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Chronicle of the solution: The Seal of the Abbey

Disappearance Tier I

What had been made invisible was found, and whoever hid it answers for it today. Here is the road there.

How the file came to the Chancellery

Something — or someone — has vanished in Realm of the Crown, and no one can say when the thread was cut. Open searches have brought nothing; the time has come for questions asked aslant. Before you, one by one, will stand Tintar the Jester, Anica the Miller and Balasa the Seamstress. The places named in the testimonies — the abbey library, the throne room and the cathedral crypt — each await their turn under scrutiny. Study the testimonies at your leisure, fit them into the grid, and pronounce your verdict without haste.

The Chancellery had to weigh Tintar the Jester, Anica the Miller and Balasa the Seamstress. All of them had opportunity, and for that very reason opportunity was worth nothing.

The suspects

Locations

What the Chancellery had to hand

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. About the culprit, the Chancellery knows one thing for certain: the culprit was at the cathedral crypt.
  2. The gate guard swears: the suspect with blond hair was in the place where all is gold and purple.
  3. The chronicler notes drily: the left-handed suspect was in the place with thousands of leather-bound tomes, whatever the court may say.
Reveal the Chancellery's reasoning — warning, the culprit is named beyond this point

The road to the verdict

The rule of the house is simple: what is observed enters the grid as it stands; what is declared enters only once it is settled who declared it.

This particular came to light as well: “About the culprit, the Chancellery knows one thing for certain: the culprit was at the cathedral crypt”. The line names nobody, but it binds the culprit to a fact — and every suspect who cannot carry it leaves the circle.

It was set down, for whoever reads after us: “The gate guard swears: the suspect with blond hair was in the place where all is gold and purple”. From then on that cell could no longer be disputed, and the dispute moved one row down.

The scouts brought their share as well: “The chronicler notes drily: the left-handed suspect was in the place with thousands of leather-bound tomes, whatever the court may say”. A pair was tied, and the knot dragged a whole handful of impossibilities after it.

The close of the investigation

The verdict wrote itself — the culprit is Tintar the Jester. The row in the grid says it all: Tintar the Jester was at the cathedral crypt. The verdict stands on its own, out of the findings above.

What became of the others

The grid took them out of the circle one by one, place in the story and all: Anica the Miller was at the throne room; Balasa the Seamstress was at the abbey library. Not one of the rows above is spare — remove it and the grid opens again.

It was not cleverness that unravelled the thread, but order. Order can be learned, and that is exactly why the chronicle is written.

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.