How the case begins
In the footsteps of Sylvie Ferrante
Kansas City, Missouri, Saturday, April 15, 1961. The Peacock Room on Twelfth Street has been dark since 1951, the spring Archie Benn's band broke up. Monty Kroll used to tend its bar. Tonight he opens it again, with new carpet and the old peacock sign lit up over the door. The star of the night is Johnny Lomax, home from New York with his trumpet for the first time in ten years. The second set is built around Kansas City Goodnight, the Peacock Room's own hit. The table cards print it the way every record has since 1951: by Archie Benn, who died in 1956. At five to ten, minutes before the second set, Johnny opens his case and finds his horn won't play. Sylvie Ferrante seats the guests now. In 1950 she sold them cigarettes. She was standing beside Johnny when he opened the case, and she wants to know who ruined his horn, and whose song it really is.
- 1Five Minutes to Ten
- 2The Iron Rail
- 3December 31, 1950
- 4Sunday Rehearsal
- 5The Night Desk
- 6Table One
- 7Monday Noon
- 8Fifty Seconds
- 9Clem's Car
- 10The Second Encorebring your clues
Each chapter is a short scene and a puzzle, and each puzzle leaves you one clue. Keep all nine. The finale asks for every one.
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.
The people of the case
- Sylvie Ferrante. Hostess at the Peacock Room. Sold cigarettes there in 1950, the year before it closed.
- Johnny Lomax. Trumpet player. Played in Archie Benn's band in 1950, and has led his own group in New York since 1955.
- Monty Kroll. Owns the Peacock Room. Tended its bar in 1950 and reopened it tonight.
- Winnie Benn. Archie Benn's widow. Lives at the Muehlebach Hotel, and has table one tonight.
- Clem Dawes. Leads the house band. Played piano for Archie Benn from 1946 until the club closed.
- Eddie Yates. Writes the nightclub column for the Kansas City Star. Puts the time beside everything he writes down.
More cases from the shelf
The Lantern Walk
Halloween. The lanterns on the walk go out one by one, in order, and by morning seven doors carry a lamplighter's chalk mark.
Sealed Until Air
Omaha, 1948. Twenty minutes before the radio serial's finale, the envelope holding its last page is opened. Every sheet is blank.
Bake It Till It Talks
Oregon, 1963. The champion's pie recipe sat taped inside its tin all night. On judging morning the card in the tin is blank.
Ten Minutes to Midnight
Denver, New Year's Eve, 1954. The last waltz ends at midnight. The bandleader never sees the new year.