Gah! I need to bring this story back! Stupid thing. Always... there. And I feel sort of bad since I'm not able to read anyone else's stories. After this one is done, I'll probably try to focus on The X-Nauts Strike Back for a little while, and then create a new story.
Chapter 38: The Truth is to be Told ~ Mario slid open the door the lead into Pennington's room on the strain. The air seemed thick and condensed inside, the open outdoors taunting him. Mario quickly opened Pennington's drawer by his bedside, only to find there was nothing to be found. He quickly searched underneath his bed to find a bag that looked as though it held something rather heavy inside. Mario reached in and grabbed the bag handle, tugging it out from under the bed. He peered inside to see a strange looking device. It was the very same lie detecting helmet that Pennington had brought out to question Prof. Bom-Bers. He claimed that the thing was broken, though Mario thought otherwise. It was obvious just a clever cover-up to make him look professional.
Mario quickly walked back into the Dining Hall, the bag at his side. Goombella stood waiting for him next to Detective Pennington, who was now looking as though he was coming about. Mario reached inside the brown bag and pulled out the lie-detector, carefully cradling it in his hands. Goombella took off Pennington's detective's cap as Mario placed it upon his blue head.
Mario found an 'Off' and 'On' switch at the back of the helmet. He flicked the switch upwards as the machine began to greet him with a low humming sound. Pennington was suddenly arroused as he suddenly flung his head up, looking about the room and coming to his senses.
"Mario..." he said as he tried to get out from the chair. "Get me out of this thing!" he said once he realised that he was tied down.
"Not until you answer a few questions for us, Pennington," said Mario. Pennington glared at Mario as he stopped his struggle, afraid he might tip over.
"...And what is this thing on my head?" he asked.
"You know very well what it is," replied Mario. "It is the very same contraption that you yourself brought onto this train as a foolish attempt to look as though you had everything under control."
"Er... it's broken, though!" he said foolishly. It was obvious he had not yet comletely come to his senses, for the helmet was still making the sound of a low hum and was obviously working well, for as soon as the statement left Pennington's beak the humming grew louder, and a soft beep resounded from the helmet.
"A lie," said Mario. "You see, detective, Goombella and I are determined to get all the answers out of you one way or another, and this is how we are going to do it."
"No! You can't get anything out of me!" said Pennington, as the helmet began processing once more and let out yet another beep.
"Come now, Pennington, don't be so stubborn," said Goombella, "just answer our questions and we won't have to get desperate."
"Bah! See if I care," Pennington replied rudely.
"I don't think you want to see what we can do when we get desperate, Pennington," Goombella said, her eyebrows raised.
"Yeah," said Mario, "we can either do this the hard way, or the easy way. Just answer the questions...... detective."
Pennington scowled deeply as he glared at the both of them. He seemed as though he was feeling very out-numbered, and quite peeved at his sudden surroundment.
"Very well...." said Pennington, his body filled deep with hatred, depression, and deep regret. "I suppose my brilliant work must be told to someone... might as well be you."
"Good.... now lets start out from the very beggining. Tell us what happened first. And remember. Ther is no lying allowed," Mario said as he and Goombella grabbbed two chairs from a table nearby and sat down to listen.
"...It all started out in a deep depression as you both could have guessed," Pennington began reluctantly. "I lived in my large sanctum here in Poshley Heights, continuing my work as the mayor. You know, that place has quite an eerie atmosphere to it, I tell you. Not a very joyful place to live all the time..... I've always said to myself that I wanted a small home up north... where the winters were snow-covered, and the ice-fishing was-"
"Stick to the subject, detective," interjected Mario.
"Right, right..." Pennington replied as he continued on. "I was the heir of a long line of great Penningtons. They were all mayors, and all, ironically, detectives. It's in our blood, sleuthing, you know. Each one of them was more famous than the last, and they were greatly honored here in the town, and around many places of the world, as a matter of fact. But I hadn't seen a single case in a year! I was getting down their, Mario! In fact... I believe the last case I solved was the case of the missing cat! It was absolutely humiliating! I didn't deserve such treatment as my father did, or my father's father, or my father's father's father, and so on. I was rather pathetic.
But then there came that day. I was sitting at home, moping about, when the mail arrived. It was a letter from my dear old friend from college, Prof. Frankly. Oh, we were always harsh rivals, and got in many a competition, but we became friends in the end. In his letter he had stated that he had discovered something new regarding my own race. He said that he wasn't completely sure what it was, and needed my help to complete the puzzle, regarding that I was of the race he was researching. He told me that he would be arriving to Poshley Heights on the Excess Express in two weeks, for he still had other matters to attend to, and that he would bring along with him the work that he had so far.
This deeply spoke to me. I would finally have a bit of recognition once again! But the thought came to me, would it be enough? Would it be Prof. Frankly who ended up getting most of the credit on such a discovery. The truth was, yes, probably. Almost certainly. I would play no more than a sidekick in this! It was at that moment, a strange rage seemed to well up inside me.... I'm not even quite sure of what it was. My deep depression of lack of recognization seemed to turn into a hot, blazing fire residing in the pit of my heart. I simply couldn't take it! It was my own race, after all, why shouldn't I be the one to discover this? Why wouldn't that old Goomba consult me as soon as he found out about such a thing right away? This discovery had to be mine!
I had come to the conclusion that I would not stop at anything to take claim for this discovery, and that is just what I would do. But how would I do it, you ask? Yes, I asked the very same question to myself. But only one thought came to my mind. It was the only possible way. It was death. Death to the Goomba and the reward to me. That was how I would take credit for the discovery. I had become crazy. It was determined to the point of unhealthiness, and I had never wanted anything so badly in my life.
Now, as you both know I am a detective. And as such I have been around many tricky cases in my lifetime, and have learned from all of them. I have been inspired by the actions of my victims, and influenced by the criminals that I catch. I knew how to create the perfect alibi so that no one would expect that I, Detective Pennington, murdered Professor Frankly."
The lie detector began to hum suddenly and a beep resounded from the helmet. Mario was startled deeply. That beep meant that Detective PEnnington didn't actually kill Professor Frankly. Was this penguin simply crazy?
"Alright, saying that I killed him isn't exactly the truth, for I had someone else perform the action. You see, I couldn't possibly face a man and kill him. That's simply too hard for me to do. No. I needed a little help in this murder.... but I'll get to that later. First I must explain to you how I got on to the train before Professor Frankly so that I could murder him the night he arrived. You see, I simply needed a disguise to help me along and I would have this thing in the bag. And who else better to dress up as than the man wearing so much clothing you can't even see his true form, none other than Lord Crump.
So, this is how I did it. I waited until night came, when most people were asleep, and knocked upon the door of the X-Nauts, who live quite close to me. After I knocked I quickly ran into the bushes beside the door. Once someone opened the door and I realised that it was indeed Lord Crump, I tackled him! Yes, and the whole while muffling his alarmed cries so that he couldn't be heard. I had disposed of this X-Naut into a warp pipe near the hotel where I had tied him to a chair and put a scarf around his mouth. Hopefully, no one would discover him and I would be able to go through with my plan unnoticed.
Once he was down and tied up, and stuck into the X-Naut's house and stole a good helping of Lord Crump's clothes, being careful not to wake up the many slumbering X-Nauts nearby. In the morning, the X-Nauts found the fake note I left them that Lord Crump needed to go on a vacation, and would be back sometime soon on the Excess Express.
So now I had my disguise, but there was a problem. Frankly had come on the train to see me, and if he was murdered, they would most certainly want someone such as me to be back at Poshley Heights to take care of that! But how could I be Detective PEnnington if I was too busy being Lord Crump on the train? Well, it's all thanks to a certain "friend" of mine. You see, the Grande Theatre was opening soon, and many actors and actoresses were coming in, including a certain Duplighost that may prove helpful. Yes, that's right. I brived the actor, Doopliss, into helping me out with my plan of murder. He obviously missed the life of crime and joined me. not to mention he would be paid handsomely for it. So the next night I dressed up as Lord Crump, spectacles and all, and preapred to board. In my suitcase were some extra clothes, and Doopliss. Doopliss had transformed himself into another one of my helmets and was placed into the suitcase. I paid extra for a ticket that took me to Rougeport and back again, so that I could dispose of Professor Frankly, and possibly create a suspicious looking alibi for Lord Crump.
So, Doopliss and I stayed in room number 8 the whole ride to Rougeport. I kept Doopliss hidden rather well so that no one would find him. I had a plan all set out perfectly on how Frankly would be killed. I had eavesdropped on the conductor talking to the chef to inform him where all the new guests coming on at Rougeport would be roomed. This way, the chef would know what rooms to send his food service to. It was room number 4, Frankly. So I waited until the pitch of night, while everyone was asleep, and walked out into the box car of room number four with Doopliss. I removed the vase of flowers on one of the tables, and replaced it with a fake vase. That's right. It was Doopliss. He had shape-shifted himself into a vase of flowers and rested there while I gave him orders. I said, on the night that Frankly comes aboard the Excess Express, transform back into yourself, murder him quickly, and run back to the table where he would turn back into a vase of flowers as though nothing had happened. Once everything settled down, I told him to run back to room number 8 with me.
So, Doopliss stayed transformed into a vase as stayed sitting there for the whole ride to Rougeport until we finally arrived, and Frankly got aboard. Obviously, Doopliss was quite anxious, for not long after the old Goomba had come, Doopliss had transformed to his regular self, knocked upon Frankly's door, and done away with him. He transformed back into a vase just in the knick of time, too.
So, later that night, Doopliss came back to the room. We were headed back to Poshley, and everyone that had boarded the train with Frankly were now suspects.
Next up was the tricky part, for you see, they were all headed back to Poshley Heights to retrieve me, so I could solve the murder, when I was actually the brains of the whole thing! So, as soon as the train stopped at Poshley Heights, I snuck out the back when the Conductor left to talk to the engineer, and I rushed back to my sanctum, taking an unseen shortcut, obviously. I had gotten out of my Lord Crump suit and everything. I was now back to being the good old Detective PEnnington. So, I luckily beat the Toad conductors to the sanctum so that it looked as though I had been there the whole time! The perfect alibi! So, I then got back on the train as Detective PEnnington. As soon as I had left, Doopliss had transformed into Lord Crump, so that it seemed he was still on the train. Do you not see my brilliance shining? Not only would I take the credit for Frankly's discovery, but I would have solved one of the most difficult murder mysteries! It was all going to plan! Doopliss was now Lord Crump, the real Lord Crump was in the sewers, I had set up the whole murder and had the most perfect alibi! It went without a flaw! Or at least it did.... until that foolish chef made a suggestion to ask Mario for help..."
