As the cab rattled along the streets, my companion maintained a cheery monologue, one I suspected was solely in an attempt to get a rise out of the wolf who had collected us. The wolf, who had not so much as introduced himself by surname, simply sat opposite us, his face stony and unyielding, and he seemed entirely disinclined to say so much as a word. While I might, at a different time, have found my fellow-lodger's discourse on the differences in tone between a violin made by Stadivolius and one made by Amoleti engaging, I found my thoughts entirely consumed by a different matter. Why, I wondered, had Wilde invited me along for this errand of his? I would not presume to call him my friend, and I suspected that the reverse was true as well. In light of the revelation that his callers had all been his clients, I found myself wondering if he had friends at all.

Moreover, why had he proposed to split a suite with me when we had been near enough to perfect strangers? He had as much as claimed, when we first met, that our landlady would not have rented the suite to him had he attempted to do so alone, but certainly he could have found a mammal more like himself. It was true enough that our landlady did not much seem to like him, although he had not, so far as I had seen, done anything to antagonize her. Her opinion of me, however, seemed as though it could hardly be higher. She had come to me once, only a few days after Wilde and I had taken possession of our suite of rooms, convinced that her streaming nose, wet cough, and general aches were the symptoms of tuberculosis or perhaps leprosy. Even after treating her to perhaps the most thorough examination which I had ever performed as a doctor, it had taken me the better part of an hour to convince her that it was but a touch of the grippe and would soon resolve itself. She had appeared somewhat skeptical at the time but when my prediction had borne itself out the old armadillo thanked me profusely, and was ever after all smiles and small blandishments while in my presence. Perhaps Wilde had met Mrs. Armadillo before we had ever met, and read her as minutely as he had read me, deducing that she would be able to stomach a fox for a tenant if he brought with him a prey doctor willing to indulge a minor tendency towards hypochondria. It was a dizzying thought, to imagine that Wilde's powers of deduction could be so great, but after the example he had provided I found myself thinking that it would be most unwise to underestimate him.

Lemming Brothers Bank was built exactly as any right-thinking mammal should desire their bank to appear. It was designed after the neoclassical style, with a front facade that was all marble. The massive pillars of the colonnade supported an intricately carved pediment, into which was set a large clock. The masonry of the facade was of massive blocks, and the windows set into it were tall and narrow. All in all, the building gave off an air of strength and impermeability that was marred only by one of the windows, which had been boarded over. To my mind, it seemed likely that the window had been shattered by the burglars and marked their means of ingress. When the cab came to a stop, our silent escort had guided us through the main door, through a lobby even more impressive than the exterior, and down a corridor, stopping at a door marked, "Hubert Lemming" in large gilt letters upon a frosted pane of glass above somewhat smaller letters saying simply, "President."

The wolf knocked once before swinging the door open, and what met my eyes might have been comical under any other circumstances. Hubert Lemming's office was enormous, easily as large as our suite at 221B Barker Street, and quite richly furnished. The plush white carpeting looked deep enough that I would sink into it up to my ankles, and it must have been the devil to keep so immaculately clean. The furniture in the room was all elaborately carved out of rosewood, including a massive desk that dominated the room. On that desk was what seemed to be a reproduction of the office in miniature, complete with a copy of the desk, its matching credenza, and all of the other accouterments of the office. A lemming standing behind that miniature desk was staring up at Inspector Trunkaby, indulging in a furious tirade that had the elephant appearing quite cowed, despite the fact that she was at least a thousand times his size. At the sound of the door opening, the tiny lemming stopped his haranguing and spun round from the elephant to turn his attention upon us. "So this is your detective, I suppose?" he said, his voice high and shrill, "A rabbit of all mammals? Garou, bring her in and have her servant wait outside."

The wolf—Garou, I supposed—hesitated. "She's not the detective, sir," he said, his voice low and respectful as he gestured in my direction.

Hubert Lemming turned to Trunkaby, and I could see the incredulity writ large on his little face, "You bring me a fox? Need I remind you, my bank has already been robbed once and I have no intention of allowing it to occur again."

Throughout the entire exchange, Wilde had not moved from where we stood in the corridor outside the room, his face a blandly pleasant mask. It occurred to me that I may have found the reason why he had requested my presence, and felt a touch of shame for cajoling him into taking the case. "Mr. Lemming," Trunkaby said, "I have searched the crime scene to the full extent of my ability. Mr. Wilde is, admittedly, a touch unorthodox, but his little hunches have led to the solution of a number of cases that baffled all others."

Wilde glanced briefly at me, his eyebrow raised sardonically. "With a sleuth such as yourself upon the premises, I doubt there will be much for me to find," said he, favoring the inspector with a cheery grin.

Trunkaby rubbed her paws together in a self-satisfied way. "I think I have done all that can be done," she answered, "It's a queer case though, and I knew your taste for such things."

"That remains very much to be seen," Wilde said, casually stepping into the office, "Shall we start, then, with the scene of the crime?"

"Mind the carpet," Lemming squeaked in an irritated fashion, "Keep your filthy feet off of it."

"If you or your humble servant will escort me to where the gold was kept, I shall be happy to leave your office untainted by the presence of a fox," Wilde replied, his voice the very essence of sincerity.

Hubert Lemming snapped his fingers, and in a trice Garou had walked over to the desk and carefully picked up his boss with a single paw that absolutely dwarfed the irritable little mammal. "To the secondary vault," the lemming said imperiously.

Garou led the way down the corridor in the opposite direction from which we had gone to reach Lemming's office, stopping at the end of the corridor in front of a massive circular door all of steel. "The vault was supposed to be quite unbreachable," Lemming said, looking into the room broodingly, "The walls, floors, and ceiling around the outside of the vault are brick to a thickness of a foot and a half. The next layer is steel, nine inches thick, with a foot of fire-proof insulation before the next layer, another nine inches of steel."

Wilde examined the door carefully. It was quite thick, set on massive hinges that were unreachable from the outside of the vault. At its center was a large dial and a wheel. He gave it a small experimental tap, and the door, which must have weighed more than a tonne, moved noiselessly. "A combination lock, then," he mused, "Who has the combination?"

"I do not care for your implication, fox," Lemming spat from where he stood on the paw of his wolf servant, "Neither I nor any of the officers of the board would have robbed our own bank."

Wilde ignored his tone. "That would be, let's see, ten mammals? I expect you already have a list," he said, directing the last of this at Trunkaby.

"Naturally," she said, "Although I quite agree with Mr. Lemming's assessment."

"I suppose you would," he mused, returning to his examination of the door.

"And what of this gate?" he asked, pointing at it.

In the corridor, about eight feet back from the door to the vault were thick bars of wrought iron which ran from floor to ceiling, set no more than two inches apart. There was a sturdy gate set into the bars, which was currently open. Also set into the bars was, somewhat incongruously, a clock with a case of thick steel, which was set where the latch from the door met the bars. "It is a time lock," Mr. Lemming explained in the sort of tone usually reserved for dealings with half-wits, "It only permits the gate to be opened at five o'clock in the morning, before the bank begins operations, and at five o'clock in the evening, after the bank has closed and items must be transferred. This is the secondary vault, where we store items of value that must be held securely but recalled only occasionally."

I turned and peered down the corridor. At the opposite end was an identical gate and vault door, although both were securely fastened. That, I supposed, must be the main vault. Wilde stroked his muzzle thoughtfully, and stepped into the vault, the rest of our little party following him.

The inside of the vault was quite bare, the large space completely empty except for a wooden packing crate, which had been broken apart to reveal a large metal lock box, at least six feet on its longest side and three on its shortest. The lid of the lock box, which was almost a foot thick, was on the floor of the vault, and the inside of the lock box was completely empty. Wilde glanced at it briefly before turning to Lemming. "Explain, if you would, the sequence of events," he asked.

"Last night, around nine o'clock, one of the night guards heard a window breaking," the lemming began, and I immediately recalled the broken window we had seen on our way into the bank.

"They claim—although I have reason to be skeptical—that they followed protocol and ensured that the vaults stayed guarded while one of their number investigated the disturbance. Finding nothing except broken glass, the guard checked with the others, who all swear that the vault doors and the gates were never unguarded. The guard who discovered the broken glass summoned a constable by means of the bank's telephone, and made a report. The constable, being a witless oaf—"

Lemming broke off from his recitation to favor Trunkaby with a furious glare. "—agreed with their assessment. The guards made a note in their nightly report, cleaned up the broken glass and boarded over the window, and the morning shift verified that the vaults had remained sealed. At five o'clock this evening, the secondary vault was opened to remove the gold from the lock box. Per the bank's protocols, and by simple necessity, I must be present for all such actions. When the lock box was opened, it was entirely empty, and we immediately notified the police."

"What makes your presence a necessity?" I asked eagerly, finding myself quite drawn into the mystery that the lemming was unspooling.

Mr. Lemming gave me a curious look, as though he had quite forgotten that I was present. "I have the only key to this lock box. Garou, show them."

With his free paw, Garou drew from out of the collar of his shirt a key he wore like a necklace on a length of fine silver chain. The key was perhaps the most peculiar I had ever seen. It was a cylinder, about as long as Mr. Lemming was tall, and about as thick around as my thumb. There were a number of meandering and asymmetric grooves cut into the sides of the cylinder, and a number of protrusions sticking off from it. At the top there was a ring set perpendicular to the cross-section of the key, through which the chain was threaded. The key was completely unmarked except for a small arrow carved into the top, which I presumed was part of a matching pair with the lock itself to show how the key must be inserted. "May I examine the key more closely?" Wilde asked.

Mr. Lemming hesitated before gesturing to Garou to turn the key over. "I suppose it makes no difference now. The thieves have entirely ruined the lock."

Indeed, when Wilde took the key to the lid of the lock box, there was nowhere to insert it. The keyhole had been entirely filled with what looked, to my untrained eye, as nothing more than lead, heated to its melting point and poured in. "This is queer," Wilde said approvingly, "I suppose that I owe you my thanks, Dr. Hopps, for convincing me to take this case."

I believed that I understood his comment. The thieves had managed to enter an impregnable vault, opened a lock box with an elaborate lock apparently by filling the lock with molten lead, and then had made off with two tonnes of gold. All of that they had accomplished under the noses of a number of guards, and the only clue to their entrance was a broken window a good hundred feet from the vault. "I shall have words with Goredian," Mr. Lemming vowed darkly, "Why should their lock box cost so much, only to be defeated with a bit of lead?"

The lid of the lock box was inscribed with the words "Goredian Lock & Safe Co." and it did not take a particularly astute investigator to make the connection that they were the Goredian of which Mr. Lemming spoke. Wilde, meanwhile, was examining the broken remains of the wooden crate that the lock box had been in. "I see that this lock box came to you from your Furis branch," he said, indicating the peeling packaging label, "It arrived yesterday?"

"Yes," Mr. Lemming said irritably, "As I have already explained to Inspector Trunkaby, it passed every examination short of opening the crate throughout the entire transport process, and there is no doubt that, until the seals were broken to-day, the crate remained closed."

Wilde whipped a tape measure and a large round magnifying glass from his pocket. With these two implements he trotted noiselessly about the vault, sometimes stopping, occasionally kneeling, and once lying flat upon his face and sniffing at a broken piece of the crate. So engrossed was he with his occupation that he appeared to have forgotten our presence, for he chattered away to himself under his breath the whole time, keeping up a running fire of exclamations, groans, whistles, and little cries suggestive of encouragement and of hope. "I see you have quite ruined the arrangement of the vault," he remarked.

"The bank had to inventory the contents of both vaults and move the remaining items from this vault into the main vault until the weakness in this one is found and corrected," Trunkaby said defensively, and I suspected that the activity had been arranged under her watch, "But everything else has been left in statu quo."

"The crate and the lock box, you mean?" Wilde asked rhetorically, "But never mind that. I suppose nothing else is missing?"

"Nothing whatsoever," Mr. Lemming confirmed.

"I should like to speak with the guards who were on duty last night," Wilde remarked, "And hear the events in their own words."

"You'll have to find them," Mr. Lemming said dismissively, "I would rather put a fox in charge of a hen house than allow those bunglers to guard my bank another minute. All have been fired for their incompetence."

I had no doubt that his choice of idiom had been entirely purposeful, from the cruel little smirk he had worn as he delivered his words, but if they affected my companion at all he gave no indication. "Names and last known addresses will do to start with, then," Wilde said, "And where may I find the constable who responded to the report of the broken window?"

Trunkaby flipped through her notepad. "Constable Clawhauser walks the night beat out of precinct one," she said, "I shall ring the precinct and let them know to expect you."

"Very well," Wilde said, "Inspector, I would be most grateful if you would provide me the two lists of names I have requested to my residence."

On that note, he turned to leave, and beckoned me after him. "But what do you make of all this?" Trunkaby asked, with a note of what I believed to be desperation in her voice.

Indeed, contrary to the rapid series of deductions that I had expected from the start of our journey to the bank, Wilde had made no comments that would give any indicator of how he felt the crime had been committed. "It would be robbing you of the credit of the case if I was to presume to help you," remarked my companion, "You are doing so well now that it would be a pity for anyone to interfere. Come along, Dr. Hopps; we have a few stops to make."

Author's Note: Here we are, into the details of the case! I also give a bit more explanation (or at least, Dr. Hopps's theorizing) as to why Judy ends up splitting a flat with Nick. Whether or not her deduction is correct will remain to be seen. There's also some more demonstration of the prejudices against foxes (and, to a lesser extent in this chapter, against bunnies) that are more pronounced in this Victorian era work than in the present day of the original movie. I am trying to avoid the trope, quite common in Sherlock Holmes adaptations, that Watson is an incompetent buffoon only there to provide someone for Sherlock to show how clever he is by talking to him. In the original works, Dr. Watson is smart in his own right, but Sherlock is simply a lot smarter. Or, at least, a lot better at deductions. This story will have a similar dynamic as it develops, but Dr. Hopps will be pretty involved in the investigation and will prove to be integral.