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The Overdue Book
The Overdue Book

Two in the Morning

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Chapter 5 of 10

Tom Skerry has locked this building last and opened it first for twenty years. His testimony, when Harold Beck corners him, comes in a janitor's unhurried grammar. The night after the dinner he returned for his tobacco and saw lamplight in the reading room windows, two in the morning by the courthouse clock. One lamp, the green-shaded one on the long table. He did not go in. Why not, Beck wants to know, and Tom gives him the look you give a man who never worked nights. Because he knew whose lamp it was, he says. Exactly one person works at that hour without the alarm reaching the street, whose late nights he has quietly not-mentioned through two decades of stocktakes and bindery repairs. He holds the chairman's eye. He will not say the name; nobody needs him to now.

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About this case

A chapter of The Overdue Book, a mystery told in word searches. Each chapter leaves you one clue; the finale needs them all.

How a mystery chapter works

  1. 1
    Read the scene first.Every chapter opens with a scene from the case. The word list is drawn from it, and so is the clue.
  2. 2
    Find the words.Tap a word's first letter, then tap along to its last, or press and drag. Found words colour themselves in and cross off the list.
  3. 3
    One listed word is not in the grid.Find the other nine and the word left over is the chapter's clue. Note it down, or let the case page keep it for you.
  4. 4
    The finale needs every clue.The last puzzle's word list is the clues you collected, and once you find them all, the leftover letters spell out who did it, and why.

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Print The Overdue Book as one large-print booklet: every chapter and its puzzle, a clue ledger, and the ending sealed on the last page.

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