It was another boring day at the office, managing the little amount of paperwork for small time cases, we had been working for a couple of hours now, when Edinburgh can in with three cups of coffee. "I-I'm sorry I'm late, t-there was s-something that needed cleaning up…"

"Yeah, we heard" Hornet replied before she turned towards me and added "I think that we'll have to get some plastic cups soon we're running out of the regular kind" While Edinburgh was handing out the cups out, I could see Myoukou staring at Edinburgh with a confused look on her face, noticing this Hornet asked "You seem to be taking a keen interest in Edinburgh rookie"

"Err…well…I'll just be off to clean up the kitchen…" Edinburgh hastily said making a beeline for the door.

"Boss!" I quickly yelled getting myself off my seat. The boss however didn't move a muscle.

"No need to worry rookie." She calmly said, and sure enough Edinburgh ended up tripping over her own feet before she reached the door and crashed to the floor and was frantically searching for her glasses.

"Uwww~ My glasses, where are my glasses?" I gave a sigh and slowly walked towards the clumsy maid.

"Well, you're probably wondering why Edinburgh is working for us now, well you see this all happened when you were out on commission, so I guess you would be a bit confused." My boss explained. I bent down and picked Edinburgh's glasses up and helped her to her feet.

"Here you go" I said.

"uwww~ Thank you~" Edinburgh replied, momentarily forgetting who she was speaking to, by the time she realised, me and Hornet had already taped her to a chair. "Huh? AAAAAAAH~"

"Umm? Senpai… what are you doing…?"

"Well, I think that it'll be best if we brought you up to date in regard to our new part time employee."

"NOOOO~ IT'S TOO EMBARESSING~"

"I'll go and get us some snacks, if you wouldn't mind explaining the events that led up to this scenario rookie?"

"Of course, you see-"

"NOOOOO~!"

"And do get her to be quiet" Hornet said before she closed the door behind herself.

"Gladly!" I mumbled, rolling out another length of duct tape.

"AHHHH! NOOO! I DON'T WANT- MMMPH MMMPH MMMMMPPPHHHHH!" Now that Edinburgh wasn't going to interrupt me as I told my story, I placed the duct tape back on my desk and turned towards Myoukou, who was staring at me with a very concerned look on her face.

"Umm…senpai…why-" I raised my hand.

"You'll find out soon enough." I said getting myself comfortable by sitting on my desk, Edinburgh's screams of protest muffled by the duct tape "It all started three days after you were sent on commission…"

I was looking at the burnt crumbs that were covering the bottom of my teacup, before glancing over towards Hornet, who was reading through the small but dreaded pieces of paperwork that were known as 'bills', eventually she noticed that I was staring at her and asked "Yes?"

"We need a new coffee machine…" I said.

"I'm well aware rookie!" she gritted "but as Myoukou is on commission, we'll just have to make do with the coffee machine that we've got."

"That you brought" I added

"That I'm renting" Hornet hit back "At least until Akashi can find us a decent coffee machine." I gave her a hard stare, Hornet in turn threw the paperwork on her desk "Look, how was is supposed to know that all these new Ironblood ships would be coffee addicts? I didn't expect them to practically buy up every last coffee machine! We were lucky that Akashi had that one left!"

"Oh yeah!" I replied sarcastically "Because Sudan is well known for making top of the range coffee machines! Can't you put an order for one in?"

"Oh yeah, like it's that simple! Aside from the rent of this building, and the costs of the minor repairs that we have to do, we basically don't have any money to purchase any equipment!" we both just sat there in furious silence, Myoukou always made some decent coffee with the limited funds that we had, and she wouldn't be back for four days. This was going to be a long week. We both gave a heavy sigh.

"I hope something turns up soon, I'm getting bor-" At that moment the door to our office burst opens and a white streak flew into the room towards Hornet. I had got one of my legs on the desk and had my rigging out before I realised that this object wasn't hostile as it ground to a halt and knelt down in front of Hornet's desk.

"PLEASEHELPMEIDIDN'TDOITIWASFRAMED!" the object yelled.

"Huh?" was all my boss could say before the object lifted herself up and peered over the desk. "Edinburgh?" Hornet exclaimed. I soon recognised that the object was in fact Edinburgh, one of the Royal Maids, her lips quivering and her eyes full of tears.

"What…is going on…?" I mumbled.

"EDINBURGH!" we turned to face the source of the voice, standing in our doorframe was Warspite and Howe "You're only making this harder for yourself!" Warspite shouted.

"I DIDN'T DO IT! I WAS FRAHUHUHAMED UHUHUHUHU~" The maid cried trying to shuffle round the side of Hornet's desk. Warspite didn't say a word as she marched into our office and grabbed the maid by her wrist "You can explain your story in the interrogation room" The knight said before throwing her towards Howe "Keep an eye on the prisoner!"

"Hey just a minute!" My boss finally yelled knocking me out of the shock of what had transpired "What's going on here?"

"I'm afraid that this is a private affair for the Royal Knights to handle!"

"BULLSHIT! This girl came to us and said that she was framed, before you barged in here, at least tell us what our client is charged with!"

"I'm sorry but that is confidential"

"Oh really? So you interrupt our business, and walk in uninvited on private property? I thought that you were supposed to abide by the law?" Warspite stood there silently for a moment before she turned her head towards Howe and nodded her head towards the door, Howe obliged and began to escort the prisoner out of the room.

"Help meee~" Edinburgh quietly cried as she disappeared behind the doorframe.

"So, WHAT is this all about?" asked Hornet. Warspite gave a sigh.

"This needs to remain confidential."

"Don't worry about it, I won't tell" Warspite's gaze turned towards me

"I won't say anything either" I said sitting back down in my chair. Warspite gave another sigh and began her story.

"Two days ago we tasked Edinburgh to send some supplies to London, the city of London, not our London, and when she arrived, according to the harbour master's report, Edinburgh was acting suspiciously and was in quite a rush to leave, once she did, the harbour master informed the dockland police before they opened the containers, only to find that the containers were empty, aside from a slip of paper that read 'IOU'"

"I see, and what was supposed to be in these containers?" Hornet asked, Warspite fidgeted a bit before she said.

"Gold" we both sat up in an instance

""GOLD?"" we both exclaimed.

"To be precise 400 bars of gold" Hornet gave a whistle and leant back in her chair.

"I don't suppose that the theft could have occurred after Edinburgh left?" I suggested. Warspite shook her head.

"Unfortunately not, we performed a very thorough investigation as to the events that occurred in London, and no suspicious activities were found by our team, the dockland police or the Royal Navy MP's"

"What about beforehand?" Hornet asked.

"Not possible, myself, her majesty and King George V all counted, loaded and escorted the gold to Edinburgh the day before she was due to leave. And all our movements have been accounted for."

"I see" My boss pondered

"Well, if you'll excuse me Miss Hornet, we have an interrogation to perform" and with that the grand old lady gave a bow and walked out of our office.

"Well…" I was shocked for words "…what do we do now boss?" Hornet twirled one of her twin tails

"Well, I guess we should ask Edinburgh for her side of the story, but first we'd better check her room"

Of course Belfast was rather hesitant about letting us into her sister's room, but once we explained the situation, she…eventually relented and escorted us up to Edinburgh's room, and was insistent on staying in the room with us while we searched all through it, I guess she was paranoid that we'd do…something if she wasn't there. I was busy looking under her bed looking for…well to be honest, I didn't know what we were looking for. "Hey Hornet?"

"Yes rookie?"

"What is it that we're looking for?" Hornet finished searching the draws of her desk and walked over to the table in the middle of the room, which was covered in cookery magazines.

"Well, I just want to eliminate the possibility that Edinburgh was forced to steal the gold against her will through blackmail…" She turned around to the client's sister "Do you know if your sister received threats of any kind?"

"None whatsoever" The head maid replied immediately and without hesitation.

"Right…" was all that Hornet could say, before turning her attention back to the table. I got up off my knees and was about to search the wardrobe when I heard my boss say "hello~" I turned towards where Hornet was kneeling, she pulled out a piece of paper from under the piles of magazines, written on this piece of paper, in scrawly, almost illegible writing was the following:

To who it may concern, you'll never find the gold

X

"Bollocks!" the furious midget yelled, angrily waving her sceptre in our faces "That is clearly Edinburgh's writing, she's just trying to shift the blame onto a third party"

"That may be the case, but until we conclude otherwise there is still a possibility that this note is real, and the gold was stolen by another person" Hornet explained.

"That may be so, but even if that was the case, the gold was still under Edinburgh's watch, so she is guilty of negligence!" The queen ranted, "And it's not as if you can find the location of the gold from this note alone, there is far too little to work with!"

"That maybe true, which is why we need to speak to Edinburgh" I said

"Denied!" The queen yelled "This is our responsibility, and until there is further proof, Edinburgh will be charged"

"Okay then" Hornet said making her way back towards the door of the Royal Navy dorms "But, if this note is genuine, then we might not have to wait long to get our further proof"

"Oh~ And what makes you so sure?" The queen asked

"Because if this note is true, then the propitiator will want to brag about how clever they are and challenge us to solve the crime. I wouldn't be surprised if one of us gets a note tomorrow challenging us to a game of wits"