The Case of the Starry Night

by Bad Horse

2. Three tickets to a crime

Luna's Starry Night, the object of our journey, was on loan from the National Gallery to the Fillydelphia Museum of Art. It had been considered a major work before the Moon Princess' return, and this event made it an even greater object of interest – and of controversy. The quality of the painting was no longer in dispute. It depicts a serene Princess Luna ordering the moon and stars over a small town on a dark night, from a hillside above it. When I say "stars" and "dark night", however, I give a false impression. The night is certainly dark, yet most of the individual brush strokes contributing to it are from a blue-green palette that could be used for the deep sky of an autumn day. The stars each glow like small, far-off suns, and the night sky is full of bright white stripes that somehow add motion rather than light to the scene, painting the wind.

What was still disputed were the questions surrounding its origins. The artist, Vincent Van Neigh, was generally considered a post-impressionist; but he had had many personal associations with the even more-disreputable late Lunatics, a group of emotionally-labile individuals who felt that the romantics had not been excessive enough in their art or their lives. They connected the ancient Hipponian gods Apollo and Dionysus with Celestia and Luna. Nightmare Moon, they said, was no aberration, but represented Luna's true nature as the mad creative spirit of the artist, while Celestia was the rational interpreter and imposer of order, always refining, always restraining, and always smothering something in the process. Equestria's art lacked passion, they said, since the exile of Nightmare Moon. It was said that they prayed for her inspiration, and for her return. All of the few paintings of Luna in the century before her return could be traced to their influence. The Starry Night was the only one of these that had risen above the level of a statement in politics or artistic theory, to that of Art. It was rumored that the painting was a favorite of Luna herself, though as usual, the Sisters said nothing publicly one way or the other.

Van Neigh himself, more intensely spiritual than political, never called for Luna's return. But he did go mad. Eventually, he shot himself in a field not long after cutting off his own ear as a gift for, appropriately enough, a "mare of the night". These events contributed to the suspicion that he was a closet Lunatic. There were many who thus held that the painting portrayed a wicked distortion of the Night Princess and so was an abomination. There were others, not so vocal nowadays, who held that the painting portrayed the true nature of the Night Princess and so was an abomination. While no curator likes to contemplate the theft of a painting, all were conscious that were it to arrive on the black market, there would be as many buyers who wished to destroy it as to collect it. The museum had a tip that an attempt would be made on the painting in Fillydelphia; its board, in addition to notifying the local police, had engaged Holmes to look into the matter.

We arrived shortly at the museum, which was closed, and were let in by a guard at the staff entrance, who was expecting us. We stood in a long, tall hallway just inside the vestibule, replete with fountains, Hipponian statuary, and a bit of greenery, and waited for Mr. F., the head curator. When he arrived, he proved to be a rotund black unicorn with enormous round spectacles and a nervous energy in his speech and action. His cutie-mark, oddly, was a pair of scales.

"Private detectives," he muttered, as if to himself. "Not sure what I think of that. Highly recommended, though. And it is convenient that you have no legal authority whatsoever." He did not seem to notice Holmes' bare flank.

"We aim to please," Holmes said with an ingratiating smile. "Although my companion, Doctor Watson, is not a detective."

"Art historian?" Mr. F. asked, leaning closer to inspect me.

"I am a doctor of medicine," I replied.

Seeing the curator's puzzled reaction, Holmes added, "His chief qualification in this matter is that he is the only pony in Equestria with the patience to tolerate me for long intervals. Come, sir; the painting."

Mr. F. led us out the other end of the entrance hall, and through a series of galleries, all with plain walls painted a single color chosen so as to best offset the paintings on display in that room. We were slowed by Holmes' frequent pauses and exclamations of delight in front of one painting or another, none of which I recognized, but which the curator, judging by the proud smile he flashed in response, approved of. We were also slowed because the curator kept bumping into the stanchions set up to direct patrons this way or that, knocking them over with a tremendous clatter as their brass heads bounced off the marble floor. After the third such occasion, I said, "I fear your opthamologist has provided you the wrong prescription, sir."

"On the contrary," Holmes said, before the curator could respond. "He is most skilled to do such unusual custom work. I am glad he could prevent your astigmatism from interfering with your career."

"She," the curator replied, slightly flustered. "Yes. Tried several before I found one who could produce lenses that focused uniformly at two feet, four inches. Optimal distance for studying a painting. Here we are."

We had arrived in a gallery at the very end of the east wing, with several lesser Van Neighs on the left and right walls, as well as signs giving details of his life and the inevitable story of the ear. The painting itself was on the far wall, protected from accidental contact by a more solid traffic barrier which even Mr. F. could not easily knock down.

"Really ought to have it behind glass," Mr. F. said guiltily, "but I couldn't bring myself to do it."

I could see why. Luna's Starry Night, seen in person, is a conclusive argument for the value of museums even in an age of color prints. I had not been overly impressed by the reproductions I had seen of it, and my low expectations no doubt made the thing itself even more stunning. It was painted – constructed, I should say – from layer upon layer of thick oil-paint brush-strokes, so that it was scarcely a painting at all, but a three-dimensional sculpture, with a glossy shine that prints completely fail to capture, and which produced bright reflective lines that danced madly if one so much as drew breath as one stood before it. It was hard to dispell the illusion of movement, nor did I want to.

"Will there be a guard in this room tonight," Holmes inquired, "between the hours of, oh, seven and eight?"

Mr. F. pursed his lips. "We have three night guards, and at least twenty-three other paintings on a par with the Starry Night. If you have this alleged thief-to-be's timetable, Mr. Holmes, perhaps you could provide a name and address as well?"

"I have hopes, Mr. F., but at present it would be premature. If my conjectures are right, a guard would be of little use in any case, other than to establish the time of theft. I expect magic will be involved."

Mr. F. whinnied a bit derisively. "Then you are off the mark, Mr. Holmes. The entire east wing of the museum is enclosed in a drag field cast by the Arch-mage herself."

"Lately?" Holmes asked.

Mr. F. frowned. "No. Two years ago. Does it matter?"

"Possibly," Holmes said. "Two years is plenty of time for a clever pony to probe and test it. I assume that our hypothetical thief has a more accurate estimation of both its strengths and her abilities than do I. Therefore, I defer to her judgement that it will not suffice, as indicated by her presence here tonight." The curator whirled around in alarm to look behind him, knocking over another stanchion with a clang. "In Fillydelphia," Holmes clarified. "I assume one of your guards is a unicorn, trained to monitor any unexpected magical fields?"

"Of course," Mr. F. replied.

Holmes pulled a sheet of paper from his saddlebag with his teeth and held it out to the curator, who took it up in a glow of darkly-shaded magic.

"And these magical fields are expected?" Holmes asked.

Mr. F. held the paper out in front of him, no doubt at a distance of two feet four inches, and studied it. "Yes," he nodded after a moment. "Signed the permit myself. Did her first show last night. A minor entertainer, Mr. Holmes, nothing more."

"She seems to disagree," Holmes said. "I intend to observe in any case. At the worst, she should at least provide a pleasurable diversion. Would you care to join Dr. Watson and myself? It is nearly seven, and the cafe is only a few steps away."

Mr. F. seemed at first to fear this invitation might represent some insult to his dignity. But Holmes' friendly and sincere smile – a sincerity I have seen him practice in the mirror many times – won him over, and he gave a boyish grin and acceded with a nod.

I inspected the paper which the curator was still suspending in the air. It was a black-and-white flyer for an event that evening in the museum's adjoining cafe, printed entirely in capitals, with a drawing in the center of a unicorn with a bad cowlick, a tall, pointy wizard's hat that could have been stolen from the props of a second-rate drama troupe, and a smirk that was more contemptuous than inviting. It read,