Chronicle of the solution: The Trap of the Night
Disappearance Tier III
The gap left in the citadel has found its cause, and the cause a name. The whole reasoning follows below.
What the file said when it was opened
An absence has fallen upon the court heavier than any presence: the disappearance can no longer be denied. Open searches have brought nothing; the time has come for questions asked aslant. The testimonies keep returning to the same names: Safta the Herbwife, Damaschin the Healer, Mihu the Archer, Countess Velica de Arin and Sir Bogdan de Fag. The places named in the testimonies — the great stable, the merchant's house, the scriptorium, the salt market and the hunting lodge — each await their turn under scrutiny. The threads were tangled on purpose: investigate, weigh every word, and pronounce your verdict only when the grid leaves no room for doubt.
The circle closed around these names: Safta the Herbwife, Damaschin the Healer, Mihu the Archer, Countess Velica de Arin and Sir Bogdan de Fag. The investigation was not permitted to step outside it, and had no need to.
The suspects
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Safta the Herbwife
She gathers herbs at hours when honest folk sleep. The herbs, she says, speak then.
1.58 m tall · green eyes · greying hair · right-handed
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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
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Mihu the Archer
He hits a coin tossed on the wind from a hundred paces. At questions, though, he always misses.
1.76 m tall · brown eyes · brown hair · left-handed
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Countess Velica de Arin
She collects fans, debts of honour, and bedchamber secrets. She wields all three as weapons.
1.70 m tall · green eyes · red hair · left-handed
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Sir Bogdan de Fag
He pawned his armour to pay his tavern debts. Honour, he says, does not rust.
1.85 m tall · blue eyes · brown hair · right-handed
Locations
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The great stable
It smells of hay and hurried departures. Horses give no testimony.
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The merchant's house
Carpets brought from overseas and a desk with more secret drawers than drawers.
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The scriptorium
Slanted desks, ink, and working silence. Here a quill creaks louder than a conscience.
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The salt market
Here anything is bargained for, from salt to silences. The price of silence keeps rising.
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The hunting lodge
The royal cabin in the heart of the forest. Far from the eyes of the court - which is exactly what suits some.
Objects
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The amber necklace
Beads of golden resin strung on a silk thread. The thread is broken and hastily reknotted.
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The purse of gold coins
New coins, unworn, from a minting not yet in circulation. Interesting.
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The rusted sword
An old weapon, forgotten on the rack. The rust on the blade is newer than it looks.
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The guild seal
The stamp that turns any goods into goods "of certified quality." Worth a mine of gold.
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The signet ring
The crest has been filed away almost completely. Almost.
Motives
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Greed
Dorința nesățioasă de avere, care nu se oprește la nimic.
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Jealousy
Otrava care mistuie pe cel ce râvnește ce nu-i al lui.
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Ambition
Setea de a urca, chiar peste trupuri, spre o treaptă mai înaltă.
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Blackmail
Un secret ținut ca funia la gât, strâns exact cât trebuie.
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Fear of exposure
Groaza de a fi dat în vileag, care împinge la orice.
The pages of the file
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.
- A maid whispered it at confession: Mihu the Archer handled the purse of gold coins.
- The gate guard swears: the suspect with brown eyes was driven by jealousy.
- An honest-faced witness saw it plainly: the suspect with grey hair was in the place where anything is bargained for.
- In the Chancellery's ledger it stands in black and white: the merchant's house and greed go together.
- Before the investigator, Safta the Herbwife firmly repeats: "I handled the signet ring".
- In the Chancellery's ledger it stands in black and white: the suspect with greying hair was at the scriptorium.
- The tracks in the dust do not lie: the great stable and the amber necklace go together.
- Even the jester says it in earnest: Damaschin the Healer never touched the guild seal.
- The Chancellery checked twice: Sir Bogdan de Fag was not driven by greed.
- The tracks in the dust do not lie: the scriptorium and fear of exposure go together.
- A note in the margin of the ledger: if the suspect with red hair was at the merchant's house, then Sir Bogdan de Fag was driven by ambition.
- About the culprit, the Chancellery knows one thing for certain: the culprit was driven by blackmail.
Read the unravelling, step by step — warning, the culprit is named beyond this point
The reasoning, step by step
No confession was wrung from anyone here. Only the grid was drawn tighter, until nothing but a single name still fitted inside it.
There followed a detail that narrowed the circle: “A maid whispered it at confession: Mihu the Archer handled the purse of gold coins”. The cell filled, and around it a space opened: that is what a certain match does to a grid.
It was set down, for whoever reads after us: “The gate guard swears: the suspect with brown eyes was driven by jealousy”. A certain match thus enters the grid, and its row and column empty at once of every other possibility.
A witness of good faith cleared up one more corner: “An honest-faced witness saw it plainly: the suspect with grey hair was in the place where anything is bargained for”. A pair was tied, and the knot dragged a whole handful of impossibilities after it.
The file thickened quickly, and every fresh page cut something away: “In the Chancellery's ledger it stands in black and white: the merchant's house and greed go together”; “Before the investigator, Safta the Herbwife firmly repeats: "I handled the signet ring"”; “In the Chancellery's ledger it stands in black and white: the suspect with greying hair was at the scriptorium”; “The tracks in the dust do not lie: the great stable and the amber necklace go together”; “Even the jester says it in earnest: Damaschin the Healer never touched the guild seal”; “The Chancellery checked twice: Sir Bogdan de Fag was not driven by greed”; “The tracks in the dust do not lie: the scriptorium and fear of exposure go together”. Laid end to end, they did what not one of them could have done alone.
A detail overlooked at the start came back into the file: “A note in the margin of the ledger: if the suspect with red hair was at the merchant's house, then Sir Bogdan de Fag was driven by ambition”. The condition lay asleep in the file for a while and woke only when its first half became certain.
A note in the margin of the page read: “About the culprit, the Chancellery knows one thing for certain: the culprit was driven by blackmail”. Without uttering a single name, this line divided the suspects into two camps: those it fitted and those it did not.
The lie
The Supreme Law worked here the other way about, and that is exactly why it is worth telling. The single testimony on file withstood checking. Since only the culprit lies, the fact that not one of those who spoke contradicted the grid took them out of the circle one by one — and the guilt was left with the one who chose to stay silent. Silence is no proof in itself, but here it was the only place the grid still left free.
The culprit's name
After every cut, one possible suspect was left in the file: Damaschin the Healer. The grid shows plainly how matters stood: Damaschin the Healer was at the salt market, handled the rusted sword and was driven by blackmail. It was reached only by driving each supposition to its absurd end — a tier III dossier, and rightly so.
Where the others were
The grid took them out of the circle one by one, place in the story and all: Safta the Herbwife was at the scriptorium, handled the signet ring and was driven by fear of exposure; Mihu the Archer was at the hunting lodge, handled the purse of gold coins and was driven by jealousy; Countess Velica de Arin was at the merchant's house, handled the guild seal and was driven by greed; Sir Bogdan de Fag was at the great stable, handled the amber necklace and was driven by ambition. They look like rows of padding and they are not: the whole of the rest rests on them.
The Chancellery asked nobody to take its word. It showed the road step by step, so that anyone might walk it again.
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.