Chronicle of the solution: The Mystery of the Feast
Espionage Tier I
The espionage file has found its answer; what follows is the chronicle of it, written for those who come after us.
How the file came to the Chancellery
A spy has crept in among the people of the court, and the realm's secrets have begun flowing toward foreign ears. What has leaked so far is hard to weigh; what might yet leak, impossible. Before you, one by one, will stand Luca the Squire, Balasa the Seamstress and Gavril the Farrier. Rumor walks the deed through every corner: the customs cellar, the throne room and the wharf. Take up the quill, follow the thread of the clues, and set your seal upon the verdict.
The Chancellery had to weigh Luca the Squire, Balasa the Seamstress and Gavril the Farrier. All of them had opportunity, and for that very reason opportunity was worth nothing.
The suspects
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Luca the Squire
He polishes the knight's armour and dreams of a sword of his own. For a coat of arms he would do almost anything.
1.72 m tall · green eyes · brown hair · right-handed
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Balasa the Seamstress
She sews the garments of all the nobility and knows everyone's measurements - including those that do not show.
1.59 m tall · blue eyes · red hair · left-handed
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Gavril the Farrier
Arms like tree trunks and a forge where all noise dies. Some things are better beaten while hot.
1.88 m tall · dark eyes · black hair · right-handed
Locations
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The customs cellar
Sealed crates, thick ledgers, and air that smells of undeclared goods.
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The throne room
Gold, purple, and the most closely watched place in the kingdom. In theory.
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The wharf
Moored boats, wet ropes, and goods that prefer to arrive in the fog.
The findings and the testimonies
These are all the findings and testimonies the Chancellery had to hand — not one more. The set is minimal by construction: take out a single row and the verdict can no longer be demonstrated.
- About the culprit, the Chancellery knows one thing for certain: the culprit was at the customs cellar.
- The gate guard swears: Luca the Squire was in the place where goods arrive in the fog.
- Two witnesses, upon their crest: Gavril the Farrier never set foot in the customs cellar.
Reveal the Chancellery's reasoning — warning, the culprit is named beyond this point
The unravelling of the thread
It began with certainties, however small. A small certainty closes an entire row, and closed rows add up quickly.
There followed a detail that narrowed the circle: “About the culprit, the Chancellery knows one thing for certain: the culprit was at the customs cellar”. Without uttering a single name, this line divided the suspects into two camps: those it fitted and those it did not.
The archivist underlined the following line with his nail: “The gate guard swears: Luca the Squire was in the place where goods arrive in the fog”. One more certainty means, in a deduction grid, a whole fistful of impossibilities — and so it proved here.
A piece of information dearly bought showed its worth: “Two witnesses, upon their crest: Gavril the Farrier never set foot in the customs cellar”. The possibility fell without appeal, and the circle tightened by one finger.
The culprit's name
The name the grid could no longer force out of the circle is Balasa the Seamstress. At the hour of the deed, Balasa the Seamstress was at the customs cellar. Nothing was assumed along the way; every step can be redone with a pencil on paper.
The remaining suspects
The others found their acquittal in the grid as well: Luca the Squire was at the wharf; Gavril the Farrier was at the throne room. It is these acquittals that made the verdict possible: without them, room for doubt would have remained.
The page closes. What is left of the whole affair is a truth that can be demonstrated, and that is worth more than a confession.
Play this dossier All mysteries
Everything you read above rests on the dossier itself. The Chancellery's solver checked, at publication, that the given clues yield exactly one solution — no more, and not none. behind the scenes at the Chancellery.