The Night Desk · Season 1 · Case 22 · Forged document ·
The Telegram from Saltholm
A telegram that tells a reporter to drop her story and go home, pasted together word by word from other people's mail.
The case file
Monday. This morning a hotel page delivered a telegram to Cass Rendle at the Gazette, signed by the editor of the Saltholm Evening Courier, for whom she also writes: drop the heron story and come home on the first boat. Rendle telephoned Saltholm. The editor sent nothing. She brought the telegram to the desk. It is Exhibit A.
The words on a real telegram are printed on strips of paper tape and pasted to the form. These strips are genuine tape, cut from old telegrams and pasted back in a new order. Old telegrams are kept in four places, and four people had the run of one each last night: the telegraph office, the Gazette newsroom, the hotel message desk and the shipping agency. Each had a blade to hand: a pair of scissors, a razor blade, a penknife or a paper knife.
Who was there
- Clement Hoskin, telegraph clerk. Green eyeshade, a tapping finger, and a horror of unofficial telegrams.
- Mrs. Irene Delamere, society columnist at the Gazette. Furs, a long cigarette holder with no cigarette in it, and no love for Cass Rendle.
- Percy Lugg, page at the Grand Marine Hotel. Fifteen, a pillbox hat, and very aware he delivered the thing.
- Gideon Strout, clerk at the shipping agency. Dry, thin and buttoned up, with a habit of tidying other people's desks.
The places: the telegraph office, the Gazette newsroom, the hotel message desk and the shipping agency.
The means: a pair of scissors, a razor blade, a penknife and a paper knife.
Case 22 · Monday, November 16
The questioning room
This case's night is Monday, November 16, from midnight your time. The questioning room plays here with JavaScript on; the case file above reads without it.
The inspector's note: A forgery is made of real pieces
Most forgeries are not invented from nothing. They are built from real paper, real ink, real tape or a real signature, put together wrongly. Ask where each real piece came from and how it was cut, joined or copied. The pieces are honest even when the whole is a lie, and each one points to a place where somebody had them.
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 Tuesday, November 17, the night after it opens.