The Case of the Starry Night

by Bad Horse

9. The missing piece

As we trotted back to our hotel, I brought up the question of why Holmes had bothered with the smoke, rather than going immediately to Trixie's improvised dressing room. He explained that he had done so, but on seeing the large box that presumably contained the painting, realized he could not remove that without a more thorough distraction.

"Why did you not go to the police, or to the museum guards?" I asked. He merely shrugged.

"I fail to understand you, Holmes," I went on. "One minute you wish to spare Trixie from the police, the next you want me to hit her on the head. I could almost imagine you were suffering some emotional conflict concerning her."

He scowled irritably. "What I am suffering from, Watson, is a friend with an overactive imagination."

"You did say she was a beautiful mare," I pointed out.

"Merely a statement of fact pertinent to the discussion."

"I believe you also called her a fox."

"A common hunting analogy! Really, Watson, I expect better from you."

We came to Chew Street, and down it to our left, I could see the stone stairway up to the local police station illuminated by the yellow light of four tall gas lamps. "Surely," I said, "you should at least inform the local police of your suspicions, and have them stake out the hotel where Trixie is staying, to see where she is keeping that box and where she takes it."

Holmes whinnied in amusement as he continued across the street. "If you imagine that Fillydelphia's Finest can tail a mare who can mesmerize her observers and vanish into thin air, your estimation of them is high indeed. No, Watson, only logic can lead us to the box, using the clues Trixie has once again kindly left for us."

"Clues?"

"First," he said, "she has a show tomorrow evening, in Pranceton, at eight o'clock."

"How on earth did you deduce that!" I cried.

Holmes gave me an exasperated look. "It was written on the flyers she gave out at today's performance. Second. To travel from here to Pranceton on hoof takes over a day; she will therefore take the train. Third, she has a meeting tomorrow, with some potential buyer of the painting; as business meetings rarely take place after nine in the evening – though one can never be sure with showponies or black market collectors – it must take place before the show, somewhere between here and Pranceton, accessible by rail. Fourth, she specified tea, but not breakfast or lunch. Fifth, it will possibly involve flowers. I have dabbled some in botany myself, Watson, and I think it is likely that her tea with this amateur botanist will take place in the Royal Botanical Gardens, which are the third stop on the line to Pranceton. This must occur within a narrow window of time determined by her show time and by the train schedule. We shall check the schedule and arrive before her. Also, it may interest you to know that I have deduced the method by which she performed the theft."

"Is that what that 'of course' was about?"

"Indeed. Did you observe the wooden balls in her hotel suite?"

"Of course I did. She did her teleportation-juggling trick with one. I assume they were props for the show."

"In other words, you did not observe them. They were far too humble for Trixie to admit them to her show. Everything she used was of polished brass, or ebony, or some such ostentatious material. These were for practice. The most basic practice for a magician, the equivalent of playing scales for a musician, is juggling by levitation, to practice switching magical focus rapidly between many objects. Those balls say much about her."

"All they say to me is that she is a magician, which I already knew."

"Think, Watson! She was here for two nights only, yet she troubled to bring her practice balls. Most ponies would leave them at home and think nothing of missing a few days of a boring exercise while on the road. That she brought them shows she enforces a rigorous practice routine on herself, and allows no exceptions. Additionally, the balls were worn smooth. Have you any idea how long it takes to wear down wood that way by levitation alone?"

"None whatsoever," I admitted.

"Years, Watson. Many years. She must have had those balls as a filly."

I imagined the Great and Powerful Trixie returning to her empty room after the dismal performance we had just seen, and after many others like it, to sit alone and stare at those simple wooden balls, faithfully cycling them through their prescribed orbits.

"The missing puzzle piece was Trixie's observation that it is easier to teleport an object to a location it has recently been. Combine that, Watson, with the principle that two objects are magically interchangeable to the degree that they are similar. They are both consequences of the same underlying principle, that magic requires energy proportional to the change it imposes on the world. In the case of the former, this change is limited to a short span of time; in the latter, to the details by which items differ."

I confessed that these two pieces of information did not immediately interlock in my mind.

"I shall explain tomorrow. Get a good night's sleep, Watson; we must rise early."

I did not get a good night's sleep. I kept harking back to our conversation with Trixie. The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that Holmes had been deliberately trying to offend her with blunt statements, that it charmed him when she did not take offense, and that every time this happened, it made him more determined to drive her away. This puzzle, not thoughts of paintings or pistols, kept me awake much of that night.

Comments

[Bad Horse]

Huh. This story just showed up in the featured box for the first time. I'm thrilled, but mystified. I just posted a chapter, but nobody's viewed it since I posted the chapter update, and the story isn't anywhere on the "Most Popular" list.

I ain't complaining! Just curious.

...Aaaand it's gone, after 5 minutes and 6 new viewers. Sic transit gloria Malus Equus. Aha! I had 8 views of chapter 9 almost immediately after I posted it. Must have been the concentration of a few views in a short time. Either that, or appearing on the Latest Updates paged, pushed it into the featured box. Thank you, readers!

[Taxus]

This chapter makes me want to read more right away! A well done transition chapter.

[Nugt2018]

Post more updates, this story is good

[SteampunkBrony]

and I know how she did it. very clever if i am right.

[carlos_pony]

Cant wait for the next chapter.

[Causal Quill]

You still have me fascinated enough to read the next chapter instead of waiting. Oh, what teasingly short chapters they are, too.

The features box does seem to prefer time-concentrated viewership over absolute viewership. Hmm. Let me call the feature-competitiveness of a fic its "feature score". The five boxes give different scores. I do not know the details. I do know that the first three boxes discount a fic's feature score by its age, while the last two do not. When Romance Reports updated with the start of an alternate ending (and oh what a glorious alternate ending it was), it immediately exploded into the fourth slot on the features box. It was not eligible for one of the first three because the age-discount was too severe for it to overcome.

The older a story is, the harder it is to get featured in the first three slots, but the easier it is to get featured in the last two.

[YorkBrony]

This is one of the most well-written fanfics I've ever seen, I think

[TheTownCrier]

Bravo!!!

[dbanksischillin]

An idea has formed. And if she did it how i think she did then that means there will be a plothole. Hopefully i am wrong

[Themaskedferret]

The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that Holmes had been deliberately trying to offend her with blunt statements, that it charmed him when she did not take offense, and that every time this happened, it made him more determined to drive her away.

This small observation gives Holmes so much humanity and depth I found myself reading and rereading it in some sort of joyful trance.

[PresentPerfect]

This was a really fantastic piece what I just read. :)

I wanted to point out that, in this chapter, when Holmes is expounding on how he knows where Trixie is headed, his list has two "third"s when it needs a fourth and fifth. That was literally the only mistake in the entire story, so well done. :D