A free case from The Undertaker’s Casebook

The Apprentice’s First Case

Mr. Pew, organist, played the last hymn far too fast, and Dr. Dole has written “natural causes.” Josiah disagrees. Seven puzzles, one case, and a casebook entry to write before the funeral.

The case and its puzzles are new, made for this page in the style of the book, and nothing in them spoils it. Play on screen, or print them and grab a pencil.

Open the case About the book

Medium ×2
Hard ×3
Fiendish ×2

Josiah Coffinwright, very tall in a stovepipe hat with a trailing ribbon, outside the shop of Coffinwright and Daughter, Undertakers, on a rainy street — Coffinwright & Daughter, No. 13 Pall Street, from *The Undertaker’s Casebook*

Josiah Coffinwright in his tall hat with its long black ribbon, a measuring tape round his neck — Josiah Coffinwright, undertaker. Seven feet of polite gloom.

Before the casebook begins

Never run in the parlor

You are the new apprentice at Coffinwright & Daughter, Undertakers, No. 13 Pall Street, in Sorrowby-on-the-Wane. The casebook starts in March. Josiah Coffinwright, never without his measuring tape, has one case for you first, to see whether you will do.

“You hold the lantern,” he says. “I shall hold the tape. And never run in the parlor; the clients are resting.”

In Sorrowby, Dr. Septimus Dole writes the same two words on every death certificate. Josiah keeps a casebook of the deaths that were nothing of the kind.

Seven puzzlesFrom Medium to Fiendish, in the book’s own kinds of evidence. Each one adds a line of evidence to the case.
Keys carried overThe loft cupboard (3) opens on the key to Mr. Pew’s practice book (7), the way the book’s answers unlock one another.
The Casebook EntryEvery line of evidence is copied into the casebook at the end. Close the case by naming who did it, what carried the poison, and what it was.
Stuck?Every puzzle has hints, and you can show its answer. Your progress is kept on this device.

The deceased

Mr. Barnabas Pew, 71

Organist of St. Agatha’s, Crookspire Lane, for forty years. Received at the parlor on Monday morning.

Dr. Dole’s certificate

Cause of death: natural causes. (An excitable heart. Too much Bach.)

S. Dole, M.D.

Josiah’s three observations

Mr. Pew’s bottle of elderberry syrup, in the organ loft, is empty, and its cork is stained purple.
The fifth spare robe on the vestry rail has a purple stain on its cuff.
In the churchyard herb garden, bed 3 has been stripped bare and its label pulled up.

The circumstances

On Sunday evening the choir practised in St. Agatha’s with the church door locked, as the verger insists. From twenty past six until ten to seven the choir took tea in the vestry, while Mr. Pew rehearsed the anthem in the loft above. At evensong he played the last hymn at twice its proper speed, and then he stopped playing.

The people in the case

Mrs. Hester CrumbSings soprano. Baked the bilberry pie for the choir’s tea. “He called my pastry a penance.”Josiah’s tape: 62 in.

Mr. Silas PealSings bass. Captain of the bell-ringers. “His organ drowned my bells every Sunday.”Josiah’s tape: 74 in.

Miss Ottoline FudgeChoir mistress. Has wanted the organ bench for thirty years. “I could play that organ with my eyes shut.”Josiah’s tape: 70 in.

Mr. Wilfred GristleSings tenor. Churchwarden; keeps the churchyard herb garden. “Every bed in that garden is labeled. Mostly.”Josiah’s tape: 70 in.

Also at St. Agatha’s on Sunday: Mr. Ogle, the bellows-man, who pumps the organ and notices very little. He is not a suspect: he is too short to fit any robe on the rail, and too honest to be interesting.

Coffin Arithmetic

The Fifth Robe

MediumAbout 10 minutes

Six spare choir robes hang on the vestry rail for visiting singers, shortest first, and the fifth has a purple stain on its cuff. A robe is the best disguise in a church: on the loft stair, anyone in one looks like a chorister. Prudence has the tailor’s bill in her ledger, and Josiah has his tape. “Purely professional interest,” he says, and measures the rail.

How it works. Work from the facts in Prudence’s ledger. All the lengths are whole inches.

Prudence’s ledger · the tailor’s bill

The six robes took 309 inches of black serge between them, and nothing was wasted.
Each robe on the rail is 3 inches longer than the one before it.
A robe fits only a wearer exactly 14 inches taller than the robe is long. Anyone else trips over it or shows their ankles, and Sorrowby would talk.

The vestry rail. The fifth robe is the stained one.

The question. How tall was whoever wore the fifth robe? Write the height in inches.

Obituary Word Search

The Last Word

MediumAbout 10 minutes

Monday’s Sorrowby Lamentation prints Mr. Pew’s obituary as a word search, as it prints every obituary. The editor hides a line of gossip in the letters left over. Josiah reads it twice. The last word is always true.

How it works. Find every word in the list. Each runs in a straight line in any of the eight directions, and words may share letters. Tap a word’s first letter and then its last to cross it out (tap one letter twice to cross out just that one). The letters no word uses, read row by row, spell the last word.

The Sorrowby Lamentation

Obituaries · PEW, Barnabas, organist

The words (tap a word to tick it off)

Letters not crossed out:

The question. What did Mr. Pew never do on a Sunday? Write two words.

Code-Breaking Lock

The Loft Cupboard

HardAbout 15 minutes

Mr. Pew kept his music and his elderberry syrup in a cupboard in the organ loft, under a five-dial word lock. Somebody has tried it before you: the tries are scratched into the paint, with what the lock said to each.

How it works. Each try shows a word on the five dials. ● is a click: a right letter in the right place. ○ is a whir: a right letter in the wrong place. The clicks and whirs are not in dial order. The word is an English word, and no letter is used twice.

Scratched into the paint

Your workings (tap a letter: ✕ not in the word, ● in it)

The question. What word opens the cupboard?

Keep this word: the last puzzle needs it.

Wake Interrogation

The Funeral Ham

HardAbout 20 minutes

Wednesday’s funeral tea is held in the parlor, as they always are. Josiah carves the ham; you listen. Between twenty past six and ten to seven on Sunday the choir took tea in the vestry, and exactly one of the five people at this table climbed the loft stair while the others ate.

How it works. At a Sorrowby wake, a Mourner came for the deceased and always tells the truth. A Ham-Eater came for the funeral ham and always lies. A Sherry-Drinker tells the truth and lies by turns, starting with either. Tap a name to mark what you think each one is.

The question. Who climbed the loft stair during tea?

Poison-Garden Deduction

Bed Three

HardAbout 15 minutes

Miss Viola Larkspur, the funeral florist, holding a lily

Mr. Gristle’s herb garden runs along the churchyard wall in five beds, bed 1 by the gate. Somebody has stripped bed 3 bare and pulled up the label. Miss Larkspur lends you her field guide, and her opinion, which is that the churchwarden labels things the way other people sneeze.

How it works. Each bed grows exactly one of the seven plants in the guide, and no plant grows in two beds, so two of the seven are not in the garden at all. Tap a square once for ✕ and twice for ✓.

Miss Larkspur’s field guide

deadly nightshade ☠: Shiny black berries, sweet to taste. Poisonous: the heart races.
foxglove ☠: Tall spires of speckled bells. Poisonous: the heart slows.
monkshood ☠: Hooded blue flowers. Poisonous: numbness first.
comfrey: Hairy leaves, bell flowers. For poultices.
lavender: Gray leaves, a sleepy scent. For linen drawers.
mint: Square stems, a cool smell. For sauce and tea.
rosemary: Needle leaves. For remembrance, and for lamb.

What Mr. Gristle remembers, and what the garden shows (tap a fact to tick it off)

Mint grows in an odd-numbered bed.
Bed 1 grows nothing poisonous.
Exactly three of the five beds grow something poisonous.
Exactly one bed lies between the deadly nightshade and the mint.
The deadly nightshade grows nearer the gate than the lavender.
The lavender grows nearer the gate than the monkshood.

The question. What grew in bed 3?

Time-of-Death Timeline

The Soot Ring

FiendishAbout 20 minutes

The poison went into the bottle on Sunday evening, between six and half past seven, when the church was locked with the choir inside. Exactly one five-minute mark fits every piece of evidence, and every piece is needed.

How it works. Cross out each time on the ruler that a piece of evidence rules out. One of the four pieces rules out nothing at all: work out which, and why.

The chalked slate in the loft says Mr. Pew rehearsed the anthem three times: at 6:25, 6:35 and 6:45. Nobody could reach the bottle unseen except while he played it, with both hands and both feet busy.
The candle on the music desk was lit, new, at six. Whoever moved the bottle pinched it out to keep in the dark, and Josiah finds the soot ring between 1½ and 2½ inches below the top. A candle like it burns an inch every 20 minutes in still air, and a quarter faster in the drafty loft.
At the half-hour chime Mr. Pew took a spoonful of syrup and passed the bottle to Mr. Ogle, the bellows-man, who took one too and is in excellent health.
The verger locked the church door at six and did not open it again until half past seven.

Tap a time to cross it out; tap again to ring it.

The question. At what time did somebody tamper with the syrup?

Cipher Note

The Practice Book

FiendishAbout 25 minutes

A small black book with a lily laid on it

Mr. Pew wrote his practice notes in a column code, because the choir mistress reads everything. His last entry is dated Sunday.

How it works. Write the key across the top of a grid, one letter to a column, and number the columns in the alphabetical order of their key letters. The cipher fills the columns one at a time, top to bottom, in that numbered order, each column taking the same number of letters. Then read the grid row by row. The last row is filled out with X’s. The key is the word that opened the loft cupboard (3).

Sunday’s entry, in groups of five

The question. What, says Mr. Pew, has somebody been at? Write two words.

Close the case

The Casebook Entry

The casebook open on its lectern by candlelight, the measuring tape hanging beside it

The casebook lies open on its lectern, and Josiah waits with his pen. “Who, how, and with what,” he says. “And if the evidence clears them all, say so. Then I tie a black thread to the page.” Here is everything you found.

The Fifth Robe Not found yet.
The Last Word Not found yet.
The Loft Cupboard Not found yet.
The Funeral Ham Not found yet.
Bed Three Not found yet.
The Soot Ring Not found yet.
The Practice Book Not found yet.

The question. Close the case: who did it, what carried the poison, and what was it?

Who What carried it The poison

Owlbrook Grim Tales · Book Five

The Undertaker’s Casebook

Forty deaths. Forty certificates that say “natural.” One undertaker who knows better.

That was one case. The book has forty of them, March to February, ten to a season, each with Dr. Dole’s certificate, Josiah’s three observations, the suspects and a chain of mixed puzzles: cipher notes, mourner logic grids, wake interrogations, time-of-death timelines, deathbed floor plans, poison-garden deductions, code-breaking locks, coffin arithmetic, headstone letters and obituary word searches. Then, in the last week of February, a coffin is ordered in Josiah’s exact measurements. 91 puzzles, every one checked by computer to have exactly one solution, with answer checks, hints and full solutions.

See the book

Reading it on Kindle? The Solver’s Pack has every worksheet ready to print. More gothic mysteries in Owlbrook Grim Tales.