Twilight Sparkle: Consulting Detective

Twilight Sparkle: Consulting Detective

Case: The Invisible Thief

Part I

“Is there anything else you can tell us, ma’am?”

“I don’t think so. They broke in, took my bits, and vanished!”

“Alright. Well, if you remember anything else, please let us know.”

Close Patrol was not having a very good day. He’d woken up with a headache, for starters. He’d then decided to make a cup of tea to soothe his throbbing cranium, only for the phone to ring, startling him and making him drop his favourite cup on the floor. He’d briefly considered just letting it ring, but decided that, because of the nature of his job as a policepony, it might be important.

Unfortunately, it was. The police station had called to inform him that there had been a theft in a small town called “Ponyville”. What a ridiculous name, he thought to himself. Who comes up with this stuff?

Anyway, the intriguing thing was that the burglar hadn’t broken in through any windows or doors, and when Ms. Milten, the victim of the robbery, woke up to a loud noise upstairs, the culprit was nowhere to be found, and the alarm on the windows hadn’t gone off. It was as if they had just teleported away—which was completely impossible, of course. Only the princess herself and a few select ponies she chose to share the knowledge with knew the spell and had the ability to teleport.

Things got even stranger when taking the curfew spell into account. A month ago, another burglary had taken place in Ponyville, very similar to this one. Bits were stolen, and the thief seemed to vanish into thin air. The town’s Mayor decided to place a curfew in effect, and the spell for it was cast by none other than Princess Celestia’s student herself. If anypony went out past 11 o’clock at night, she and the Mayor would know about it. However, no ponies were recorded being outside last night, and none of the neighbours had heard so much as a peep coming from Ms. Milten’s house.

Close Patrol rubbed his temples as he walked away, wondering how he had managed to get himself a Cutie Mark in investigation. He wasn’t even good at it! Of the thirty cases he’d received in the past year, he’d only managed to solve ten—and those were mostly committed by teenagers out doing whatever it is teenagers do.

He approached his best friend, Steel Sleuth, who was waiting for him to finish talking to Ms. Milten. The two had met five years ago at the Cadet Training Centre for Aspiring Policeponies, and they’d hit it off immediately. They made good friends because they balanced each other out. Close Patrol was usually the pessimistic one, but he also asked the harder questions that would have never occurred to most ponies. Steel Sleuth was more of an idealist, and he was always the one who got Close Patrol through the times when he’d lost all hope for a case.

“Did she remember anything else?” Steel Sleuth asked him, optimism evident in his eyes.

“Nada. Look’s like we’ve got a professional on our hands here.” Close Patrol replied.

“Drat. I was hoping we could be done before nightfall.”

“Looks like things are never that simple for us. We get all the hard cases. Why can’t they send ponies who are actually competent in investigation to do this sort of thing?”

“Hey, you were the one who signed up for the job,” Steel Sleuth pointed out.

“And I regret it every day.” He sighed loudly, wishing he could just go home and make another cup of tea.

They walked in silence for the next few minutes, contemplating their current predicament.

“Hey, maybe we could visit Twilight Sparkle. See if she could help us.”

“We already know that nopony broke curfew last night.”

“No, I mean work with us on the investigation.”

Close Patrol raised his eyebrows. “How could she help? I mean, she’s the princess’s student and all, but this is an official police investigation.”

“Oh, well… she used to read quite a few mystery novels back at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. She even went around solving little conundrums that happened around the palace, like where one of the kitchen chefs was when she didn’t report for work one day. Turns out she was making out with her coltfriend in the supplies room. Boy, that was awkward.”

Close Patrol ignored that last part in an attempt to avoid yet another story that Steel Sleuth would drag on about for ten minutes before finally getting to the point. “So she played detective every now and then. Big deal. I still don’t see how she could help more than us professionals.”

“Are we professionals actually getting anywhere with this case?” Steel Sleuth asked, raising his eyebrows.

Close Patol furrowed his brow in thought. “Well… I suppose we could pop over and let her know what we’ve found. See what she makes of it.”

Twilight Sparkle was, as per usual on a Friday, reorganizing the library. She wasn’t quite sure how half of her books kept ending up in random places when hardly any ponies visited the library—though she supposed it might have something to do with Rainbow Dash’s frequent crashes into the tree.

“Spike!” she called out, hoping the dragon wasn’t taking another one of his 8-hour bubble baths upstairs.

“Yeesh, Twilight! I’m right here!” Spike said, standing just to the left of the ladder she was balanced on.

“Oh. Heh, sorry,” Twilight said sheepishly. “Did we get any of those new archaeology textbooks in this morning?”

“Yeah, they’re right here.” Spike gestured to the massive stack of books to the right of him. “Remind me again why we need so many of them?”

“Cheerilee sometimes picks up books for her classes here. The school board is running a bit low on budget at the moment,” Twilight explained.

“They wouldn’t be if they hadn’t just invested in that massive cafeteria,” Spike grumbled.

“Spike, some ponies don’t have time to make lunches for their foals in the morning. This new cafeteria is a great way to make their lives easier and make back the money they invested at the same time.”

“Whatever. I still think it’s a waste of money.”

“Says the dragon who makes all of his own food.”

Spike just stuck his tongue out.

There was a knock at the door, nearly causing Twilight to fall off of her ladder.

“Spike, could you get that?”

“Sure thing, boss!” Spike saluted and ran to the door.

The first thing he noticed when he opened the door was a police badge on a slightly scary-looking grey pony, who was talking to a reddish-brown pony behind him. Spike started to sweat a little bit, imagining all of the possible reasons policeponies could have for visiting his home.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Yes, in fact. Is Twilight Sparkle around? We need to talk to her about some police business.”

“Sure. I’ll go get her.” Spike dashed over to where Twilight was standing precariously on her ladder.

“Twilight… you haven’t been doing any, uh, potentially dangerous experiments lately, have you?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

“Phew!” Spike wiped the sweat off his brow. “It’s just that there are some ponies from the police here to see you, and I suppose my imagination got the better of me...”

Twilight ruffled his spikes, chuckling at his antics. “Don’t worry; I’ll let you know in advance if I ever decide to start dissecting ponies or anything like that,” she said as she trotted over to the door.

“Great! Uh, but you won’t do that, right?” Spike called as Twilight started walking away. “Right…?”

Still giggling a little bit, Twilight approached the officer and asked, “How can I help you?”

“You were the filly who went around solving mysteries in the castle a while ago, correct?”

Twilight raised a hoof to her jaw in thought. “Oh, that’s right! I remember I used to do that.” She laughed at the fond memory.

“Well, we were hoping you could lend us a hoof with a case we’re investigating right now. Can we come in so we can tell you all the details?”

“Well, I’m not sure if I would be much help, but okay. I’ll make some tea.”

“Yes!” the grey pony exclaimed in a hushed whisper.

Twilight frowned at this unusual remark.

“Er…don’t mind him. He hasn’t had his morning cup yet,” the other officer explained.

“Ah, okay. I understand; I need mine in the morning as well. I’m always cranky without it.” She stepped aside and let them them in.

A few minutes later, they were all gathered in the sitting room.

“So, here’s what we know...”

Twilight sat and pondered what she was told for a while. She’d played detective as a filly, true, but in addition to the fact that it had been years since she had so much as picked up a magnifying glass, the only cases she’d investigated were ones that nopony really else cared enough to look into. She felt somewhat lost.

There must have been something else—some little piece of evidence that would cause everything to slide into place. Burglar breaks in unnoticed, burglar steals bits, burglar makes a noise, victim investigates but finds nopony there, burglar somehow exits the scene without triggering the curfew.

Unless the burglar didn’t leave Ms. Milten’s house.

“How long after the crime took place did you arrive at the scene?” she asked.

“The boys at the station are a nightmare at organization,” Steel Sleuth explained. “It must have been at least fifteen minutes before the first officer arrived at the scene. We got there about an hour later.”

“And when you got there, you searched the entire house, top to bottom?”

“Yes,” Close Patrol interjected. “Every single inch. There’s absolutely no way the thief was still there when we arrived.”

So, that made fifteen minutes where the thief’s whereabouts were completely unknown. He clearly left after he made the noise and before the police arrived. But how could he have gotten out without setting off the curfew spell? He must have known about it, given the fact that he either knew enough to avoid going outside, or enough to somehow circumvent the spell.

No, Twilight thought, I spent a week perfecting that spell, and the princess herself tested it. There’s no way he managed to go outside with the spell in effect without setting it off.

“I need to examine the scene,” she announced. This case wasn’t going to go anywhere without more facts.

By the time they arrived at Ms. Milton’s house, a small crowd had gathered outside of the area the police had closed off. Evidently, news of the break-in had spread.

“Do they know who did it?”

“Why would somepony do this?”

“I heard it was an expert thief.”

“Expert thief? This is Ponyville. They wouldn’t waste their time here.”

“Are our homes safe?”

“What if we have cloud homes? Do they know if it’s a pegasus?”

“Don’t be stupid. This was clearly a unicorn.”

Twilight rolled her eyes at the sort of idle gossip that tended to be so common in small towns. They had rumours of this sort in Canterlot, too, but it was more of a topic that you might bring up when you had nothing else to talk about. Ponies in the big city were usually all about business.

They stopped walking outside the entrance to the house. The other policeponies were chatting idly, mostly complaining about how they wished the crowd would clear and the investigators would finish their investigating so they could go home and proceed to do nothing for the rest of the day.

“I’d like to speak to Ms. Milton first,” Twilight said.

“She’s probably still inside. Let’s go,” Close Patrol said.

They walked inside. The walls were a striking burgundy, and were completely covered in pictures. There were three doors, each of them on their own individual wall, and a staircase leading towards the basement. That wasn’t what caught Twilight’s eye, however—instead, she immediately looked to the abundance of furniture everywhere in the main hallway. There were chairs, desks, a cabinet, and even a bed just sitting right outside the leftmost door.

Jotting this down in her mental notepad, she followed Close Patrol and Steel Sleuth down to the basement.

Ms. Milton, a fairly old mare with a grey coat and silver mane, was sitting on the couch situated at the end of the room. She appeared to be counting a small pile of bits on the table in front of the couch.

“Ms. Milton?” Steel Sleuth announced. “This mare”—he gestured to Twilight—”is here to help us with the investigation. Her name is Twilight Sparkle, but you might know her as Celestia’s student.”

“Oh, yes,” Ms. Milton said, looking up from her remaining bits. “I heard about you moving in a few months ago. Are you going to find the pony whole stole from me?”

“I’ll certainly do my best,” Twilight said with a smile. “Is it okay if I ask you a few questions?”

“Absolutely.” Ms. Milton leaned back into a more comfortable position, evidently expecting another long conversation like the one she had with the police a few hours ago.

“Where were you on the night of February twenty-third?” Pinkie Pie asked with narrowed eyes, popping out from behind a small potted plant in the corner.

Everypony in the room but Twilight looked startled, their jaws hanging open slightly.

“How did she—” Close Patrol started.

Twilight cut him off. “Don’t ask. Pinkie, what are you doing here? And why are you wearing a deerstalker?”

“Oh, well that’s simple! I heard about the break-in from a friend of mine—because I have lots of friends—and I thought, ‘Hey, I’m pretty good at solving mysteries! I even have my own hat and everything!’ The hat is half the job, you know. I can feel it increasing my powers of deduction just by wearing it! Anyway, I think I’ve figured it out.”

“Really?” Twilight asked, unconvinced.

“Yeah! Ms. Milton here—or should I call you Ms. Stealsalot?—stole her own bits and made it look someone else did it!”

Twilight resisted the urge to slap her hoof to her face. “Pinkie, that doesn’t even make sense. Why would she steal from herself?”

“Why do horses fall asleep while standing?”

“What does that even—”

“Because they’re bored, obviously! Haven’t you ever gotten bored and stolen from yourself? I do it all the time! Well, Pinkamena does, anyway. She hides things from me so I don’t know where they are!”

“That’s called forgetfulness, Pinkie.”

“Exactly! And who’s more forgetful than an old mare? No offence,” Pinkie added, looking at Ms. Milton.

“None taken,” Ms. Milton said.

Sometimes Twilight wondered if Pinkie Pie’s “special powers” included being able to manipulate gravity. Her hoof seemed to be gravitating towards her face an awful lot lately.

Close Patrol seemed to have regained the use of his mouth. “Pinkie Pie, was it?” he asked.

The pink mare nodded in affirmative.

“I don’t even know how you got in here, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. This area is closed off to the public until we have all the information we need.”

“Aw! And I was just getting into it, too! Oh well.” Pinkie skipped over towards the door. “Oh, I almost forgot!” She took the deerstalker off her head and placed it on Twilight’s.

“There! Now you look like a real detective!” Pinkie beamed.

“Uh, thanks?”

“See ya!” Pinkie continued her skipping out of the house.

Everypony in the room stayed silent for a few seconds after that.

“Do I even want to know?” Steel Sleuth finally said.

“Nope,” Twilight replied. “Anyway, Ms. Milton, let’s proceed with the questions. First of all, why is there furniture scattered around in your main hall?”

“For the past few days, the ceiling in my bedroom has been leaking. I’ve had to move everything out to keep it from getting wet. I’ve been sleeping down here since last night.”

“I see,” Twilight said, once again jotting this down in her mental notepad. “Where do you keep your bits?”

“In a locked drawer in my cabinet, which is normally in my bedroom, but because of the leaking roof, it’s currently in the main hall.”

“And where do you keep the key to that drawer?”

“Since last night, in this room. I’d prefer not to say exactly where, but I checked for it this morning, and it was still there.”

“Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to steal from you?”

Ms. Milton paused for a moment. “I don’t think so. I got divorced from my husband, but that was five years ago.”

“Have you seen him recently?”

“Not since he moved to Manehattan about two years ago.”

“Well, I think that’s everything.” Twilight turned to the officers behind her. “Let’s go back upstairs.”

After they walked up the stairs to the main hall, Twilight examined the cabinet with renewed interest. Of the four drawers, the lowest one was the only one with a keyhole. There were a few thin scratch marks around it, but other than that, it appeared to be in perfect condition.

Twilight opened the drawer. There was nothing left inside, as expected. Judging by the dust on the sides (and lack of it on the bottom), it looked like it was normally half-full, which would have been about four hundred bits. Quite a substantial amount to keep in a house, but for an old mare like Ms. Milton, she supposed it must have been more convenient than going to the bank every few weeks.

They walked into the bedroom last. There was nothing inside but a window just barely large enough for a pony to fit through. But that would be impossible, Twilight reminded herself. The curfew spell would have gone off. How does a pony leave a house without really leaving it?

That stumped her. Just as she was about to begin one of her long thinking sessions, however, she noticed something outside the window.

“Let’s take a closer look at that,” Twilight said, pointing to the object outside.

Her companions nodded and escorted her outside.

“Hey Close, are you getting that lucky feeling of yours with this case?” an orange policepony asked.

“Nah. Dead end so far,” he answered.

“Shoot. Those ones are always the quick ones.”

“I’ll let you know if we make any progress,” he assured the other pony as he, Steel Sleuth, and Twilight began to walk to the side of the house.

“Lucky feeling?” Twilight asked.

“It’s a long story,” Steel Sleuth laughed. “Let’s just say it involves a gopher, two pints of ale, and an umbrella. I’m still not completely convinced of the result.”

“Hey, you have to trust the feeling.” Close Patrol grinned.

“Fair enough,” Steel Sleuth agreed. “Whenever Close gets one of his feelings, you can guarantee the case will be solved within an hour,” he explained to Twilight.

They made their way to just outside the bedroom window. There they found a large cardboard box with four opening flaps exposed upwards.

“Probably got dropped by that clumsy mare on the mail team,” Steel Sleuth guessed.

“Maybe.” Twilight got a closer look and opened the box. Inside there was a jumble of hoofprints, though only on the bottom. There was also a small mirror placed diagonally against the side of the box, angled towards the sky. The flap nearest the window had a small tear in the edge, and the side opposite that flap had a small dent in it. Raising the flap up to look on its underside, she noticed tape residue near the middle of its edge. Repeating this process for the other flaps, she confirmed that there was residue of the same sort on them as well.

“Well, while you two are busy looking at boxes,” Close Patrol said, “I’m going to go get a cup of coffee.”

“I’ll go with you,” Twilight said. “Coffee helps me think.”

“Maybe we can finally figure out a new lead on this case,” Steel Sleuth offered.

The three headed off to Sugarcube Corner to get their coffee.