Chapter 2: She's Still a Mystery

The anxious party members, along with Grandpappy and Stepmom, went as a group to Elsa's guarded room. The guards were quite surprised to see them.

"Has Elsa left her room?" asked Anna anxiously.

"No, your Highness! She is still in her room," answered a guard.

Anna approached the door and knocked.

"Elsa? Are you in there? Is something wrong?" Old memories were starting to trouble Anna, just like before when Elsa was in self imposed exile in her room and saw no visitors, not even her sister.

But no answer was received. Seeing that the door was locked from within, the Royal Locksmith had to be summoned to open the door.

Fifteen minutes later the door was open, but Elsa was not there! There was an open window opposite the door, and on the desk to the right was a note, affixed by a dagger through a stack of paper, which read, "We have the Queen. We will make our demands known later." A carpet was bunched against the left wall, but nothing else in the room was out of place.

"How is that possible?" asked Kristoff. "Elsa's wintry power could easily protect her from anyone!"

Captain Smith started looking over the room. When he checked the trash bin, he found a rag smothered in ether.

"Well, this is how they knocked the Queen out," he said.

Anna was very troubled. She was crying and weak. "Elsa! What have they done to you?" she said as she continued crying piteously. Kristoff decided that it would be best for Anna to rest in her room for a while, and escorted her there. The remainder of the wedding party went to their own rooms to change. Only Captain Smith and Grandpappy remained in the room.

"It looks like they escaped out the window," Captain Smith said.

But Grandpappy went over and took a hard look at the window, especially the sill. In the mean time Kristoff returned.

"Have you found anything?" he asked.

"Just what we saw when we entered," replied Captain Smith.

"I'm not so sure, Captain, that they used this window at all," stated Grandpappy.

"What do you mean?"

"Take a look out the window."

"It is a drop of around 80 feet, to about a two foot rock footer, before ending up in the Fjord, " stated Kristoff.

Grandpappy replied, "Exactly. They would have needed a boat to take the Queen, and the conspirators away."

"But my guards on the parapets would have noticed a boat so close to the castle and sounded the alarm," said the Captain. "And they didn't."

"Take a close look at the window sill," said Grandpappy. "If a conspirator had exited through the window, they would have had to use a grappling hook, seeing that they did not leave an escape rope in this room. But if you look at the sill, no indentation has been made in it, as should have been when the metal neck made contact with the sill due to the weight. Also, there are no scratches or puncture marks from the grappling hook itself caused by the weight."

"That means they didn't exit through the window."

"But how did they exit?" asked Kristoff. "The guards at the door said the Queen didn't leave through the door, and the door was locked from the inside, so that corroborates the guards' story!"

"There must be a secret door somewhere in this room," stated the Captain.

Then all three looked at the wall where the carpet was bunched. The Captain and Grandpappy started knocking on the panels. Finally, they both knocked on one panel that sounded hollow, right by the carpet.

"This must be the door," said Grandpappy.

"Now we have to find the unlock mechanism," replied the Captain.

"If this was used as an escape route in the past, the trigger has to be close."

They all examined a few items, when Kristoff walked up to the torch holder on the panel immediately to the left of the door. He was able to turn it counter-clockwise, but the door panel didn't open.

"Check to see if any other part of that torch holder also rotates," suggested the Captain.

And the bulb on the bottom did, again counter-clockwise. That caused the door panel to open.

"Let's find out where this goes."

"Wait!" replied Grandpappy. "We need to locate the trigger on that side of the wall too."

And they did. There was a small raised piece of railing that, when pushed opened the door, and closed it when pulled.

"Now let's see where this goes!" stated the Captain