out—or rather, the abundance of things in the room made it difficult to know what belonged there and what didn’t. At the very least, Abe didn’t find a convenient murder weapon or confession note.

You know, just for once, Abe would have loved to find something like that. Just a nice little confession, signed, sealed, and delivered to wrap up a case all nice and neat.

Okay, he did get one of those once, but he’d have preferred one that didn’t lead to yet another dead partner and a confrontation on the roof in the middle of a thunderstorm, him and the murderer fighting for their lives on slippery tiles where one misstep meant a long fall with a short, sharp stop at the end.

Wilford snapped his fingers in Abe’s face. “Hellooo? No time for flashbacks, we’ve still got a story going on over here.”

He waved his hand and the detective pushed him away with a growl. “Knock it off. Come on, there’s nothing more to see here, let’s go check out that weasel Mack’s room.”

“There’s a weasel on board this train?!”

Suddenly Abe was very grateful to have found that flask he'd packed.

((End of Part 6. Thanks for reading!

Wilford: bad at keeping guard, very good at shooing away unrelated flashbacks. Surprisingly decent at art evaluation, if he would just stop licking things.

Link to Part 7: Incriminating Investigating.

Tag list: @silver-owl413@asteriuszenith@withjust-a-bite@blackaquokat@catgirlwarrior @neverisadork @luna1350 @oh-so-creepy @95fangirl @a-bit-dapper @randomartdudette @cactipresident @hotcocoachia @purple-star-eyes @shyinspiredartist @avispate @autumnrambles @authorracheljoy @liafoxyfox @hidinginmybochard))

#markiplier #fanfiction #wkm detective #wilford warfstache #wkm chef #murder on the warfstache express #wilford has very good taste in art #sometimes he's just a little too literal with it though

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