I brace myself as I enter the dining room and sneak into the kitchen. I would use the secret ballroom entrance, but the ballroom is occupied with folk merrymaking. I rather not intrude.

Luckily no one notices me. The room is crowded and noisy as most dinnertimes are. I hurry to the kitchen and amidst the hustle there, I feel comfort.

I sit on the chair and wait. I am ready. Martha comes over and places a bread roll in front of me.

“You’ll want to eat a bit before she comes. Knowing the little royal prince, she could be done in a second, or he could take a very long while.”

A very long while she took. Most of the people outside in the dining hall had left. All the noise had died down. Some of the kitchen staff began to make their rounds of picking up dirty empty dishes and wiping down the tables.

How long does a little prince take to eat a meal?

Another hour pasts. Martha plops my dinner down and bids me to eat. She sits down beside me with her own plate and we talk about old times.

Another half an hour and my food is done. Only then does Cecil arrive.

She is fuming when she enters the kitchen, an empty plate in hand. “He finally ate the little aurghh!” She screams, angry but yet triumphant. “If I had a child as picky as him, ooohh, the punishments he would be getting!”

She chucks the plate and cutlery into a soapy sink. “The nerve of some! I am so famished!”

She hurries to a large pot of soup, scoops up some for herself and plants herself next to me.

“Heston! Why look at you walking about, and getting food into yourself,” she smiled.

“Hello,” I mumble. “I… if you don’t mind I have…”

“Questions! I know Martha told me,” she said and began shovelling food into her mouth. “Go ahead, ask away, I’m right here!” She said, with a mouth full of food.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full child!” Martha scolded. “Well, I’ll leave you to it, I have to start the clean up, but mind your manners.”

After Martha stood up I asked my question.

“Well, I… I wanted to know about the fall. Specifically, the violin. The one that you said was broken at the bottom of the stairs. Was it a mute violin?”

“A… what?”

“A mute violin, did it… look like a full violin, or was it … missing its… inside bits?”

“It looked like a broken violin was what it looked like. I can’t do any illusion or the like to show you what it looked like, it just looked like a very smashed up violin.”

“Smashed?”

“Yeah, like someone angry slammed it into a wall and then chucked it down the stairs.”

My face pales. “Oh…”

“I don’t know what has happened to it though. Maybe they brought it back to Mortimer’s room?”

“Oh… yes Mortimer.” I had not visited him either. I should probably.

“Is that all the questions? The way Martha was telling it, it seemed like you had a whole bunch of things to ask.”

“Well, I… I guess I wanted to know where he fell, which staircase?”

“Oh, I can do you better then tell you, I can show you if you like!” She grinned, she gulped down the rest of her soup and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “It isn’t lights out yet so, come on, let’s go!”