The Case of the Starry Night

by Bad Horse


8. The fox and the hound have tea

We soon stood in one of the less-well-lit hallways of a less-impressive hotel, whose carpet was faded and worn and smelled of mildew. The room number on the door in front of us matched that on the key.

"I fear it is a trap," I said.

"I fear more," Holmes said, "that it is not. This is not how the game is played. She is the fox, and I am the hound. There is to be no familiarity between us."

"Perhaps I should wait outside, to fetch aid in case of foul play."

"And allow me to visit a mare of questionable virtue, alone, in her hotel room, at night? You would scandalize me, Watson." Holmes rapped on the door.

The showmare answered the door with a smile that was less condescending than usual, if still a trifle predatory. "Trixie is so glad that Mr. Holmes could visit. And how... nice of him to bring Dr. Watson. Please, come inside. Make yourselves comfortable."

Her mane, which had become slightly dishevelled during her performance, had been redone. We hung our hats behind the door and stepped into her small hotel room, which was scarcely large enough to accommodate three ponies. The only way for us to stand where we could all see each other was for me to stand in the bathroom and poke my head out into the bedroom. It was either that, or stand flank-to-flank with Holmes or Trixie.

Trixie apologized that there was no kitchen. She filled three hotel cups with water from the bathroom – this involved all three of us maneuvering about the suite like a sliding-blocks puzzle – then brought them into the bedroom, where she set them on the writing desk, dropped a teabag (worse still, they were actually labelled 'tea') in each, and aimed a brief pulse of magic at each cup in turn, bringing the water to boiling almost instantly.

"Trixie apologizes for the limited choice, gentlemen. What tea does Mr. Holmes normally prefer?"

"Mr. Holmes is partial to lavender tea," Holmes said, "which Dr. Watson introduced him to." If Trixie considered his imitation of her grammatical affectation mocking, she did not show it. Holmes, meanwhile, kept casting his eyes about the room, no doubt looking for hiding places. The luggage was most likely in the closet, but there was no space large enough to hold the wooden box that he sought. On the floor beside the bed, ten wooden balls were stacked like cannonballs.

"Would Mr. Holmes like to search the suite?" Trixie asked innocently.

"That will not be necessary," Holmes said, although I could tell from his expression that he had wanted very much to search it until she uttered those words.

The awkward circumstance of our conversation was, I think, alleviated for Holmes and Trixie, and heightened for me, by the fact that neither Holmes nor Trixie had any normal sense of propriety. He complimented her trick with the balloons and observed what a valuable skill that would be for a thief. She observed that he would no doubt have hit her on the head already if he believed the painting were in this room; he assured her that he would have explored all other options first. All this was said in polite tones between sips of tea, using grammar that implied they were talking about two other ponies who were not present. Then she asked about his blank flank.

"A cutie mark," Holmes replied, "is a psychosomatic manifestation of a pony's need for a sense of identity, a purpose, a way to fit in. I neither need nor want one. I know who I am; I choose my own purposes as I please; and I would be mortified were I to 'fit in'."

I felt embarrassed for my friend at this narcissistic and anti-social profession. But it impressed Trixie greatly. Her eyes widened and shone with admiration, in that way mares' eyes sometimes do, which Holmes ordinarily finds repulsive. But it seemed, as they continued speaking, that Trixie was impressed by the right things, and not impressed by the wrong things, and this made it tolerable. They were unconsciously navigating together some maze of rules which made no sense to me. I suddenly thought that this must be how ordinary romance appeared to Holmes.

At one point Holmes pretended to notice the wooden balls for the first time. "What interesting toys you have. May I?" Without waiting for a reply, he bent over and picked one up in his mouth.

Trixie nearly jumped. "No, you may not!" She seized the ball in a blue magical field as soon as Holmes dropped it with feigned repentance on the bed, and likewise yanked a washcloth from a rack inside the bathroom. She fussed over the little ball as though it were a living thing, wiping off Holmes' spit gently, inspecting it with wide, concerned eyes as she did. It was the only sign I had yet seen that Trixie had any capacity for affection. Holmes was not impressed by this display; I saw his eyes darken.

The chatty sociability had evaporated. Nopony said anything for a while. Trixie threw the ball up in the air, and when it fell back down, instead of catching it, her horn pulsed, and it appeared again at the top of its arc, but without having slowed down, and fell again. She did this repeatedly, scarcely looking at it, as somepony else would absent-mindedly tap their hooves. The ball sped up alarmingly, until it was just a blur. I wondered how many floors beneath us it would smash through were she to miss.

"I didn't see that trick tonight," Holmes remarked.

"It is an exercise," Trixie said. "Not that the Great and Powerful Trixie needs simple exercises! She finds it soothing. It is how young unicorns first learn teleportation. Even the very young can bring the ball back to where it fell from, because the ball remembers where it has been."

"Hold on a moment," Holmes said. "Do you mean that it is easier to teleport something back to a place it has recently been?"

Trixie nodded.

"Of course!" Holmes exclaimed to himself. He spoke sharply enough that I feared Trixie would drop the ball and let it wreak its devastation on the unfortunate ponies below. She brought it gradually to a stop and replaced it on top of its stack, eyeing Holmes warily. Holmes chose that moment to tactlessly bring up the question of how much the Starry Night would fetch on the black market, and whether one, in possession of the painting and in no immediate financial need, might not be tempted to simply keep it.

"Trixie has no interest in paintings or bits," she sniffed.

"And yet, we are here," Holmes said. "So Trixie is interested in something."

Trixie fixed him with a reproving eye, as if he had uttered something unforgivably stupid. Holmes then asked about her family, which softened her a little, until she realized that he was trying to quantify their respective magical power in order to estimate its heritability. But before she could work up any degree of indignation, she was drawn into a technical discussion of the different types of magical power, the merits of different ways of measuring them, and whether they were interconvertible according to some underlying conservation principle. Their voices rose in their excitement, and all appeared to be forgiven by both parties.

"Returning to the subject of genes," Holmes said. "If we accept for a moment the unified power measurements of Maxwell, one can show that magical power is a multiple-locus trait involving at least three dozen different major loci in linkage disequilibrium with each other." He leaned slightly toward Trixie. "You must have a truly remarkable allele distribution."

I cringed, and began to suspect that Holmes was deliberately seeking ways to mortify me on his behalf. But instead of flinging a cup of boiling tea at him, Trixie positively blushed. They both seemed to be enjoying their discussion immensely. For my part, I found the topic entirely unsuitable for mixed company, and wondered at times whether the most decent thing to do in my apparent role as chaperone might not be to throw them physically together in order to stop them talking about Trixie's genes.

I had by this time given up attempting to participate in the strange conversation, and just wanted it to be done with. I am afraid that, on top of contributing nothing to the discussion besides occasional indignant looks and interjections of "Holmes!", I began to yawn.

"Poor Dr. Watson," Trixie said in a voice of concern, although one not as convincing as when it had been her wooden ball that she was concerned for. "He needs his rest."

"Nonsense," I protested. "I wouldn't dream of dragging Holmes away from you on my account."

"Trixie did not suggest that you would." She looked at Holmes innocently.

Holmes raised one eyebrow in alarm, and said nothing, considering the matter. I wondered just how far he was willing to go in order to solve this case.

"Yes," he finally said. "Dr. Watson, forgive me for keeping you up. I have a few more questions for Miss Trixie. I will join you shortly."

But his pause had been too long for Trixie. A minute ago she had been threatening to dissolve into giggles like a schoolfilly; now he had aroused her ire. She turned away from us. "Go. Both of you, go. Trixie has no more time tonight for detectives. Trixie has a show tomorrow. And... an important meeting."

"Oh?" Holmes asked. "What sort of meetings does a famous showpony such as yourself attend?"

"A private meeting," she said, "with a pony. To have tea, and discuss paintings." Holmes raised the eyebrow again. "And possibly... flowers. He is something of an amateur botanist."

"Well, then," Holmes said, "we take our leave of you, Miss Trixie. Good luck with your botanist."

"Trixie thanks you," she replied. Then, more quietly, "She will need it."