"Last time you spoke to us, you told us that you wanted none of Bumptious' blood on you."
Mac regarded the purple tint of the hands that were palms-up on the table. "It's on you now."
"It appears," began Lt. Caine's rejoinder, "that you forgot your alma mater."
The hands were shaking.
"Your methods may have come from the head, but your motives came from the heart."
The hands were closing into fists.
Horatio sought to sum up. "A crime... of passion."
Folly banged the table. "And what would you know about passion, you preening, sanctimonious twit?"
Horatio blinked. "You seem to have lost your sense of humour."
"Then it is just in time for me to tell you a most unfunny story," retorted Folly, performing as himself for the first time and the last." The story of a man who cared for a maiden, like all the greatest fools do. A maiden who never saw through his makeup, who only wanted to play. A man who let himself be toyed with until he could take no more. A witch who told the man that she could help the maiden love him back, with means that would only work if the maiden's minder were removed. A man who went in hope to the hall that bore his name, where he delved among its tomes for the way to commit an undetectable murder."
"A man who worked out how to use gold as a poison, lay in wait and found an opportunity to murder a dwarf."
The former jester was silent.
"And how the show's over. We never even knew your real name. But whatever it is, you let folly become you."
The candles quivered in their holders as Treguard paced the antechamber, alone and angry. He was angry with Folly for his betrayal; angry with Merlin and the dwarves for allowing outsiders to turn Dunshelm's stones and expose the evil that still lurked under them; angry with himself for not keeping his house in order. A house that only became his inheritance because of the murders of innocents. He stopped and glared at the screen, which was showing the chamber to which Gretel had been brought to give final approval to her statement and to who-knows-what other HOGG parchment-work. She too could scarcely keep her composure. The poor maid was begging the investigators to let her leave and be alone. Gretel Vesta... Vestan... her name was like a taunt from the dark of yesteryear. "Just sign the wretched documents, girl," rasped Treguard, "and we can all end this shame."
And at that moment, Treguard's eyes nearly rolled out his head. Because they could barely believe what his ears had just told him. He stared, he waited, he focused on Gretel's face. And there it was again a moment later. A short, sharp slurp.
The next moment, the antechamber occupant was gone, as was his sword.
A splintering sound gave way to a collective gasp as the Dungeon Master burst into the interview room. In a trice, the tip of Treguard's blade was at the maid's throat. He heard the investigators screaming at him but was too enraged to listen. He stared into her eyes and eliminated any doubt in his mind.
"CEASE AT ONCE, MILDREAD!"
A crackle of light and a cackle of delight exploded across the room. When the CSIs looked up, they saw a grey-skinned crone in Gretel's place, Treguard's sword still pointed at her neck.
"Pestilent, pompous plover!" spat the witch, punctuating with an almighty contemptuous slurp. "My potion was about to wear off anyway. You came just in time to take the glory."
"SILENCE! Where is the maid?"
"She had somewhere else to be. I thought I'd step into her shoes. I know her better than she thinks I do. And so does he."
"Who? Folly?"
Mildread laughed. "Those are all the crumbs you'll get from me. I don't know where he took her and I don't care." She tilted her head to one side and looked plaintively at Treguard. "May I go now, master? Please, master? I left the oven on."
Treguard turned away in disgust. He instructed one of the dwarvish guards to secure Mildread and the other to fetch Merlin. He left the room without looking back. The CSIs followed.
The Dungeon Master and the crime scene investigators had reconvened in the Great Hall. There was a new crime to solve, but no scene, no evidence and no witnesses to speak of. For, as Treguard told the other men, "We'll get no more out of Mildread, even by force."
"Someone has Gretel." Not Folly: he was in no position to kidnap anyone. "Someone who needed a witch's help to do it." Not Mogdred then.
"Someone who knows her well."
"She rarely associated with anyone but Folly, Bumptious and Mildread. Though what drew her to the hag is a mystery."
"She told me that she found Mildread reassuring," recalled Horatio, "but didn't seem to know why."
"Could her kidnapper be someone that she doesn't remember from her past?"
"Gretel's past lies beyond the Dungeon, across the boundaries of time."
"What if her past followed her here?" asked Keppler grimly.
"She was not borne here as you were, with memories preserved. The magic of the Dungeon of Deceit would have shrouded or dismissed them, except perhaps her name."
"Then what if Gretel," mused Horatio, "is Gretel?"
Four heads turned in his direction.
"Merlin told us that the Dungeon drew from fairytales. And if it brought Gretel here, or an aged version of her, then why not others from her story too?"
"'Crumbs'... 'oven'... Mildread was the witch, and somehow she knew."
"And some part of Gretel felt the familiarity."
"The Dungeon might have been trying to keep them apart, so that the two of them could each start anew."
"What if it was 'the three of them'? In the story, Gretel was never on her own. What if Hansel was brought here as well?"
"Mildread could have known that too."
"And would have liked nothing more than to manipulate them."
"Not kill them, like she tried to in the story?"
"No, not here in the Dungeon, where the dark of heart have so many ways to watch the young and naive destroy themselves," admitted Treguard.
"If Mildread has succeeded in twisting the mind of a lost boy into an abductor's, she could have made him capable of anything."
"So Hansel's here, and he's taken his sister. How do we find them?"
"By finding out who Hansel is now, with the one clue that even Mildread can't distort."
Five pairs of human eyes and one pair of dwarvish eyes were fixed on CODIS. Treguard spoke unto the vapours. "Gretel, the maid."
White tendrils intertwined, looking for just a second like a double helix, then shaped themselves into an image of Gretel's face. It hung in the air. Then another plume of steam curled, curdled and crafted another face. The face of her brother. A face that Keppler and the dwarf had seen before.
"It's Bumptious' apprentice."
"He'll have taken her somewhere he knows."
"And he only knows the mines."
"The mines have been locked down since the investigation started," the dwarf pointed out. "They are three subcommittees and a referendum away from being reopened. He wouldn't have got back in."
"Then where in the underworld is he?"
"There's one other place he knows," ventured Grissom. "The one place that Hansel and Gretel were trying to get to."
"Home," said Horatio. "But he can't get home, can he?"
"There is one way which he might try," replied Treguard. "I have magic that may allow you to intercept them. But I can only cast it upon one of you at a time."
Keppler stepped forward.
