The Night Desk · Season 2 · Case 52 · Forged document ·
The Cartage Book
A ledger of ice deliveries, one night hire to Fogbell Point in December 1904, and a name somebody wanted gone.
The case file
Wednesday, 8:10 pm. The old Hollow Mere Ice Company's books went to the Institute library when the company failed in 1914. At closing tonight the librarian found the 1904 cartage book put back on its shelf upside down. One line on the page for December 6 has been scraped away, the name of whoever hired a cart that night.
In the last hour four people were in the Institute, one each in the reading room, the stacks, the newspaper room and the librarian's office. Each had something that could scrape ink off a page: an erasing knife, a typewriter eraser, a razor blade or a pumice stone. Find who scraped it, with what, and where.
Who was there
- Hubert Prideaux, librarian of the Institute. Half-moon spectacles, a catalog in his head, and an erasing knife for the card drawers.
- Perran Uren, foreman at the gasworks, once an ice cutter. Big hands, a sharpened pencil, and his own name on the page in question.
- Miss Dulcie Sowden, typist, a Wednesday reader. Reads the Saltholm papers every Wednesday, and keeps a typewriter eraser in her glove.
- Basil Tresidder, private secretary to a lady. Gray spats, gray gloves, ink on one finger, and an employer he will not name.
The places: the reading room, the stacks, the newspaper room and the librarian's office.
The means: an erasing knife, a typewriter eraser, a razor blade and a pumice stone.
Case 52 · Wednesday, December 16
The questioning room
This case's night is Wednesday, December 16, from midnight your time. The questioning room plays here with JavaScript on; the case file above reads without it.
The inspector's note: Erasing leaves a furrow
Ink can be scraped, bleached or rubbed away, but a pen presses into the paper as it writes. Hold a lamp low across the page and the old strokes often show in the grooves. When a document has been erased rather than altered, the tool tells you who, and the furrow tells you what they were afraid of.
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, December 17, the night after it opens.