The Locked Cellar

Upon reflection, this case is rare almost to the point of uniqueness in my experience, and so interesting on that score alone. Not often is it that thieves conspire not to simply break and enter, but break, enter, and go one step further. Though the suspect in question was not actually a thief, which only serves to heap further oddity onto this mound of the bizarre.

The story truly began before I became involved. A lovely young Imperial woman, one Claudinia Alicarius, complained to the guard that she could no longer enter her own cellar. It seemed that the door had somehow become locked, and her key, normally placed atop a desk in her bedroom, was missing. Theft was not suspected, for Claudinia had little of value in the cellar. The guards merely searched the area outside her domicile, and did a small, brief search of the interior of her house (as not to be unduly intrusive), more or less to pacify a pretty young woman into believing they had done an adequate job.

The key was not found. The more senior of the guard, further trying to impress Claudinia, pointed her in the direction of a reliable locksmith. The locksmith in question was an honest, hardworking Khajiit named Jotherra. Upon receiving the request, Jotherra had shortly produced a new key for Claudinia. All seemed normal, until less than a week later, the duplicated key also disappeared, apparently from the selfsame desk the original had been placed upon. The grounds were searched a second time, and neither did they yield favorable results, as was feared. The services of Jotherra were again called upon, and some wondered after Claudinia. Was she just an unreliable girl, pretty to behold, but something of a lackwit? The third such occurrence seemed to cement the image of the beautiful-but-absentminded girl in the minds of the townspeople.

On the time of the fourth occurrence, the guards did little more than strut and pose on her property, for they were beginning to think she called them over with such frequency for the sole purpose of garnering their manly attentions. As such was not the case, she did not report the fifth, sixth, or seventh occurrences to the guard, opting instead to deal with the matter privately. Jotherra felt badly for Claudinia, for having dealt with her so often, he had begun to reckon her more of a friend than a sadly beleaguered regular customer.

And so Jotherra saw fit to contact me. If you are unfamiliar with my personage, my name is Fuchon Cire, a Breton of some small note in trifles such as these. As it happens, Jotherra was a good friend of mine, and his insistence that Claudinia was the victim of some obscure crime piqued my interest. As my Khajiiti friend described it to me, though the cellar key was always stolen (for he had no doubt that such was the case), nothing ever seemed to be missing from it when it was finally unlocked again, and indeed, some small amount of gold was left behind to cover the cost of duplicating the key. And if the key were not stolen in the furtherance of theft, what other purpose for the crime was there?

But as I puzzled the matter through in my mind, I realized that I was getting far too ahead of myself. Motives could best be determined after a suspect had been identified, or better yet, the guilty party be caught red-handed. Not being one to settle for speculation, I was determined to leave no dispute as to the identity of the key thief. In this, I must admit, the appearance of the young lady played no small role; though I am embarrassed to admit it, I was of the mind of taking the course that would most impress Claudinia with my prowess was the ideal one to take. Embarrassing, for it places me in more or less the same company with the guards.

At any rate, I formulated a plan that would allow me to do just as I hoped. Under cover of darkness, I stealthily climbed up to the roof of Claudinia's house, and hid there silently throughout the day. Claudinia left the most recent duplicate key in its old familiar spot, as I had previously explained to her that my plan required said familiarity. From atop the roof, however, I could not see the door of the house, and thus could not note the identity of anyone who exited or entered illegally without giving away my position to such persons.

Instead of using my eyes, which would necessarily mean that whomever I would note could also possibly note me, I used my mastery of mystical arts. As Claudinia left to go about her usual day's work, I cast a long-lasting spell that allows one to detect keys. Being of such duration, the spell was limited in scope, but being atop the roof it was exactly what the situation called for.

Minutes ticked by, and I waited patiently. I knew my quarry could hardly be expected to resist the prospect of a shiny new key for any length of time. Shortly, my expectations were realized, for I sensed that the key was on the move! I wandered to the edge of the roof, and bestrode it's peak in anticipation to leap upon the criminal with the full impact of my weight.

I saw a helmeted head walk boldly out into the street, and fell upon it with both feet. I had caught him totally unawares, and the key leapt out of his hand. Nimble as I am, I was able to retrieve it with ease whilst burying a knee into the thief's curiously armored back. Not that the thief was wearing an odd sort of armor, you understand, but it was curious in that the thief was wearing any sort of armor. The man let out a quick, surprised yelp, then threw me off his back with a powerful arm.

As I made my landing, I drew my emergency weapon, a glass jinkblade, for surely with the sort of armor he was wearing, and my lack of same, I did not entertain the notion of a fight. Much better to stun the man, and let the guards sort him out. Imagine my surprise, then, when I finally got a good look at him, and saw that he was a guard himself! I immediately took stock of the situation: I had a blade drawn, a stolen key in hand, and was confronting a guard. Other guards could hardly fail to be unsympathetic to my cause (and with them on the scene, I would surely be sunk), and all this one had to do was either kill me outright, or kill me once in custody to silence me.

But to my happy surprise, the fellow did not draw his own weapon, nor did he immediately shout to other guards. Instead, he sighed, and offered a most extraordinary explanation. He offered, but I declined to hear it. Though I was very curious as to his motives, it was not an explanation that was meant for me; after all, it was not my key he had stolen. Should any explanation be forthcoming, it was Claudinia's ears that should be doing the hearing.

And so I detained the man inside the house until the evening, when Claudinia returned home. I cannot describe the look on her radiant face when she saw what I took for a rather old, otherwise nondescript guard. She dropped a basket of Kwama eggs (which I was quick to catch before it hit the floor), ran over to the man, and hugged him, tears streaming down her cheeks. The guard just stood stiffly, looking the picture of uncomfortability. Claudinia did not seem to notice the shameful look he bore.

As it turned out, the elderly guard was Claudinia's father. As the story goes, the Alicarius family was journeying to Hammerfell by ship, when a vicious storm at sea sunk the vessel. Though Claudinia and her father both survived (her mother, three brothers, and sister sadly did not), they were rescued by different vessels, and each assumed the other dead. Mathus, her father, joined the Imperial Legion with a death wish in mind. After losing his family, life held little meaning for the man, and so he often took grave, unnecessary risks. While highly regarded by his fellows (who soon became his subordinates), he could not get past his failure to protect those closest to him.

Years passed, and a certain member of the Blades who counted Mathus among his friends acquired a ship's journal from a raided pirate vessel. The log contained a very exacting account of a certain survivor of a certain wreck, and, knowing the import of the document, saw fit to put it in Mathus's hands. Mathus, of course, was overwhelmed. He dedicated the next few years to tracking down the various leads that eventually led him to his daughter. Once he knew where she resided, he immediately put in for a transfer.

But he was horribly burdened by his sense of responsibility for the tragedy that befallen his family. Finally seeing Claudinia for the first time in years, he could not bear to allow her fair ears to hear his unworthy apologies. He was, he thought, a worthless man who had already failed her in the deepest way possible. Because he did not talk to her immediately, his self-loathing grew; he thought himself a coward on top of everything else.

He had stolen the keys so that he could sneak into the cellar at night, and be close to his beloved daughter. To his way of thinking, it was as close as such a loathsome creature as himself should get to her. He locked the door again behind him so that no one would intrude on his very private misery.

In the end, Claudinia did not blame him for the accident, as any sensible person would not. She also had a difficult time grasping her father's sense of profound failure. But ultimately, both were simply grateful to be truly reunited. And even though all I did was track down some stolen keys for her, part of me hoped that I succeeded in leaving a good impression.