The Overdue Book
- A case in 10 chapters
- Free to play
- Large print
- Read in order
How the case begins
The Fensham Memorial Library got its marble stairs, its reading room and its name from one man's money, and got its soul from Miss Aldous, who has run it for thirty-one years. Its rarest holding, a first edition worth more than the building's yearly budget, stands in a locked display cabinet by the reading room door, opened twice a year for cleaning. The morning after the Friends of the Library dinner, the book behind the glass is not the book. It is a dummy, bound to match, and only a person who had held the real one would ever know. Harold Beck, the board chairman, wants the police, the papers and an arrest by Friday. Miss Aldous, who discovered the substitution herself and reported it to no one for a day and a half, wants nothing of the kind. She has her reasons, and she is not sharing them. The collector who has been offering to buy the book for two years is due back Thursday. The board's auction vote is Monday. And the widow whose husband built this library has stopped answering her telephone.
Each chapter is a short scene and a puzzle, and every puzzle leaves you one clue. Keep all nine. The finale needs them. Your clues keep themselves on this device.
- 1The Morning After
- 2A Friend's Hands
- 3Under the Covers
- 4The Mill Town
- 5Two in the Morning
- 6The Card Out of Place
- 7The Monday Vote
- 8What the Grate Held
- 9The Engraver's Truth
- 10The Memorial Registerbring your clues
The people of the case
- Miss Aldous. Head librarian, thirty-one years. Knows every book in the building and most of the town's secrets, and has never told one.
- Dora Fensham. The benefactor's widow, and Miss Aldous's friend since they were girls. Her husband's name is on the building and his money is in every brick.
- Mr. Pettigrew. A collector from the city. Has offered for the first edition twice a year for two years, politely, with a checkbook that does not tire.
- Ruth Quill. Junior librarian, sharp-eyed and new. The first to say aloud that the dummy's binding was done by someone who loved books.
- Harold Beck. Board chairman, a man of votes and minutes. Wants the book sold, the roof fixed, and the whole affair kept tidy.
- Tom Skerry. Janitor, twenty years. Locks up last, opens first, and saw the reading room lamp burning at two in the morning. Told nobody.
Prefer pen and paper?
The whole case as one large-print booklet: every chapter and its puzzle, a clue ledger to fill in, and the ending sealed on the last page.