Case 021: A Book A Day

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 the drugs the smuggler has hidden. You’ll also need to email him the case’s Solution once you’ve figured out who the smuggler is. 

If you haven’t emailed Sullivan yet, you can visit SleuthKings.com/Case-021 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.

I think I’m on to something. The back of the Luna And Friends bookmark mentions reading between the lines. There has to be some kind of connection between the bookmark and the large, random letters drawn all over the back of the reading list.

I haven’t quite figured it out yet, but I think that the note in the middle of the page on the back of the reading list is giving us some direction on what we need to do.

After reading the note on the back of the reading list that talks about how, instead of reading between the lines, you should block those things out, I had an idea. What if we’re supposed to physically block out the area between the lines of the large, handwritten letters by using the bookmark?

When I put the bookmark between the first two lines – so that it blocks out the bottom of the first line and the top of the second – I realized I was onto something. Doing that suddenly made the letters read “My Dog The.” When I put the bookmark between the last two lines, I got “Man-Beast.”

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, so I tried searching the library database and came up with a match. It’s a book of poems about dogs called My Dog, The Man-Beast. I went and found the book and flipped through it. Some of the poems are surprisingly good.

The dog poems aside, I found a note inside of the book. On the front was the word “WAYWARD.” I don’t know what it has to do with anything, but it’s probably a good idea to write “wayward” down somewhere.

There’s a little more on the back. It says, “Meet at 6PM next Wednesday for the package. As usual, the keycode information will give you the spot.”

It sounds like Sullivan was right – the “Keycode Information” note on the back of the library checkout card really is telling us where the drugs are hidden.

I’m sure Sullivan and Samuel will come looking for this book sooner or later, so I’ll leave the note inside of it in an easy-to-find place for them. As much as I’d just like to tell Sullivan what I’ve found, I know doing this on his own is important to him since his mom helped start A Book A Day.

Anyhow, like I mentioned before, it’s probably a good idea to write “wayward,” as well as the rest of the message, down in case you need it later.

Good news – I’m making some serious progress on this one. The bookmark has the words, “A splash of color makes everything better,” above the colors orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and red. Coincidently (or not), all of the symbols drawn throughout the pages of Luna And Friends match these colors, too. With that in mind, I think the bookmark and the symbols on the ad are trying to tell us how to organize the symbols from Luna And Friends so that we can spell something out.

I played with this a little more and finally figured out that the easiest thing to do is to make a table on the ad. The three symbols on it make up the table’s left side, and the colors listed on the bookmark (in order) make up the top.

This is what it looks like once you’ve set it up:

Once you’ve created the table, the trick is to organize each of the letters on the Luna And Friends pages according to their symbols and colors. When you’ve got everything organized correctly, you should get:

Arthur
Conan
Doyle

I’m sure you know this, but that’s the author of the Sherlock Holmes books. It took me a few minutes to search through the stack of them at the library, but I finally found a note in one of the anthologies.

On the front is the word “BADGE” and nothing else.

On the back is a message that says, “I’ve been using this book program to heIp you with product for over a year, now. When I started, you said it would be a short-term gig and that I could move on to bigger and better things. I want to talk about what’s next.”

Wow – this person’s been using A Book A Day to smuggle drugs for over a year! I’m amazed that nobody noticed until now.

If you haven’t already, I’d recommend writing down the word “badge,” along with the rest of the message. I think all of this information might be important later.

I’ll go ahead and leave the note in the book for Sullivan to find. Maybe when he finds it, Samuel will finally start giving him some credit for being a good detective. Of course, I doubt it, but it’s worth a shot, anyway.

Even though it’s apparently the key to a drug smuggling operation, this bookmark is adorable, isn’t it? I unscrambled the three words that are supposed to tell us “The one thing all pets love.” The words, from top to bottom, are: sleepy, dragon, kitty.

When I unscrambled the highlighted letters, I got the word “Treats,” which has to be the thing that all pets love – at least, my cat sure does!

With that part of this solved, all that’s left is for us to figure out what the numbers beside each character sketch have to do with the word “treats.” I’ve got a hunch that the Luna And Friends page that’s all about treats might be related.

Oh, there’s one other thing that I almost forgot to mention. I think you’ll want to pay attention to the note beside the sketches that talks about moving “forward or backward according to the letter of the law.” I’m pretty sure that’s giving us a hint about what we need to do here. My guess is that the “letter of the law” part means that the numbers beside each sketch have something to do with letters rather than full words.

Don’t worry – there were a lot of steps involved with this one. If we break the sketch paper down, the answer to the statement at the top of the page is “treats,” right? There are sketches of each of the characters from Luna And Friends on the page, as well, which tips us off to look at the Luna And Friends page that talks about treats.

The “letter of the law” part of the message on the sketch gave me the idea to try counting letters before or after the word “treat” in each character’s sections. I used the numbers beside the character sketches to judge how many letters to count before or after “treats.” Negative numbers meant the letters before “treats,” and positive numbers meant the letters after “treats.”

Once you finish counting, the numbers beside the sketches spell Nora Roberts – one of my favorite authors!

She’s got a lot of books, so it took me a while to find the note but, eventually, I did. On the front is a single word – “WHEEZE.” The back says, “I know I’m not a part of your family, but I think I’ve proven myself by now. You know you can trust me.”

I don’t think telling someone that they can trust you has ever worked out for anyone but, somehow, I get the impression that this smuggler isn’t the sharpest crayon in the box.

Even so, it’s probably a good idea to write down the word “wheeze,” and the rest of the message, in case you need the information later.

Did you read the note on the brochure that says “the first step toward understanding famous quotes is to learn about the person behind the wisdom?” I’m pretty sure it’s telling us to look at the four quotes on the bookmark. Each of those quotes correspond to the colors of the code on the brochure, as well as the different alphabets. I’m not sure how yet but, somehow, those quotes must give us the keywords we need in order to shift the alphabets on the brochure.

I was right – the quotes on the bookmark are the key to shifting the alphabets on the brochure so that we can decode the message. The trick is to figure out which character said the quote and shift the corresponding alphabet by putting their name first. Here’s what I mean:

LUNABCDEFGHIJKMOPQRSTVWXYZ
STANBCDEFGHIJKLMOPQRUVWXYZ
CHARLIEBDFGJKMNOPQSTUVWXYZ
BEARCDFGHIJKLMNOPQSTUVWXYZ

Once you’ve shifted the alphabets, all that’s left is to decode the brochure’s message by using the alphabet of the corresponding color on the brochure. When we do that, we get Interview With A Vampire.

That’s a pretty good book, although, some of the later ones in the series are much better. Anyway, I found a copy of it in the library and, sure enough, there was a note inside.

The front has the word “VAMPIRE” written on it.

The back reads, “My spouse is starting to get suspicious. You’ve got me spending too much time away from home. That’s why we need to discuss what else I can do for you.”

If you haven’t already, I’d write down the word “vampire,” along with the rest of the message. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be important to the investigation.

As much as I’d like to keep working on this investigation, I think this is where I should bow out. I know that solving it means a lot to Sullivan and his grandpa, so I don’t want to butt in any more than I already have.

When you think you know where the smuggler has hidden the drugs, you’ll want to let Sullivan know so that he can check it out. If you haven’t already, you can send him an email from www.SleuthKings.com/Case-021. When you want to tell him where the smuggler hid the drugs, be sure to include the word “location” in your email so that he knows what you’re talking about.

I’m pretty sure that the “Keycode Information” note on the back of the library checkout card should be able to help you find the drugs. If you need any help, though, I’m sure that Sullivan will have a few ideas for you. Once you let him know that you’re working on finding the location, you can always ask him for some help.

Good luck!

Celest