Case-105

Case 105: Moonlight Knight

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 case’s Solution once you’ve figured out the pawn shop’s password.

If you haven’t emailed Sullivan yet, you can visit SleuthKings.com/Case-105 to send him your first email. When you want to tell him what the password is, just include the word Solution in the body of your email.

If you need help making sense out of Giovanni Moretti’s note once you’ve solved Clues 1-4, you can send Sullivan a message with the phrase Secret Code 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.

I’m pretty sure Sullivan is right about this being set up like Sudoku. That being the case, the bottom row should be: E, D, A, I, W, T. I’m pretty sure the right-most column (from top-to-bottom) is: D, W, E, I, A, T.

Looking at this, there’s no way anything except for the top row actually spells something out. The rest of the rows and columns are going to be gibberish. Luckily, one word is all we need here.

I’m pretty sure this is how the table should be arranged:

It looks like I was right – the only coherent word is “waited,” which is in the top row.

Now that we’ve got that, we can fill in the blanks in the sentence below with those letters. If I’m reading this correctly, once we do that, it tells us that the following numbers in the “square” column on Giovanni Moretti’s note stand for these letters:

1 = T

2 = I

3 = D

4 = W

I don’t know how that’s going to help us find the password yet, but you might want to write that down anyway. Maybe once we’ve solved the other clues, the table will start to make a little more sense.

Don’t forget, if you need help making sense out of the table on Giovanni Moretti’s note after you’ve solved Clues 1-4, you can send Sullivan a message with the phrase Secret Code in the body of your email. If you haven’t sent him your first email yet, you can do so at SleuthKings.com/Case-105.

I’m pretty sure the pictures on the left side of the grid are telling us which section of the brochure to look at. The words at the top are telling us to look at the first letter of the underlined word, the circled word, and the red word in each section.

With that in mind, the first row is: “APP.”

Take a look at the other two sections to see what word this grid is trying to spell out. Once you’ve got it, the word should help bring you a little closer to finding the password.

I got it. I just finished making sense out of the brochure’s message.

The pictures on the left side of the grid are telling us which sections of the brochure to look at, right? The bird is on the page titled Security, the key is on the A Tiger Can Never Be Caught page, and the mask is on the Castle on a Hilltop page.

After you fill out the grid, using the first letter of the underlined, circled, and red words in each section, you can read the word “appeasing.”

When you fill in the missing word beneath the grid with “appeasing,” it tells us that the following numbers stand for these letters in the triangle section of Giovanni Moretti’s note:

1 = A

2 = P

3 = A

4 = P

I’m not sure what an “APAP” is, but you might want to write it down anyway. It might be useful once you’ve finished working through the other clues.

I’m still working on putting the pieces together, but I think I’ve got the top row arranged correctly. The handwritten letters in that row spell “Don’t U.”

See if you can put the rest of the pieces together. When everything is correct, I think the handwritten letters should spell out some kind of message for you.

That was surprisingly more difficult than I expected. There was so much blue!

Here’s what the completed picture looks like:

“Don’t use scissors” confused me at first – for a second I thought I ruined everything by cutting the painting up! – but then I realized it matches the handwritten sentence that’s on the picture. As soon as it dawned on me that it just means the missing word is “scissors,” I could breathe again!

When I filled in the missing word’s blank spaces, I noticed that it’s telling us that every letter in the circle column in Giovanni Moretti’s note stands for “S.” It sure is strange how many S’s it shows, but it will hopefully make more sense when we’ve solved the other clues. For now, your best bet is probably to make a note about it and take another look once you’ve finished solving Clues 1, 2, and 4.

Whoever wrote this code must have used a date that the recipient would easily be able to find – otherwise they wouldn’t be able to read it.

Try looking at the postcard and the other stuff the thief dropped to see if you can find a reference to a date that might help here. If you find a date, make sure you write it as MM/DD/YYYY under the coded word and then shift each of the letters backward in the alphabet by the number beneath them.

I almost missed it, but the date Moonlight Knight was painted is on the front of the postcard. It was 04/13/1931.

I gave the date a shot, and it worked! In case you’d like an example of what I did, 0 is under “B,” which means it moves 0 places and stays the same letter. 4 is under “S,” so “S” moves back 4 places and becomes the letter “O.”

When you do that for each of the letters, the coded word becomes “boulders.”

That’s fantastic news! Boulder’s Pawn Shop is the name of a store downtown! Sullivan and I are actually really close to it already. If the painting is there, that means we’re only one step away from getting it back! We just need the password now.

If we fill in the missing letters in the sentence, they tell us that the numbers in the star column on Giovanni Moretti’s note stand for the following letters:

1 = E

2 = L

3 = R

4 = O

We’re so close! Once you assemble the letters the other clues have given us, you should be able to start trying to make sense out of the table on Giovanni Moretti’s note. That’s our best hope for finding the password!

If you need help making sense out of the table on the note after you’ve solved Clues 1-4, you can send Sullivan a message with the phrase Secret Code in the body of your email. If you haven’t sent him your first email yet, you can do so at SleuthKings.com/Case-105.

Of course, once you’ve figured out the password, you can send Sullivan an email to let him know. When you do, be sure to include the word Solution in the body of your email so he knows what you’re talking about.

Once we have the password, Sullivan and I will get that painting back and save my sister.

I’m counting on you!