A free night from Locked in the Waxworks

The Night Before the Gala

Madame Tallow’s setting key has gone from its hook, and everybody is looking at the raven. Seven puzzles, one night, and a thief to name before dawn.

The 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.

Begin the night About the book

Medium ×2
Hard ×3
Fiendish ×2

The guests of Tallow’s Waxworks gathered in the checkered Foyer by lantern light — The Foyer of Tallow’s Waxworks, from *Locked in the Waxworks*

Madame Philippa Tallow, tall and severe, in a sculptor’s apron with her tools — Madame Philippa Tallow, proprietor and sculptor

The case of the setting key

Madame Tallow does not read references

Tallow’s Waxworks of the Wicked has stood on Lament Street, in Sorrowby-on-the-Wane, for fifty years, and tomorrow night is its Fiftieth-Anniversary Gala. Madame Philippa Tallow needs a night-watch. She does not read references.

“One night,” she tells you. “Locked in, like the figures. If you are still sane at dawn and can answer my question, the post is yours.”

Every evening Madame sets the combination of every door in the house with her brass setting key, and every evening she hangs it on its hook in the Foyer. Tonight, by a quarter to twelve, the hook is empty. Without that key not one door can be set for the Gala, and everybody is looking at the raven.

Madame has gone up to bed. “Everything that happens in my house,” she says from the stair, “leaves a mark in my house.”

Seven puzzlesFrom Medium to Fiendish, in the book’s own kinds of puzzle. Each one gives you a clue, answered with a word or two.
Keys carried overThe Wax Kitchen floor (4) gives you the key to the last puzzle, the way the book’s answers set the dials of its doors.
Your casebookEvery clue you find is written into your casebook at the end. With them, name the thief and say where the key is.
Stuck?Every puzzle has hints, and you can show its answer. Your progress is kept on this device.

Staying the night for the rehearsal

DirgeThe one-eyed raven. Scruffy, and fond of keys above everything.

Cornelius Tallow in a bowler hat and checked waistcoat

Cornelius TallowMadame’s brother-in-law and co-owner. A gambler. “Five to two it’s the veiled one.”

Lady Lavinia Snipe in a tall veiled hat, holding a lorgnette

Lady Lavinia SnipeCollector of mourning jewelry and death masks; towering and veiled. “I collect the dead. The living I merely tolerate.”

Anselm Wick, a huge bearded chandler with an armful of candles

Anselm WickThe chandler who supplies the wax. Huge, gentle, and smells of honey. “Beg pardon.”

Esther Gloam, small and gray, in spectacles and a shawl

Esther GloamThe ticket-seller. Small, gray, and notices everything. “I notice things.”

In the Rogues’ Corridor stand the house’s three favorite villains: the Pirate, the Hangman and the Poisoner of Pell Street. (Do not speak to the Poisoner. She is very lifelike and very rude.)

Tumbler Lock

Esther’s Drawer

MediumAbout 10 minutes

An ornate iron keyhole with an eye looking through it

Esther Gloam keeps her notebook in the ticket-booth drawer, under a three-dial tumbler lock, and she will not tell you the code. She will tell you, without being asked, what the lock said to everyone who tried it tonight. She noticed.

How it works. Each try shows three digits on the dials. ● is a click: a right digit on the right dial. ○ is a whir: a right digit on the wrong dial. The clicks and whirs are not in dial order. No code uses a digit twice.

What the lock said tonight

Your workings (tap a digit: ✕ not on this dial, ● on it)

The question. What is the code? Write its three digits.

Word Search

Mr. Wick’s Slate

MediumAbout 10 minutes

Anselm Wick has chalked tomorrow’s Gala delivery on the Foyer slate: everything a chandler brings to a party for the wicked. “Beg pardon,” he says. “I write small when I’m nervous.” In the gaps, in a much tidier hand, somebody else has chalked a message.

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 message.

Mr. Wick’s delivery (tap a word to tick it off)

Letters not crossed out:

The question. What color is the thread on the hook?

Logic Grid

Supper at Nine

HardAbout 20 minutes

At nine Madame gave the house a rehearsal supper: five chairs along one side of the long table, chair 1 by the fire, and everybody in evening gloves, because Madame insists. Esther, who notices everything, noticed everybody’s.

How it works. Each person matches exactly one glove color and one chair. Tap a square once for ✕ and twice for ✓. A lower chair is nearer the fire; “next to” means side by side.

Esther did not wear lilac gloves.
The guest in gray gloves sat nearer the fire than Madame Tallow.
Madame Tallow sat next to the guest in gray gloves.
The guest in primrose gloves did not sit in chair 3.
Madame Tallow sat right next to Esther, nearer the fire.
The guest in lilac gloves sat right next to the guest in black, nearer the fire.
The guests in black and gray gloves did not sit next to each other.
The guests in gray and lilac gloves did not sit next to each other.
Cornelius sat right next to Lady Snipe, nearer the fire.

The question. Who wore the lilac gloves? Write the first name.

Letter Sudoku

The Wax Kitchen Floor

HardAbout 15 minutes

The Wax Kitchen: vats, shelves of wax heads and candles by lantern light

The floor of the Wax Kitchen is tiled in six letters, laid by a tiler who owed Madame money and was told to make it interesting. Fifty years of spilled wax have scrubbed most of the letters away. The six dark tiles spell the word the Tallows use as a key.

How it works. Write T, A, P, E, R or S in every square, so that each letter appears once in every row, every column and every outlined box of six. Then read the six dark squares, row by row.

The dark tiles:

The question. Write the letters of the six dark squares, in reading order.

Keep this word: the last puzzle needs it.

Picture Grid

Esther’s Sampler

HardAbout 20 minutes

Esther Gloam never says what she has seen. She sews it. Tonight, by the light of the booth lamp, she has been stitching a new corner of her sampler, and she has left the pattern on the counter, where you can’t miss it.

How it works. The numbers give the runs of stitched squares in each row and column, in order, with at least one empty square between runs. Tap a square once to stitch it and twice to mark it empty. Then name the picture.

The question. What has Esther stitched? Write one word.

Alibi Timeline

The Quarter Chimes

FiendishAbout 25 minutes

The Gallery of Grim Monarchs: wax kings and queens along both walls

Madame’s first rule: walk your rounds at every quarter chime. You did, from ten until eleven, and the guests kept wandering. You didn’t see everybody every time, but Madame’s door drums recorded more than you did, and Esther noticed the rest.

How it works. Fill the chart: where was each guest at each chime? Between two chimes a guest stays put or walks to a place next door on the plan, never further. Tap a square to change its place.

The plan: each place is next door to the two beside it.

What the drums, Esther and you noticed (tap a fact to tick it off)

Cornelius was in the Gallery of Grim Monarchs at exactly one chime.
Cornelius was not in the Foyer at 11:00.
Lady Snipe was in the Supper Room at exactly three chimes.
Mr. Wick was in the Rogues’ Corridor at 10:15.
Mr. Wick was in the Rogues’ Corridor at exactly one chime.
Mr. Wick was not in the Gallery of Grim Monarchs at 10:45.
Esther did not move between 10:00 and 10:15.
Esther never set foot in the Supper Room.
Lady Snipe and Mr. Wick were never in the same place.
Lady Snipe and Esther were in the same place at 10:30.
Mr. Wick and Esther were never in the same place.
At 10:00 Cornelius was alone.
At 10:15 two guests were in the Foyer.
At 10:45 nobody was in the Foyer.
At 10:45 nobody was in the Rogues’ Corridor.

The question. Who was alone in the Foyer at half past ten?

Playfair Cipher

The Wager

FiendishAbout 25 minutes

Under a chair in the Gallery of Grim Monarchs lies a slip of paper Lady Snipe has dropped: a wager, written the way the Tallows write anything private, in pairs of letters from a five-by-five square.

How it works. Build the square: the key word without repeated letters, then the rest of the alphabet in order (I and J share a square). Take the cipher two letters at a time. Two letters in the same row: take the letter to the left of each. In the same column: the letter above each. Otherwise each letter becomes the one in its own row and in the other letter’s column. An X splits a double letter or ends the last pair. The key is the word on the Wax Kitchen floor (4).

The wager, in pairs. Write each pair’s letters underneath.

The question. Where will the night-watch never look, says the wager? Write the last word.

The final question

Madame’s Question

A heavy arched wooden door, studded with iron

Gray light is coming under the street door, and Madame will be down soon. Here is everything you found tonight.

Esther’s Drawer Not solved yet.
Mr. Wick’s Slate Not solved yet.
Supper at Nine Not solved yet.
The Wax Kitchen Floor Not solved yet.
Esther’s Sampler Not solved yet.
The Quarter Chimes Not solved yet.
The Wager Not solved yet.

The question. Who took the setting key, and where is it now?

The thief The key is now in

Owlbrook Grim Tales · Book One

Locked in the Waxworks

The doors lock at midnight. The killer is locked in with you.

Tonight was the night before. The book is the Gala itself: at 11:48 you find Madame Tallow in the chair of her own most famous tableau, a silver cup at her hand, and at midnight every door in the crooked old house shuts until dawn. Six guests are locked in with you, and the only way out runs through thirteen locked rooms. Observation plates, ciphers, logic grids, floor plans, alibi timelines, tumbler locks, mazes, letter sudoku, picture grids and word searches: 52 puzzles, a question in every room, and an Accusation at dawn. Every puzzle has exactly one solution, checked by computer, with answer checks, two levels of hints and full solutions.

See the book

More gothic mysteries in Owlbrook Grim Tales.