In the hour or so since a servant was sent to the Temple for help, the Lady von Sedgewick has calmed down considerably. She sits ensconced in one of her comfy chairs, a shawl drawn around her shoulders, with the fake Dragon's Egg on the coffee table before her. She steadfastly avoids looking at it, her expression a little morose, and a little embarrassed by her earlier outburst.

At Aaron's suggestion, a servant was also dispatched to fetch the original appraiser of the Egg. Lady von Sedgewick has been throwing out occasional names, of people who seemed particularly interested in her Egg over the last several years; the list has grown to a few dozen, none of them within the last two holidays.

"Did any of them ever offer to buy the egg from you?" the Lapi asks.

The poodle nods emphatically. "Oh, yes. Several of them. Lord Shonar, for example, has asked me, oh, three, maybe four times?" She looks distant. "… over the course of a few years. I think he finally figured out last year that I really meant, 'No.'" She smiles. "Or maybe he's just waiting to make another inquiry at a later date… He has that habit of spacing them out. Just in case I change my mind, he says."

Aaron nods, and makes a mark next to that name in his notebook. "And have any of your household staff left or been dismissed in the past few years?"

"My household staff?" Lady von Sedgewick scratches her head. "Esme left last year, poor dear; after her mother took ill, she needed the time to take care of her. There was a scullery boy I sent packing late last year, too – insolent child." She sniffs.

Aaron adds more notes. "The Temple investigators will probably want to contact them. Someone had to smuggle in the fake and make off with the original, after all, and it's not likely to be someone who would stay here long afterwards."

The canine nods. "Well, I suppose it might've been that scullery boy," she murmurs. "I was not impressed by his morals, though I'd not've thought him a thief… "

"Well, he would have been acting with someone that knew about the egg and wanted it, not just on his own," Aaron points out, chewing on his pencil to sharpen it a bit. "I just hope it was somebody here on Rephidim, some other collector, maybe even an old rival of Titus'."

Lady von Sedgewick shudders. "I hope it's not left the island," she murmurs, worriedly.

A serving mouse appears at the door, and at von Sedgewick's nod, announces, "The Temple investigator is here, ma'am."

"Very well, Serene. Show him in," the poodle bids her.

Aaron stands up out of courtesy.

A short, portly human in the robes of an Investigator enters the room, puffing slightly. He glances askance at the two people in the parlor – the poodle in gardening clothes and the well-dressed Lapi – then looks to the servant mouse, who blushes as she murmurs, "Lady von Sedgewick, may I present Investigator Herschel."

The poodle rises regally from her chair, and nods to the investigator as the man fumbles out, "A pleasure, ma'am," and bows to her. "And you are… ?" he asks, looking to the shopkeeper.

Aaron makes a small bow, and presents his card to the human. "Aaron Lightfoot, Apothecary and supplier to those in the magical professions. I'm afraid it was my visit that led to the discovery of a possible crime here."

The investigator peers at the card suspiciously, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief held in his other hand. "I see." He looks to the rabbit again, while Lady von Sedgewick says, "Would you like a seat, Investigator? I'm sure you'll have many questions to ask."

The Investigator nods to the poodle. "Thank you, ma'am." He eases himself onto the couch. "This Mr. Lightfoot, here, he was here for the crime, ma'am?" he asks quizzically.

Aaron blinks at the question as he returns to his own seat.

Lady von Sedgewick shakes her head, "No, no, you see… Oh, it's a bit complicated… " She settles into her chair and relates the tale to the investigator, looking to Aaron now and again for clarifications on certain points, and going back and forth in time as she gets to different details, making the story more confusing than strictly necessary. Herschel makes occasional notes as she speaks.

The Lapi's black, left ear flops down occasionally whenever Investigator Herschel seems to look his way, but otherwise he remains quiet unless asked to clarify something.

Just as Aaron did before him, the Temple official asks Lady von Sedgewick for a list of those who were interested in the Egg. She ticks off a dozen names, then looks to Aaron. "And who else did I say?"

"Lord Shonar," Aaron says, after looking at his own list. "And your ex-scullery boy seemed a likely candidate to make the switch."

"Oh, yes, but I don't imagine Lord Shonar should ever stoop to thievery!" She laughs at the thought. "Besides, he wanted it for his daughter's museum. He could hardly place a stolen artifact in a museum." She sobers again. "There were some other offers over the years, let me think… "

Aaron makes a note of his own about the museum.

"There was an Eeee merchant, what was his name – Bar Siablo, I think – he offered to buy it once last summer, I recall," Lady von Sedgewick reflects. "And Lord Rockmore made a few hints about being interested, though never an actual offer. And Julia Vicentries, it was always her favorite piece of my collection; she'll be heartbroken to hear what happened to it… " The poodle sniffles, while Aaron notices that the mouse servant has appeared in the doorway to the parlor again.

The poodle directs a quizzical look toward Aaron at his twitching, and starts to say, "Mr. Light – " then she catches sight of the Skeek. "Yes, Serene?" Her voice holds a touch of exasperation.

"Ma'am, Mr. Cor Dysforu is here; he says you sent for him?" The girl seems even meeker than usual.

"He's the one who appraised the Egg, Investigator, when I got it," von Sedgewick explains. "He's, ah, a very delicate man, not good at waiting; do you mind if he comes in now?"

Investigator Herschel frowns. "You sent for the appraiser? Well, very good, we can see him now, I suppose, and finish the questions afterwards."

Moments later, the mouse shows in a poodle built as slender as a whippet, wearing a tightly fitted velvet jacket from which emerges a froth of lace at the sleeves and chest, and a head of massively curly hair. A jeweler's glass dangles from his neck, and he rushes to Lady Sedgewick's side. "Oh, my dear, I came as soon as I heard! How terrible for you! And this, this is the fake?" He turns to the egg on the table and sniffs disdainfully.

"We were hoping you could determine that beyond any doubt, sir," Aaron says, nodding to the poodle.

"Pah!" The jeweler sniffs again, "I can tell you that already! Gold-plated… " he pauses, leans down, sniffs, "… lead! Pah! This is not my lady's precious Egg! What villainy!"

"How familiar would the counterfeiter need to be with the original in order to make this, do you suppose?" Aaron asks, "And what would it cost?"

"To make a copy such as this?" The appraiser bends down, and makes another disdainful sniff, "A cheap copy such as this? Look, look here, why the dragons are not even positioned correctly!" He produces a slender canister, seemingly from one of his voluminous lacy sleeves, causing the Investigator to blink and lean forward with suspicion in his eyes. The thin poodle decants a rolled canvas from the tube, and unrolls it to reveal a pair of oil paintings. "See! See here!" the poodle declaims, pointing to the painting and then to the dragons. The heads curve more in the painting, though the fake egg looks otherwise quite close to the images, to Aaron's untrained eye.

Aaron eyes the paintings suspiciously, and asks, "Could the fake have been made using these portraits as a guide? Where are they normally kept?"

"They are kept in my shop, sir," Dysforu answers, the emphasis on the word "sir" suggesting that he doesn't believe Aaron merits the title. "Sometimes I have them on display, as a sample of my work – I did the dragons, you see, for dear Lord Titus – but typically they are in storage. I rotate my displays, of course, for variety."

Aaron's ears droop a little, "So those would be the only copies?"

"Oh yes," the poodle declares, nodding emphatically. "Oil paintings of this caliber are not cheap."

Herschel repeats Aaron's earlier query. "And the copy, here? How much would it cost?"

The appraiser sniffs again. "Well, 'tis gold if only plate," he admits grudgingly. "And even crass carvings like these," he gestures disdainfully to the sculpted dragons so similar to the ones in the painting, "require some skill. I should say, oh, a silver if the craftsman were selling his skills cheaply, five, maybe eight if he had a fool or a desperate man for a buyer."

"And the original, it was solid gold?" Aaron asks.

The poodle gives a single bark of laughter. "Oh, no!" he assures Aaron. "Not solid. 'Twas a shell of gold, perhaps a quarter inch thick, judging by its weight, over porcelain, I believe, though Lord Titus instructed me to leave the original work alone when he had me embellish it, so I never checked." He waves a hand fancifully. "But this, this isjust a micro-layer of gold, see, a fingernail will scrape right through it to the lead." He does not demonstrate, but he notes the scratch on the bottom where Aaron had first investigated it.

"Do you remember the porcelain piece? Did it have any decorations or features that the gold would have covered up?" the Lapi asks, leaning forward with curiosity.

"Hmm?" The jeweler looks briefly confused, then ahs. "You mistake me, sir. I did not put the gold on it, and never saw the porcelain which lay beneath. It was ornamented with some semi-precious stones when it came to me; these ones you see here on the fake." He indicates several of the larger stones, with green and blue hues. "Save the originals were stones, these are paste," he adds.

Aaron's ears dip lower. "Ah, so you don't know if there was an actual dragon's egg under the gold then? Do you know of any artisans who might have made this fake?"

"Hmph," the poodle snorts. "Can, or would have?" he asks, almost rhetorically.

The Lapi opens his mouth, then stops and looks to the Investigator, asking, "Is there a difference?"

Dysforu takes the egg in his hands, his long fingers holding it deftly even as his lip curls back in disdain, and he examines it, turning it over in his hands, peering at parts now and then through the jeweler's glass hung around his neck, making hmmming and clicking noises against his teeth. He takes a pause from his study of the egg to look at Aaron. "There most certainly is. I, myself, might be able to cast a cheap, shabby copy of a fine piece of art. But there's not enough gold in the Temple to make me do such a debasing act."

Aaron blushes a bit, and says, "My pardon. I guess we want to know of those who could and would then."

Herschel looks skeptical. "I'd like to know both, myself," the man says darkly.

The jeweler returns to his inspection of the Egg. After several minutes, he nods his head sagely. "This is the work of Jason Candlegold," he declares, setting the Egg back onto its holder. "He's got a shop in the Crafter's Quarter. Does a lot of costume jewelry and the ilk." The poodle gives another of his disdainful sniffs.

Aaron writes down the name and information, and asks, "Do you think he would knowingly engage in a fraud like this – or having not even known about the original?"

"One can never tell with that sort," Dysforu replies, looking contemptuous. "But if you mean 'could he have created this counterfeit by mistake, without knowing about the original?' then phah, not a chance! A poor copy it is, yes, but definitely a copy. Coincidence did not guide his hand."

"Would he have needed to see the original, or could he have come by your gallery and seen the paintings?" Aaron asks.

The poodle does not even glance at the fake before answering, "This could be done from the paintings. It would be easier done from the original, of course, but with careful study the paintings would do."

Aaron rubs his cheek, and suggests, "I suppose if we brought it to him, under the pretense of having the bare-spot fixed, we'd be able to find out."

The Inspector squints at the rabbit as he makes the suggestion, then laughs suddenly. "Ha! Bring a counterfeit to the maker for repairs! I like it!"

The Lapi does his best not to jump at the sudden laughter. Humans can be so loud.