Chronicle of the solution: The Scheming of the Night

Forged decree Tier I

The opening of the investigation

A seal that never lies has been placed, this once, in the service of a lie. Until the hand that pressed the seal is found, every written order stands in doubt. The testimonies keep returning to the same names: Damaschin the Healer, Brother Anselm and Duchess Amara de Corvin. Rumor walks the deed through every corner: the Golden Boar inn, the queen's garden and the north wall. Take up the quill, follow the thread of the clues, and set your seal upon the verdict.

A forged decree is a cold crime. It needs neither knife nor poison — only a hand that can imitate a letter, and a night long enough. The Chancellery named this dossier “The Scheming of the Night” precisely because the deed left no traces, only a sheet of parchment asserting something that was never decided.

Suspicion falls on three people of very different skills. Brother Anselm has copied manuscripts for forty years and knows what is written in all of them, the forbidden ones included; a quill like his can make a forgery better than the original. Damaschin the Healer knows the remedy for every illness, and the dose at which a remedy becomes something else. Duchess Amara de Corvin has been widowed three times and has inherited on each occasion.

All three places are places for passing unseen: the Golden Boar inn, whose upstairs rooms ask no questions; the queen's garden, where at night the hedge has ears; and that stretch of the north wall the watch skirts when the wind is up — a detail which, the dossier notes drily, everybody knows.

Tier I. You will not need chained hypotheses here, only patience with the cutting.

Called to judgement were Damaschin the Healer, Brother Anselm and Duchess Amara de Corvin. Each had somewhere to begin a story; one alone had reason to change it.

The suspects

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  Damaschin the Healer

  He knows the cure for any illness and the dose at which the cure becomes something else. He swears he has never mistaken the dosage.

  1.71 m tall · green eyes · grey hair · left-handed

• 

  Brother Anselm

  He has copied manuscripts for forty years. He knows what every one of them says - including the forbidden ones.

  1.75 m tall · brown eyes · greying hair · right-handed

• 

  Duchess Amara de Corvin

  Widowed three times, heir on each occasion. Her smile has buried more nobles than the plague.

  1.68 m tall · dark eyes · black hair · right-handed

Locations

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  The Golden Boar inn

  Wine watered down and rumours diluted with nothing. The rooms upstairs ask no questions.

• 

  The queen's garden

  Roses trimmed to a line and paths you may walk only by invitation. At night, the hedge has ears.

• 

  The north wall

  The stretch of wall the patrol skirts when the wind blows. Everyone knows that.

The pages of the 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 traces left at the scene show it plainly: the culprit was in the place where the hedge has ears.
2. The chronicler notes drily: the tallest suspect was at the north wall, whatever the court may say.
3. The chronicler notes drily: Damaschin the Healer was at the Golden Boar inn, whatever the court may say.

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.