Mystery · Large print

Case File No. 8: The Retirement Gift

Retirement party game: at the supper for the first-grade teacher who taught a whole town to read, her gift watch vanished from the table and came back by morning, mended. Nobody is in trouble. The Book of Pupils has 2,000 names; 13 clues, taken one at a time, strike out every name but one.

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

Players: 1 to 6, with a 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 enough
Print size: Standard sheet 10 pt; Large Print edition 16 pt
Also: No crime and no villain: a gift put right overnight, and a principal who wants to say thank you

At the table

You read the first clue aloud: “The mender sat at table 11 or higher.” Pencils move down the Book of Pupils and someone calls the count: 1,157 still standing. An hour later, one name is left.

“To Miss Beulah Hart,” with a small check mark beside the name.

How the clues work

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

“The mender sat at table 11 or higher”: strike out everyone at tables 1 to 10.
“The mender’s first name contains the letter E”: Helen stays, Mary is struck out.
“The mender’s address does not end in the word Street”: strike out every Street, keep every Lane, Road, Avenue and Hill.

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 (52 pages) and A4 (47 pages)letter, story, how to play, 13 clues, the 2,000-name Book of Pupils, 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 guests, 16 pt
Quick Case edition (zip, Letter 26 and A4 25 pages)the 800-guest chain at 10 pt, one evening

Why it works

Exactly one name survives all 13 clues: checked by program twice, the second time on the finished PDF. 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 Book of Pupils (“Check: clue 1 leaves 23 of the 48 names on this page”), and the Detective’s Log has check-points after clues 3, 6, 9 and 12, 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: Retirement parties, teacher send-offs, office farewells, church fellowship hours, book clubs and family tables. It plays as an hour-long table game at the party itself, with a Team Sheet for groups. No crime at all: a watch, a misspelled name and a thank-you with nowhere to go.