by blogbum
A replacement route marker vanishes from outside the Hartford Guild, and Alf — newly arrived, unassigned, and armed mainly with a notebook — decides to find out why. Ned supplies unhelpfully accurate answers, Agnes supplies opinions, and Mavis the goblin supplies motive on the grounds that paint costs money. A frayed length of cart rope and a streak of pale paint lead them through a town too busy to preserve evidence, to a market stall where the missing marker is doing duty as a bench. Nobody stole it. Alf writes down the lesson: check the boring part first.
