"Could you draw a picture of some sort? Did he have any distinguishing features?" the apprentice asked, wanting to do a thorough job... even though she wasn't sure that recovering a piece of stolen property and identifying the real hand behind the thefts extended to 'hunt down the mastermind and exact the appropriate punishment'. Unless they'd already gone ahead and delivered the vase. That would make retrieving it considerably more awkward... a mage and a mage-in-training trying to recover a magic-draining urn from somebody that had an active interest in it?