A five-minute case for a rainy evening. Everything you need is in the text, so read closely. (The picture above is mood, not evidence: the constable had the desks tidied before anyone sketched the room.)
The case
The rain had been at the windows of the Wrenfield Subscription Library since supper, a steady, patient November rain that made the green lamps look warmer than they were.
At nine o’clock precisely, Miss Odile Marsh, the librarian, locked the Map Room for the night. The Ashcombe Map, a hand-coloured chart of the old county drawn in 1742 and the library’s proudest possession, lay safe in its glass case. She hung the key on its hook, as she always did, beside the door.
At twenty to ten, she went to fetch it for a visiting scholar in the morning. The key was on its hook. The door was unlocked. The glass case was empty.
Only four readers had been in the reading room that evening, each at one of the four desks that run in a line along the windows. The desks are numbered 1 to 4, starting with desk 1 nearest the Map Room door. Each reader sat at a different desk, and each had brought a different thing with them: an umbrella, a pipe, a magnifying glass, and a fountain pen filled with green ink.
The four readers were Colonel Haverly, Mrs. Pell, Mr. Quint and Miss Dorran.
When Miss Marsh looked at the empty case more closely, she found one small, damning thing: a fresh smear of green ink on its brass catch.
The evidence
- Colonel Haverly always takes the desk farthest from the Map Room door. He says the draught from it “goes straight to his knee”.
- The pipe smoker sat at the desk directly beside the Colonel’s.
- Miss Dorran cannot bear tobacco smoke. She sat neither at the pipe smoker’s desk nor at a desk beside it.
- Mrs. Pell sat at an even-numbered desk.
- The umbrella was left dripping beneath an odd-numbered desk.
- The Colonel’s eyesight is famously poor. He never reads a word without his magnifying glass.
Your question
Who took the Ashcombe Map? For full marks, work out where all four readers sat and what each of them brought.
Take your time. Grab a pencil. A little grid (four readers down the side, four desks and four objects across the top) makes it easier. When you’re ready, open the envelope below.
· · ·
Open the sealed envelope: the solution
The thief was Mrs. Pell. Here is how the case unfolds.
- The Colonel sat farthest from the Map Room door, so he was at desk 4 (clue 1).
- The pipe smoker sat directly beside him, so the pipe was at desk 3 (clue 2).
- Miss Dorran avoided the pipe desk and both desks next to it. That rules out desks 2, 3 and 4, so Miss Dorran sat at desk 1, right beside the Map Room door (clue 3). Suspicious? Only at first glance.
- Mrs. Pell sat at an even desk. Desk 4 is the Colonel’s, so Mrs. Pell sat at desk 2 (clue 4). That leaves Mr. Quint at desk 3: he was the pipe smoker.
- The umbrella was under an odd desk. Desk 3 has the pipe, so the umbrella was at desk 1: it was Miss Dorran’s (clue 5).
- The Colonel had the magnifying glass (clue 6). The only thing left is the green-ink fountain pen, and it belongs to the reader at desk 2: Mrs. Pell.
The green ink on the brass catch points to one person only. Miss Dorran sat closest to the door, but the evidence doesn’t care who was closest. It cares who left a mark.
Full seating plan: Desk 1, Miss Dorran (umbrella). Desk 2, Mrs. Pell (green-ink pen). Desk 3, Mr. Quint (pipe). Desk 4, Colonel Haverly (magnifying glass).
Want a bigger case?
If you enjoyed ruling people out one clue at a time, that is exactly how my casebooks work, just on a much grander scale. In The Missing Guest List, a country-house guest list has gone up in smoke, and you rebuild the truth from the household’s records, clue by clue, until only one name can stand. You can check your final accusation on the Check Your Accusation page, no spoilers given away.
And for a quick nightly fix, there is always the free Daily Cryptogram.
— Ivy
Ready for a real case?
Try today’s free Daily Cryptogram, or pick up a casebook.