Chronicle of the solution: The Veil of the Lady
Theft Tier I
The archivist has tied the file with red cord, the sign that the theft has found its author. The chronicle below shows how.
The deed, as it was recorded
A bitter morning has settled over Realm of the Crown: something precious has vanished without a trace. The Chancellery has set every other file aside: until what was taken returns, no one sleeps easy. The testimonies keep returning to the same names: Margica the Innkeeper, Damaschin the Healer and Abbot Corvus. Rumor walks the deed through every corner: the abbey library, the throne room and the queen's garden. Take up the quill, follow the thread of the clues, and set your seal upon the verdict.
The circle closed around these names: Margica the Innkeeper, Damaschin the Healer and Abbot Corvus. The investigation was not permitted to step outside it, and had no need to.
The suspects
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Margica the Innkeeper
At the Golden Boar inn, wine and secrets are spilled in equal measure. She never forgets a debt - or a word let slip.
1.61 m tall · dark eyes · chestnut 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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Abbot Corvus
He raises ravens in the abbey tower. His birds arrive faster than any messenger - and cannot be held to account.
1.78 m tall · dark eyes · no hair · right-handed
Locations
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The abbey library
Thousands of leather-bound tomes. Some of the chains on the shelves were cut recently.
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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 queen's garden
Roses trimmed to a line and paths you may walk only by invitation. At night, the hedge has ears.
The findings and the testimonies
Nothing is missing from the list and nothing is surplus. Every row below is necessary: without it, the grid would allow several solutions at once.
- About the culprit, the Chancellery knows one thing for certain: the culprit was in the place with thousands of leather-bound tomes.
- Even the jester says it in earnest: the left-handed suspect never set foot in the place where the hedge has ears.
- The gate guard swears: the suspect with chestnut hair was in the place where all is gold and purple.
Break the seal: the Chancellery's reasoning — the culprit's name is spoken from here on
How it was unravelled
The investigation ran contrary to suspicion: it did not ask who could have, it cut away, row by row, whoever could not.
The archivist underlined the following line with his nail: “About the culprit, the Chancellery knows one thing for certain: the culprit was in the place with thousands of leather-bound tomes”. 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: “Even the jester says it in earnest: the left-handed suspect never set foot in the place where the hedge has ears”. The cut named nobody, but it shortened the list of those who could still be named.
Then this finding entered the file: “The gate guard swears: the suspect with chestnut hair was in the place where all is gold and purple”. The tick goes down without hesitation, and with it fall all the other cells on that row and that column.
The Chancellery's verdict
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 abbey library. Nothing was assumed along the way; every step can be redone with a pencil on paper.
Where the others were
The Chancellery recorded the others' movements as well, because it was precisely they that closed the grid: Margica the Innkeeper was at the throne room; Abbot Corvus was at the queen's garden. 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
The chronicle is written from the logic of the file, not from memory. The uniqueness of the solution was demonstrated by the solver before the dossier ever became public. behind the scenes at the Chancellery.