The Carrow, all five floors and the lobby. Part one only. Desk sightlines in pencil. Will update.
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Oh, thank you. I've been hoping for one of these since I opened the case at supper.
First thoughts, part one only. Arthur Venn, thirty-four years at the night desk of a railway hotel, and the Carrow closes for good at seven in the morning, so this is his last shift. Everything we get is from the desk: the key ledger, the switchboard log, his own little notebook. Only three keys out after midnight: 208, 312 and 512, a Mr. Lisle, one night, paid cash.
I've already fallen for him. Anyone who writes "rain, steady" in the margin of a key ledger every hour on the hour is my kind of person.
new guy. arthur. sad hotel grandpa. if anything happens to arthur i'm rioting
also the lobby clock is lying to me. i can feel it
Started tonight. I'm only on the first evening of the ledger, and I'm not reading past this post until I'm through part one, so forgive me for not replying to anything yet. Thank you for the plans, quietcartographer. I've printed them.
jdub wrote:also the lobby clock is lying to me
It is. Part one, clock puzzle, spoilers:
The lobby clock runs four minutes fast. Go back through the old ledger pages: the 11:52 from the north is logged at 11:56 every night for a week. The switchboard log is kept to the exchange's time, so it's right. The key ledger is kept to the lobby clock, so it isn't. Venn knows. He writes "clock" in the margin next to anything that matters.
I don't know yet why it matters. I'd bet it does.
Asked her straight out whether Venn did it. She asked me what I thought "it" was.
I don't know. Nothing's happened yet. Two hours of a man hanging up keys and it's the tensest I've been all year.
We finished part one on the couch with the plans on the coffee table. T thinks Venn knows exactly what's going to happen tonight and is writing the ledger for whoever reads it after. J thinks he's a man who has written down the weather for thirty-four years and isn't going to stop on the last night. We've agreed to disagree until part two.
Finished part one. I don't have a theory. I just like him. He says goodnight to every guest by room number at the bottom of the page. "Goodnight, 312."
I'm glad it's in parts. I don't want to rush this one.
Is part two out for anyone? My hub just says "The small hours" and a date that's not here yet.
Not yet, ravi_k. I am still in part one in any case.
I worked nights at the post office one winter, a long time ago, and Mr. Venn's ledger is very like the logbook we kept. Somebody always wrote the weather.
Lou
Part two is out tonight. Spoilers for The small hours below, so scroll on if you're behind.
At 2:10 by the clock, so 2:06 really, Venn writes "Mr. Carrow in." The owner, Martin Carrow, coming in at two in the morning on the hotel's last night, with his own key to the back office. And then nothing in the ledger for forty minutes. Arthur hasn't gone forty minutes without writing something in four months of pages.
Where was he? And the strongbox in the back office is open and empty at the end of the part, which I suppose is the "it" dex was asking about.
Did the reconciliation, with the clock correction from part one.
512's key goes back on the hook at 2:50 by the clock, 2:46 real time. The switchboard has a call from 512 at 2:49, exchange time. The caller asks the desk what time it is.
So someone was in 512 three minutes after its key was hanging behind the desk. Either there's a second key, or the person who hung it up wasn't the person in the room.
a man calling the front desk at 3am to ask what time it is is the scariest thing in this game so far and it's not close
Night shift view. You don't call the desk at that hour to find out the time. You call so somebody says it out loud and writes it down. Whoever was in 512 wanted Venn to have a time.
Putting it on record so that when I'm wrong it's dated: Venn emptied the strongbox. Thirty-four years, the hotel closing, nothing waiting for him, and a forty-minute hole in a ledger that never has holes. The 2:49 call is him covering it.