Chronicle of the solution: The Winter Plot
Espionage Tier I
Whoever carried the secrets out no longer walks free. Here, though, is how they were given away, step by step.
What the file said when it was opened
A ciphered letter, found where it had no business being, put the Chancellery on alert: someone is prying for another crown. The Chancellery has caught only the end of the thread; the whole skein is still in someone's hands. On the Chancellery's list stand Sir Bogdan de Fag, Mihu the Archer and Mother Evghenia; one of these names covers a lie. Rumor walks the deed through every corner: the old chapel, the salt market and the queen's garden. Open the grid, weigh every clue, and pronounce your verdict: the Chancellery awaits only your signature.
Winter is the season of spies. The roads are empty and footprints show in the snow, but everything that gets said is said indoors, by the fire, where the walls are thin. The dossier titled “The Winter Plot” was opened when news that was never to leave the realm left it anyway.
Its difficulty lies not in the number of suspects but in the fact that all three have a legitimate reason to be anywhere at all. Sir Bogdan de Fag goes where duty sends him. Mihu the Archer is permitted on the walls and beyond them. Mother Evghenia enters the chapel at any hour, and nobody asks a nun why she prays at night.
The places set the tone by themselves: the old chapel, the salt market — where anything is traded, silence included — and the queen's garden, which admits no one without an invitation.
A tier I dossier, but not a dull one: here you learn that a good alibi is not the one that clears you, but the one that fails to agree with somebody else's.
The Chancellery's list held Sir Bogdan de Fag, Mihu the Archer and Mother Evghenia, none of them further above suspicion than the next.
The suspects
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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
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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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Mother Evghenia
She runs the abbey with an iron hand and a golden pen. The register of donations has pages she shows no one.
1.60 m tall · dark eyes · black hair · right-handed
Locations
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The old chapel
Candles, incense, and a silence in which every footstep echoes like a confession.
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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 queen's garden
Roses trimmed to a line and paths you may walk only by invitation. At night, the hedge has ears.
The evidence gathered on file
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.
- The traces left at the scene show it plainly: the culprit was in the place where every footstep echoes like a confession.
- A maid whispered it at confession: the suspect with dark eyes was in the place where anything is bargained for.
- The hounds caught no scent at all: the left-handed suspect never set foot in the place where every footstep echoes like a confession.
Read the unravelling, step by step — warning: past this line, the mystery ends
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.
This page was stitched into the file too: “The traces left at the scene show it plainly: the culprit was in the place where every footstep echoes like a confession”. The line names nobody, but it binds the culprit to a fact — and every suspect who cannot carry it leaves the circle.
Then this finding entered the file: “A maid whispered it at confession: the suspect with dark eyes was in the place where anything is bargained for”. The match was nailed down, and the rest of the row was left clean, like a page wiped with a sponge.
A piece of information dearly bought showed its worth: “The hounds caught no scent at all: the left-handed suspect never set foot in the place where every footstep echoes like a confession”. One possibility fewer means, in the grid, one step nearer the only answer left.
The seal on the file
The Chancellery's verdict: the culprit is Sir Bogdan de Fag. At the hour in question, Sir Bogdan de Fag was at the old chapel. All of this follows from the findings above, without a single unproved hypothesis.
The acquittal of the rest
The others found their acquittal in the grid as well: Mihu the Archer was at the queen's garden; Mother Evghenia was at the salt market. It is these acquittals that made the verdict possible: without them, room for doubt would have remained.
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 chronicles are written by the Enigmerra Chancellery out of the dossier's own logic: every step above is verified by the solver which proved, at publication, that the dossier has a unique solution. behind the scenes at the Chancellery.