The Night Desk · Season 2 · Case 37 · Misdirection ·
The Pudding Club
Forty families, a dime a week since September, a stone crock behind the counter, and a reporter who knows the answer before you do.
The case file
Tuesday, 6:30 pm. Every September, forty families on Chapel Row join the pudding club at Hicks's Bakery: a dime a week into a stone crock behind the counter, and on December 1 a Christmas pudding each. Tonight the puddings were mixed for the club, and in the half hour after closing the crock was emptied of $96.
Four people were in the bakery, one each at the shop counter, in the bakehouse, in the flour loft and out in the yard, and each had one thing that could carry a pocketful of dimes: a flour sack, a bread basket, a coal scuttle or a pudding basin. The apprentice ran out the back with soot on his hands, and by morning Linus Crale of the Clarion had named him in print. Find out who really did it, with what, and where.
Who was there
- Mrs. Jenefer Hicks, baker, and keeper of the crock. Arms like a stevedore, a soft voice, and flour in the creases of her knuckles.
- Alfie Sincock, apprentice baker. Sixteen, soot on his hands, and thirty dollars owing on a bicycle he loves more than sleep.
- Mrs. Maisie Trethewey, collector for the pudding club. Keeps the club book in her handbag, knows every family's dime by name, and never misses a Tuesday.
- Vernon Glasson, delivery man for the flour merchant. A stranger on Chapel Row, white from hat to boots, and in a hurry to be somewhere else.
The places: the shop counter, the bakehouse, the flour loft and the yard.
The means: a flour sack, a bread basket, a coal scuttle and a pudding basin.
Case 37 · Tuesday, December 1
The questioning room
This case's night is Tuesday, December 1, from midnight your time. The questioning room plays here with JavaScript on; the case file above reads without it.
The inspector's note: Debts and soot are not evidence
A misdirection case hands you a suspect before it hands you a fact. Write the obvious suspect on the board like anyone else and make them earn their square. Motives explain a crime once it is proven; they never prove it. The proof is almost always something physical about the act, like a stain, a weight or a sound.
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 Wednesday, December 2, the night after it opens.