The Clandestine Clydesdale Case Files: The Heist of Harmony

by The Glass

Scene

The Promenade of Glass Memories, or the Promenade of Harmony, was a beautiful sight. It had been part of the castle since its early days as a monastery for the Order of Harmony, and bore witness to great events since the founding of Olde Equestria. At the beginning was the most masterful and oldest of the lot, an original work, depicting the founding of prosperous Olde Equestria by the great King. Next, in dark shades, came the departure of the King to lands unknown, and the subsequent schism of Olde Equestria into three tribes after Regent Discord went insane and corrupt, with the bright point of the North Star symbolizing the King’s promise to one day return with riches untold. Then came the events celebrated on Hearthswarming, the formation of early Feudal Equestria. Following the timeline, the next window depicted the formation of the Elements of Harmony by Starswirl the Bearded and his Grand Council of Harmony. Then, in a series of three windows, was portrayed the appointment of the Princesses Celestia and Luna by Starswirl with the Elements, the defeat of Discord and founding of Matriarchal Equestria, and the Nightmare Terror in which Luna was banished to the moon. Finally, besides more minor windows dedicated to other heroes and poets, wars and treaties, friends and enemies, there were two more recent windows depicting the defeats of Nightmare Moon and Discord by the current Bearers of Harmony. A new window had been commissioned to depict the Changeling Deception, but construction had not started yet. The most prominent feature of the Promenade, however, was the high-magic security vault at the end. This vault, which pulsed with protective magic and enchantments over its gem-studded walls, was currently absolutely devoid of the relics it was built to protect.
The Princess outlined the protective measures of the vault as we walked down the promenade. “As you know, Investigator, the security of the Harmonic Vault’s security was increased greatly after Discord waltzed right through the walls and carried off the Elements. The walls had magical barriers added, a guard was posted twenty-four seven, and the magic-pulse password was changed. The jewels are also now housed within a jewelry box that glows as long as the Elements are inside, giving easy indication of their disappearance. Furthermore, I took to checking on the Elements every day so if they were stolen, we would have an earlier notice.”
I, of course, took up inquiry. “Were any changes made to the door, or the lock itself? As I recall, the lock was a twelve-direction magic pulse-sequence, with encrypted gem-light sequence indicators. Correct?”
“Correct. The door itself was protected far beyond the walls, and so the walls were brought up to the standard set by the door. The lock was considered foolproof.”
“Who knows the combination?”
“Only myself and Luna. That is why the rumor has circulated that Luna must have stolen them.”
“Where is Luna?”
“She is visiting the Protected Community.”
I inclined my head slightly, silently prodding for more information. I had not before been entrusted with this particular royal secret, but the Chief quickly explained.
“Witnesses, innocent ponies who know too much by accident, and any others seeking royal sanctuary are sometimes sent to a secluded settlement in the Dragonscale Mountains to the west to protect them from kidnapping, assassination, and blackmail attempts.”
“Okay, so we can for the moment rule out Luna as a suspect. Is there any way a spy might have decoded the sequence from the gem-light pulses?” I continued logically.
“The only way would be if one already knew how to decrypt the pulses, and only Luna, Cadence, various servants who now live in the Protected Community, and I know the key,” continued the Princess.
“So it is remotely possible, however unlikely, with so many ponies that know it, that the key may have been leaked. Perhaps-”at this point I noticed an elderly looking wrinkled gray-blue pony next to the entrance of the vault, to the right of the door and the guards. He had a gray mane and tail, a shining doorknob cutie mark, and milky eyes indicating blindness. He had a mop, a bucket, and an expression halfway between excitement and apprehension. He was also shining the already gleaming windows almost absentmindedly. “Who is he, and what is he doing here?” I asked, nodding in the direction of the unicorn that did not fit the scene.
The Princess glanced at him, and explained: “Oh, he’s the new custodian of this wing of the castle, Doorknob Deaf. He’s blind and hard of hearing, but I never did see a janitor do a more thorough job. In fact, he’s made sort of a pet project of this wing; I see him polishing the windows in this hall whenever I come in on my daily check on the Elements. He’s always wanted to get into the vault to clean, but with the Elements inside I dared not allow him in, harmless as he is. I invited him to clean after we inspect, now that the Elements are gone.”
“Wait, none of you have inspected the chamber yet?”
“I only barely glanced in long enough to see that there was no glow from their box; I did not want to contaminate the crime scene. Then we were busy organizing the extra patrols and finally just decided to wait for you to arrive,” the Princess assured me.
I would have pursued this line of inquiry further, but we had arrived at the vault. As the Princess inserted her horn into the complicated lock and began to pulse magic through the mechanism, I questioned the guards. They were the same guards that had been on duty at the time of the heist, two unicorns of the Light Guard, and the Chief ordered them to answer my questions in full. Their story was as follows: After the Princess had checked on the vault for the day, and Custodian Deaf had finished a window and left the Promenade, they had noticed the scent of ammonia, left over from the cleaning solution used by the Custodian, grow stronger. Before they could take more than a few steps, the world began to swim before their eyes and they fell unconscious. When they awoke, nothing had changed except the passing of an hour; the vault still seemed secure. Fortunately, one of the guards was the paranoid type, and had immediately called for the Princess to check the Elements.
Before I had much time to ponder the little evidence provided by the guards, the Princess backed away from the door and , with a final flash, the door opened to reveal the inside of the vault, and I peered in, hoping for clues.

The first and most obvious thing I noticed about the small cylinder of the inside of the Vault was that it had been picked clean; so clean, in fact, that not only were the elements missing, there wasn’t a speck of dust on the gilded podium or a smudge on the shiny ebony floor and walls. My first suspicion was the eager and obsessive compulsive cleaner, Custodian Deaf, but his face revealed only shock and dismay from where he had stuck it around the corner. Besides, he was still here and hadn’t tried to escape. The Chief started to dust for prints immediately.

“Princess, why did you need custodian Deaf in here if it was so clean?” I asked

“It was caked with dust before the heist,” she answered, miffed. “At least a half-inch, and my hoof-prints from the few times I had walked in there were highly visible! I had almost forgotten that the floor was ebony.”

“So whoever stole the gems also cleaned up inside. Either Custodian Deaf got in, or an over cautious amateur committed the crime.”

“But a novice would never be able to steal from this vault!” objected Chief Cuffs.

“Not alone, but perhaps as part of a team or with academic training but no field experience. How about magic reverberations? Did anyone check when the crime was fresh?”

“I did,” said one of the guards, the paranoid one. “Only got magical static.”

“Not even reverberations of the Princess’ visits?”

“No sir. Just red and indigo dots.”

“You have standard magic-sight?” He nods. I had studied magical sights in an advanced course at the academy. The scanning unicorn uses a simple spell that projects magical afterimages as colored light on his or her sight. Standard sight means the magic type corresponds to the visible light spectrum. Most unicorns can be identified by their magic’s color, like Twilight’s light violet or Rarity’s bright blue. I turned to the other guard.

“Fetch Twilight. I need her to research something,” I ordered. I technically didn’t have authority to order even a private in the Royal Guard, so the guard looked to Chief Cuffs, who nodded to give his permission. The guard galloped off to find Twilight and the Lieutenant.
“Princess, if you would send a letter to Filthy Rich for me to request the magical spectral analysis of his missing amulet, I would be quite grateful. If he needs persuasion, mention that I may have a lead on it.” Celestia trusted me enough that she went to pen the letter directly. The Chief, the remaining guard, and I proceeded to examine the crime scene more thoroughly, including the Promenade. Doorknob Deaf slipped out mumbling about the garbage receptacles.