Chronicle of the solution: The Feud of Vespers

Disappearance Tier I

The dossier, on a first reading

Something — or someone — has vanished in Realm of the Crown, and no one can say when the thread was cut. Someone knows more than they say; the silences at court have suddenly grown very loud. On the Chancellery's list stand Grigore the Cupbearer, Filip the Steward and Elisei the Stargazer; one of these names covers a lie. The places named in the testimonies — the salt market, the scriptorium and the abbey library — each await their turn under scrutiny. Open the grid, weigh every clue, and pronounce your verdict: the Chancellery awaits only your signature.

At vespers, when the bells drown out every other sound, something vanished from the realm. No door was forced and no cry was heard — hence the name the Chancellery gave the dossier, “The Feud of Vespers”: the quarrel came afterwards, when the absence was noticed.

The three summoned before the Chancellery have one thing in common: all of them work with numbers or with words, which is to say with exactly the sort of thing that can be made to match. Filip the Steward counts the crown silver every evening, and on some evenings the count comes out differently — and he says nothing. Grigore the Cupbearer has a trade with a short future, as he puts it himself, but a rich past. Elisei the Stargazer reads the future in the stars and the past in men's debts; the second method, he admits, fails him less often.

The places belong to that same world of paper and market: the salt market, where anything is traded, from salt to silences, and the price of silence only ever rises; the scriptorium; and the abbey library, where several chains have lately been cut from the shelves.

A tier I dossier, and a fitting first exercise: three suspects, three places, and a single arrangement that reconciles them all.

Under suspicion stood Grigore the Cupbearer, Filip the Steward and Elisei the Stargazer. One of them alone lied; the rest, without knowing it, spoke the truth that gave that one away.

The suspects

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  Grigore the Cupbearer

  He tastes the king's wine before anyone else. A trade with a short future, he says, but a rich past.

  1.70 m tall · brown eyes · chestnut hair · right-handed

• 

  Filip the Steward

  He counts the crown's silver every evening. On some evenings the count comes out different - and he says nothing.

  1.79 m tall · grey eyes · chestnut hair · right-handed

• 

  Elisei the Stargazer

  He reads the future in the stars and the past in men's debts. The second method fails less often.

  1.67 m tall · blue eyes · greying hair · right-handed

Locations

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  The salt market

  Here anything is bargained for, from salt to silences. The price of silence keeps rising.

• 

  The scriptorium

  Slanted desks, ink, and working silence. Here a quill creaks louder than a conscience.

• 

  The abbey library

  Thousands of leather-bound tomes. Some of the chains on the shelves were cut recently.

The testimonies on file

Here is the whole file, as the investigator received it. Not one row is spare — it was checked by removing each in turn and watching the unique solution disappear.

1. The gate guard swears: Grigore the Cupbearer was at the salt market.
2. In the Chancellery's ledger it stands in black and white: the tallest suspect was at the scriptorium.
3. About the culprit, the Chancellery knows one thing for certain: the culprit was in the place with thousands of leather-bound tomes.

Play this dossier All mysteries

Nothing in this chronicle is invented: the text rises out of the dossier's logic, and the dossier passed through the solver before publication, so that its solution is provably unique. behind the scenes at the Chancellery.