The Night Desk · Season 1 · Case 18 · Alibi web ·
The Fishmarket Scales
Four scales on the fish quay, all true at midnight, and one of them four pounds light by the time the boats came in.
The case file
Thursday, before dawn. At midnight the market master tested the four scales of the Port Merrow fish market with his brass weights: the north stall, the south stall, the quay stall and the ice house. All four were true. By 5:00 am one of them was weighing four pounds light on every hundred, and every boat that weighed there was paid short.
Four people were each tending one scale through the night, and each had one thing that could rig a scale: a steel file, a pair of pliers, a lead net sinker or a lump of beeswax. At dawn the market master tested the ice house scale again and found it true. Find the light scale, how it was rigged, and who did it.
Who was there
- Mrs. Tamsin Opie, fish seller. A voice that carries the length of the quay and knives she keeps like razors.
- Abel Jewell, ice house man. Chapped red hands, three sweaters, and frost in his eyebrows.
- Captain Gideon Bolitho, skipper of the Wren. Oilskins, a salt-white beard, and a temper that follows the price of fish.
- Ruby Mabe, buyer for the Saltholm cannery. Good gloves, a notebook full of prices, and a smile the boats do not trust.
The places: the north stall, the south stall, the quay stall and the ice house scale.
The means: a steel file, a pair of pliers, a lead net sinker and a lump of beeswax.
Case 18 · Thursday, November 12
The questioning room
This case's night is Thursday, November 12, from midnight your time. The questioning room plays here with JavaScript on; the case file above reads without it.
The inspector's note: A place clue and a means clue meet in one square
Some evidence tells you where and some tells you how. Neither names a person by itself. Fill the board from the testimony first, then read the evidence across it: the place clue picks a column, the means clue picks another, and the one suspect who sits in both is your answer. If they do not meet in one person, recheck the board.
How to solve a Night Desk case, with a worked example.
The solution
The night desk's write-up appears here once you solve the case, or from Friday, November 13, the night after it opens.