Celest St. Claire's Notes
Hey,
As I mentioned in my note, I’m sure that my conclusions will match Sullivan’s. That being the case, if you’ve already asked him about these clues, you probably won’t learn anything new here.
If you do choose to use this site, you’ll still need to email Sullivan about the Location of Stella’s old studio. You’ll also need to email him the case’s Solution once you’ve figured out where Stella’s designs are hidden.
If you haven’t emailed Sullivan yet, you can visit SleuthKings.com/Case-015 to send him your first email. When you want to address either of the issues above, just include the appropriate underlined word from above in the body of your email.
If you want to see my thoughts on any of the clues in your case file, just click the corresponding button below.
Stella sure was clever, wasn’t she? Decoding a speakeasy ad and then using the pattern to write her own message – I think she and I would have gotten along just fine.
I don’t want to tell you everything upfront and take away all of the fun, but I’ll give you part of the pattern. First, each word has the correct first and last letters. If a word is longer than 2 letters, its interior letters are swapped with the interior letters of the word directly beside it. Before you start trying to swap letters between multiple words, though, you should know that each word will only swap with another word once – then it’s done.
I mentioned it before, but the first part of the pattern involves swapping the middle segments of words with their neighbors. That’s not all, though. After we do that, we still need to figure out which words are relevant to the actual message.
I won’t keep you in suspense. If you study the coded message on the front and look at Stella’s translation, it’s the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, and last words in each line that are used – the others can be ignored.
When we use the full pattern with Stella’s letter on the back, we get:
I wanted to give the key to
my design to Helen, the Baker, but
she’s sweet for the candy maker across
the street from her. She’d never notice
if someone stole it. I hid it
in my shop, instead, and carved a
hint for finding it into the wall.
That’s right – the key that Stella mentioned in her diary is in her old studio. The trick, of course, will be finding her studio. To do that, I’ve got a feeling that Helen, the Baker, being across from a candy maker will be important information in helping us narrow down her shop’s location. We’ll probably need more information than just that, but it’s a start.
I’d recommend taking a look at the brochure with a map on one side to see if you can pinpoint Stella’s old studio. When you do, remember to let Sullivan know where it is by emailing him and including the word location in the body of your email. When you do, he’ll be able to check the studio out for you and see what he can find.
If you’re tired of scouring your case file for information that might help you find Stella’s studio, I’ve got you covered.
The notes that Sullivan stole from John indicate that Edwin’s Drug Store eventually became Fragrant Wishes Scent Shop. That being the case, we can eliminate Fragrant Wishes from our list. (By the way, Sullivan is more of a rebel than I thought, isn’t he?! Stealing notes from another detective – who would have thought he’d have it in him?)
The “Fun Fact” section on the front of the brochure tells us that Robert’s Hardware and Will’s Shoes were located as far from one another as possible.
Finally, Stella’s coded note from CIue 1 tells us that Helen and Charles had stores that were across from one another.
Now, try keeping all of that in mind and ignore the names of the modern shops for a minute. Instead, just focus on trying to get a feel for where each shop was back in the early 20’s. You’ll probably only be able to narrow each store down to an either-or location, but that should still be enough to help you figure out where Stella’s old studio was.
Let’s break things down a little more and look at what each piece of information tells us about the stores on the map.
John Malvone’s notes told us that Fragrant Wishes Scent Shop used to be Edwin’s Drug Store, right? That means we can eliminate Fragrant Wishes from our list of possibilities.
The “Fun Fact” section on the brochure tells us that Robert’s Hardware and Will’s Shoes were as far from one another as possible, which means that they had to be on separate corners. Since Fragrant Wishes is already accounted for, that means Robert and Will must have occupied the buildings that Inked Tattoo Parlor and Blue Diamond Improv are in now.
Knowing that, we’re left with only Do the Do Hair Salon, Sugar High Cupcakes, and Down Dog Yoga Studio. Stella’s note on the back of the speakeasy flyer said that Helen, the Baker, liked to stare at the candy maker across the street from her. Since the hair salon and the cupcake shop are the only possibilities left that are across from one another, that means one must have been Helen’s, and the other was a candy store.
If we eliminate those two, the only place we’re left with is Down Dog Yoga Studio. That has to be where Stella’s old studio was.
I can’t really tell Sullivan that I was snooping through his case information, so I’d recommend you send him an email to let him know that you’ve figured out where Stella’s studio was. If you haven’t emailed him yet for this case, you can do so here: www.SleuthKings.com/Case-015.
When you let him know that Stella’s studio was in Down Dog Yoga, make sure you include the word location in your email so that he knows what you’re talking about. Hopefully when he goes to check it out, he’ll find something helpful.
All right, so, maybe I wasn’t completely forthcoming with my last hint. Theoretically, I might have visited Down Dog Yoga Studio before either Sullivan or John found it. Please, do me a favor and keep that between us.
Anyway, the note that Stella hid behind the baseboard mentioned anticipating the one thing that will happen after someone sees their dress. The word “dress” is used over and over again in the order form so much that it’s almost obnoxious. Lucky for us, that’s part of the trick to finding the message here.
Don’t forget about the numbers included in Stella’s note – they’re important, too. The words in the message are out of order, so the only way to make sense out of them is to use the string of numbers to put them in the correct order.
If it helps, #1 is the word that is closest to the top of the page. That doesn’t mean that it’s the first word used in the message, however. You’ll want to reference the string of numbers in the note from Stella’s studio in order to figure out which order to put the words in.
If you haven’t seen the note yet, you’ll want to let Sullivan know where Stella’s old studio is. When you do, I’m sure he’ll be able to find the note so that you can see what I’m talking about.
If you haven’t emailed Sullivan yet for this case, you can send him your first email at www.SleuthKings.com/Case-015. When you want to tell him where Stella’s old studio was, make sure you include the word Location in your email so he knows what you’re talking about.
Stella’s note said that what matters is anticipating the one thing that will happen after someone sees their dress, right? What she means is that we only need to read the word that appears immediately after each use of the word “dress” on the order form. When we do that, we get:
“letter, letter, is, Marie, key, is, line, line, use, list, silk, ribbon, beads, feathers, boning, buttons.”
Once we’ve got that, when we use the string of numbers from Stella’s studio (5, 3, 4, 1, 10, 7, 6, 2, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16), to rearrange the words, the message says:
“Key is Marie letter. List line is letter line. Use silk, ribbon, beads, feathers, boning, buttons.”
The fact that this mentions a key tells me that the physical key Stella hid in her studio was a decoy. The real key is actually the letter that Stella wrote to her sister, Marie.
Take a look at the letter (Sullivan marked it as Clue 4). When you do, keep the order form’s message in mind and see if you can find whatever it is that Stella hid in her letter. When you do, it should tell us what we need to do in order to find her designs.
Thanks to the order form’s hidden message (Clue 3), we know that somehow the shopping list on the back of Stella’s letter to Marie is telling us which words to read in the letter itself.
Try not to get complacent – there’s more to this than only looking at the numbers beside each specified item. The order form alluded to the fact that only specific lines in the list and letter are relevant, right? That means that the placement of each designated item in the shopping list is important and can help us figure out which line within the letter to look at.
Once you’ve figured out which lines in the letter are important, the shopping list will help you figure out which word to read in the applicable lines, too.
This one’s tricky – I completely understand how you got stuck. I think looking at it piece by piece will help it make more sense.
Thanks to the order form (Clue 3), we know that we need to pay attention to the lines on the shopping list that contain the following materials: silk, ribbon, beads, feathers, boning, and buttons.
The order form also told us that the list line is the letter line, right? I was stuck on that for a while but, since the list and the letter have the same number of lines, it eventually clicked. If we number each line on the list and each line on the letter, things get much easier to visualize. Once we do that, the line numbers on the list and letter correlate with one another.
From there, if we look at the quantity of the item on each designated line on the shopping list, it tells us which word to look at on the letter.
An example might help it make more sense. “9 yards of silk” is on the first line of the shopping list. Since the order form told us that “silk” is one of the designated items, we know that it’s an important line worth looking at. Since it’s on the first line of the shopping list, that means it correlates to the first line in the letter. Thanks to the “9,” we know that we need to read the ninth word of the letter’s first line, which is “read.”
When we do that for each item mentioned in the order form’s hidden message (lines 1, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 13), we get “read bird, cat, dog, mouse, star.”
If you can figure out what that means, I think you’ll be able to find Stella’s designs. Unfortunately, I haven’t had any luck with this yet, myself. Still, I’m sure you’ll be able to do it!
When you’ve figured out where Stella’s designs are hidden, don’t forget to tell Sullivan so he can retrieve them!
If you haven’t sent him an email for this case yet, you can do so at www.SleuthKings.com/Case-015. When you want to let him know where the designs are, make sure you include the word Solution in the body of your email so that he knows what you’re referring to.
Good luck!