Hellsing: The quest for cheese
In the kitchen, deep in the Iscariot headquarters…
"Katharina, I'm here!" Alexander Anderson, the dreaded monster killer and paladin burst into the room, both his hands easily holding open the doors either side.
"Oh, father!" A slim woman in white, tears streaming down her rosy cheeks came running up to him, "I'm so glad you came! I didn't think it was urgent but I didn't know where else to turn!"
Alex' hands left the doors and he stepped forward, separating the distance between himself and the petite, dark haired beauty.
"Be calm, it will all be ok," he grasped her shoulders firmly and looked down at her, "you know anything you call me for I shall come to you. No matter how urgent."
"Oh…Father Anderson." The girl looked up at his face with big, teary, dreamlike eyes and seemed lost in him, obviously love struck with the priest.
"Now…what is the problem?" Alex said calmly and gave her a gentle smile.
"Oh…it's terrible Father, terrible. I was preparing dinner for everyone tonight and as I went to get the special ingredient, I turned and…it was gone. Oh father, it's my own fault!"
She turned away and paced back and forth between the tables.
"It's not your fault, do not worry," Alex watched her, allowing her to vent in her own way, "just tell me what it was and I shall help you recover it."
"Oh…Alright," she took a deep breath and spoke calmly, "It was the Mature cheddar cheese I'd specially ordered as a surprise treat. All the way from London! I'd placed it on the table with the rest and it was the last thing I was going to use, but when I turned back…it was gone. I've searched high and low and it's no where in the kitchen.
She looked up to see Alex slowly pacing back and forth now, taking in the information of what she had just told him.
"Alright, so…Katharina," he stopped pacing back and forth in his thoughts and turned back to face her, "who was the last person to enter the kitchen before you noticed the cheese was missing?"
"Oh…well…a couple of people dropped stuff off but…I didn't see them. The last person I did see…let me think." She sat down with her hands in her lap and pulled a face that spoke volumes of 'deep concentration'.
"It's alright, take your time," Alex leant against the table opposite her and looked every part of 'Father Alexander Dowling.'
"Oh! Sister Takagi!" Katharina stood up suddenly and shouted gleefully, "I remember! She came in to drop off some ingredients she'd picked up from shopping for me!"
Alex quickly went forward, grasped the girls hands and smiled at her.
"Katharina, I promise you," he squeezed her hands and lowered his face down closer to hers, "I swear to you…I will find your cheese."
In the Iscariot library, a short while later…
Alex carefully made his way around the vast bookcases, remembering the steps he always took. He knew off by heart the little corner, out of the way, by a side window, where Yumiko would sit and read her poetry (and romance literature which had managed to sneak it's way in somehow).
He turned the last corner and smiled at the familiar, yet ever changing sight before him.
For once, she was a mere ten year old, with bottle rimmed glasses, a handkerchief and an asthma pump always beside her and an overlarge book on insects placed in her lap. But now, a young woman sat on a cushion, with bottle rimmed glasses, a handkerchief and an asthma pump beside her and an overlarge book on insects on her lap (which was actually a clever cover for the romance novel she was reading).
"Yumiko," Alex spoke quietly to give her a warning as he approached slowly, giving her enough time to shut her book, "I hope I am not bothering you. There is an important matter to discuss."
Yumiko looked up at him and placed the book to her hidden side, crossing her hands delicately together on her lap as she smiled innocently at him.
"No, indeed not Father," she looked at him again and made sure her other books piled on the table where all turned away so he couldn't read the titles on the spines, "you're not interrupting me at all. What can I help you with? Heinkel' not pinched the communion wine and run amok again is she? I'm not talking her down from roof again!"
Alex shook his head and sat down on the ledge by the window behind her.
"No, no, nothing of the sort. There has been another incident in the kitchens."
"Oh! Oh it's not another chocolate cake is it?" Yumiko placed her hand on her chest and looked very worried.
Alex had to remember that this could easily be Yumie' acting again, remembering the tricks she'd play with her 'sister'' body but with her in charge.
"No, that is safe. It was a fine cheese that Katharina had specially imported from England that has disappeared. She says that you were the last person to enter the kitchen that she knew of. You didn't notice anything…suspicious, did you?"
Yumiko seemed to consider this for a moment before shaking her head.
"Well, I didn't-," she paused and sniffed, crinkling her nose in disgust and shaking her head, making as if to move from her spot by grabbing her books and gathering in her arms, "sorry father, I need to move. That awful smell is following me everywhere. I think Heinkel may have planted another stink bomb."
Alex didn't bother to sniff in the scent, knowing full well what they smelt of (him being the unfortunate victim of one of her past pranks).
"Hmmm…maybe Heinkel holds the answers to what we need to find."
In a small, dark room in the Iscariot headquarters…
Alex walked forward from the dark shadows of the room, towards where a small table had been placed, a single lamp on one corner, lit up with a harsh brightness as a lone priest sat behind the table.
"So…I'm going to ask you one more time," Alex leant forward, his palms flat on the desk as he stared intently at the suspect, "do you have the information I require?"
Heinkel sighed and let out a new puff of smoke from her cigarette.
"For the last time, I don't know vhere the blasted cheese is! I haven't been near the kitchen!"
"Really? Because a very good source says otherwise." Alex smiled slyly and knew trusting the young altar boys in spying for him was a good idea.
Heinkel' eyes narrowed as she took another puff on her cigarette, slowly and ponderingly.
"You know nothing."
"I know!" He straightened up, grabbed the head of the light and twisted it to illuminate the sharp features of his face, "I know EVERYTHING."
"N-no…you can't! I made sure I vasn't seen-I mean! You have no proof!" She stood up and got nose to nose with him, "YOU HAVE NOTHING!"
"Oh?" Alex grabbed her collar and pulled it close to his nose, sniffing deeply, "…Chocolate. Sauce."
Heinkel looked shocked but as the cigarette fell from her lips and hit the table, she sighed and looked away guiltily, her hair obscuring her face.
"I vas…clumsy."
Alex let go of her collar and allowed her to fall back, dejectedly, in her seat.
"Indeed you were. You snuck in whilst she was busy making the stew and then…you ate the chocolate biscuits." Alex knew he may be accusing her of a crime she didn't commit, but had an inkling she'd done so anyway, just being Heinkel.
Her head still down, he barely heard her.
"Ja. I did."
"And then," he came around from his side of the table to stand over her, "you…decided to go for the cheese!"
"Nein! Nein! I told you, it vasn't me! That is the truth, then und there!" She looked up at him, a pleading expression on her face, "I took und ate the biscuits, but I NEVER touched the cheese. I swear on almighty God and those dirty magazines Maxwell keeps under his bed! Oh, Oh! Maxwell snuck in after me to check if I had polished off the biscuits! I'm not fibbing…this time."
Alex looked at her for a long time, his arms folded as he deliberated what to do.
Finally, he sighed, turned from her and walked towards the door.
"Very well, but if I find you are lying to me, I shall bring you back here and confiscate your cigarettes."
Heinkel grimaced as he walked out the door and gave him a two finger salute behind his back.
She picked up her dropped cigarette and placed it in her mouth, letting out a content sigh that it was all over. But she couldn't relax fully. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, before reaching down and pulling out something from below her backside.
"…A spoon?…I hope this vasn't part of the interrogation."
In the Office of Enrico Maxwell, at the his private annex, attached to Iscariot headquarters…
Alex and Maxwell stared at one another.
Alex stood at the front of his desk and looked down at Maxwell, his hands behind his back.
Maxwell looked up at Alex, his elbows on the desk and his hands crossed over in front of him.
The silence could be cut with a bread knife.
"…Really Father?" Maxwell' eyebrow arched and looked less than impressed with the situation and accusation that he'd just been given.
"…No. I just wanted to eliminate you from the proceedings and I need your help." Alex eventually admitted, knowing from the start, even with Heinkel' 'information' Maxwell would never have stolen a large roll of cheese.
Maxwell sighed heavily, stood up and pulled off his glasses.
"Walk with me whilst I talk, I find this office stuffy for some serious talk. I remember the two day migraine I got when the missing cake epidemic happened. And YOU took no prisoners."
Alex followed Maxwell out of the office, but his reply was very grave.
"It was my birthday cake."
Alex and Maxwell continued to talk as they walked through the halls of Iscariot headquarters (which also happened to double as an orphanage) and discussed what they had: Missing cheese, evidence and suspects.
So far, they had…nothing.
"So far, we have…nothing." Maxwell shook his head as if repeating himself.
Yumiko weaved between them carefully and greeted them, before quickly scuttling in direction they'd just come from.
"Urk," Maxwell clasped his finger and his thumb to his nose, "I swear, that Heinkel and her pranks sometimes. Sister Takagi usually smells so sweet."
Alex sniffed himself and nodded in agreement.
"Ay', that or-" Alex suddenly halted and sniffed again. He smirked wildly at the realisation and damned himself he hadn't noticed it sooner. He laughed loudly and smacked Maxwell on the back.
"Lad, you're a genius!" He turned and fled after the girl, who had disappeared around a corner, leaving Maxwell looking after him like he was a crazy old priest.
"Crazy old priest." He shook his head disapprovingly and walked away, intent on tracking down some sugary treat for his sweet tooth. He even thought of stealing candy from one of the younger children running about, just because he was that type of person.
Back in the library (you know by now where)…
Alex turned the bookshelf, trying not to bump into anything as he rounded the corner and stopped to look at the figure before him.
"Where is it?"
Yumiko looked up as she placed the stack of books on her little table.
"Pardon?"
"Why?" He approached her slowly, "Tell me, why?"
"I-I don't know what you're-," she was interrupted as he seemed to snap into something a bit more 'fatherly'.
"No. Not you. Don't let her take the blame, I know who is really at fault…Yumie."
For a moment, he stared into deep brown eyes that were as confused as he knew they'd be. Then, they flashed instantly red and gleamed mischievously at him as the grin broke across the delicate features, changing the usually angelic face.
"I was wondering when someone was going to figure it out," Yumie removed the glasses on her face and clapped her hands, "bravo. Though, I may say a bit slow. I'm surprised you didn't get it with Yumiko' hints at the smell 'following' us around."
Alex just sighed (everyone seemed to be doing that a lot today) and shook his head disapprovingly at her.
"You are as much of a pain as Heinkel. I'm surprised Yumiko doesn't get stress-induced stomach ulcers from both of your girls shenanigans."
"Oh Bah, she's an old maid. And we leave all the stressing to mother superior. Besides you have to admit," Yumie chuckled as she opened a book to reveal a secret hiding place for the big roll of cheese she held, "it was amusing for you."
Alex gave her a small smile and chuckled once through his nostrils.
"…It was…an intriguing puzzle my child, I will admit to it. But stealing is wrong, you and I both know that."
Yumie rolled her eyes and walked towards him, placing the cheese into the outstretched hand and stepping aside as she began to walk away from him.
"What a bore. I didn't steal it as such anyway, merely borrowed with the intent to return it. That is, if Maxwell hadn't found it somewhere and eaten it. I swear, that man eats savoury snacks as much as you eat sweets. And both with port."
Alex was left alone, only her chuckling echo in the library giving him the confidence to know that he'd really managed to get her, with the roll of cheese firmly in his grasp.
He returned it promptly to Katharina, who (believing in him like a loyal fangirl), had already made him a celebratory, congratulation and thank you cake for finding the cheese (she'd said that if he had come back without the cheese, it could also double as 'you tried your best' cake).
And they lived happily, ever after. Well…for a while that is.