The Night Desk · Season 2 · Case 31 · Alibi web ·
The Christmas Windows
Season 2 begins. The first snow, four lit windows behind drawn curtains, and a silver star that never reached the tree.
The case file
Wednesday, 8:30 pm, and the first snow of the winter on Tidewater Street. Marwood's department store unveils its Christmas windows at nine, and for the last half hour the curtains stay drawn while the windows are finished. At 8:30 Mrs. Celia Marwood took the Marwood Star from the store safe, silver set with garnets, and left it in its velvet box on the long ledge behind the windows, to go on the tree last.
At nine the curtains opened on a crowd in the snow and a tree with no star. The box was on the ledge, empty. Four people had worked behind the curtains, one in each of the toy window, the fireside window, the china window and the corner window. Each had one thing in hand big enough to hide a star: Santa's sack, a Christmas stocking, a box of glass baubles or a roll of cotton batting. Find who took it, in what, and from which window.
Who was there
- Mrs. Celia Marwood, owner of Marwood's department store. Silver hair, a gray silk scarf, and a kind word for every shop girl by name.
- Rupert Slade, head window dresser, lately of Saltholm. Pins in his lapel, chalk on his cuffs, and opinions about every color in the street.
- Polly Gwinnell, junior window dresser. Nineteen, quick fingers, glitter in her hair from the china window.
- Bertie Coombe, the store's Santa Claus. A real white beard, a borrowed red coat, and forty years on the stage behind him.
The places: the toy window, the fireside window, the china window and the corner window.
The means: Santa's sack, a Christmas stocking, a box of glass baubles and a roll of cotton batting.
Case 31 · Wednesday, November 25
The questioning room
This case's night is Wednesday, November 25, from midnight your time. The questioning room plays here with JavaScript on; the case file above reads without it.
The inspector's note: A refusal is still an answer about someone else
Some witnesses will not tell you where they were, and it is tempting to mark them as the problem. Look instead at what they do tell you. A man who guards his own place often gives away someone else's, and one placement can be enough to close two rows. Fill the board from every sentence, not only from the ones that answer the question you asked.
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 Thursday, November 26, the night after it opens.