Mystery · Large print

Case File No. 3: The Lighthouse Visitors’ Book

Name elimination puzzle: 2,000 visitors signed the lighthouse visitors’ book on Harbor Day, 1959, and one of them carried the fog bell’s iron clapper down 112 steps. 12 clues, taken one at a time, strike out every name but one.

See price on Etsy

Instant PDF download on Etsy. You print it at home; nothing is mailed.

Players: 1 to 6; Team Sheet for groups
Time: about an hour at a table of four; 3 hours or more alone
You need: pencils and a ruler; no scissors, no app, no host
Print: US Letter and A4; black ink is fine
Print size: Standard ledger 10 pt; Large Print edition 16 pt

At the table

You read the first clue aloud: “The culprit went up with tour 11 or higher.” Pencils move down the book and someone calls the count: 1,183 still standing. An hour later, one name is left.

For the first time in thirty years I slept straight through to morning. Whoever it was, they let an old man sleep.

How the clues work

Each clue rules people out, never in. Three from this case:

“The culprit went up with tour 11 or higher”: strike out tours 1 to 10.
“The culprit’s last name contains the letter E”: Keene stays, Hall is struck out.
“The culprit does not live on Anchor Lane, Beacon Hill, Chapel Street or Dune Road”: strike out those four streets, nobody else.

Every reading rule (strictly fewer, through, double letter, share a letter) is spelled out on the How to Play page with an example, so there is nothing to argue about at the table.

What you get5 files

Standard edition, US Letter (51 pages) and A4 (47 pages)letter, story, how to play, 12 clues, the 2,000-name visitors’ book, Detective’s Log, Team Sheet
Large Print edition (zip, Letter 42 and A4 39 pages)the same case, its own 12-clue chain over 800 visitors
Quick Case edition (zip, Letter 26 and A4 25 pages)the 800-visitor chain at 10 pt

Why it works

Exactly one name survives all 12 clues: checked by program twice, the second time on the finished file. Leave any one clue out and two or more names survive, so there is no guessing and no dead end. A count line is printed on every page of the visitors’ book (“Check: clue 1 leaves 31 of the 48 names on this page”), and the Detective’s Log has check-points after clues 3, 6 and 9, so a missed name shows up at once, without seeing the answer. The answer itself has been hiding in plain sight since page two; the Solution Pack says where.

Made for: Puzzle evenings, book clubs, church fellowship hours and family tables. No violence: a silent bell, a town of witnesses, one old friend.