The Detective’s DeskLina Moss
Catalogue clerk
What happened from your point of view?
I checked the register at 15:00.
What should I check to test that account?
The photocopy job ended well before the later alarm.
HARD · CASE FILE
The Smoke before the Alarm
Hard · A municipal archive
Smoke sends staff outside and a register disappears. An alarm timestamp seems to unite the events. Determine whether the theft preceded the smoke and who agreed to which act.
Read the case file below, or open the interactive desk to examine records, keep notes and submit your reasoning. These are the case materials, without the solution.
The scene
There is no fire damage or injury. The supplied inspection identifies harmless theatrical smoke and a separately removed register. All staff leave through the supervised exit.
People and accounts
Esme Bell
Research buyer
What happened from your point of view?
I requested ordinary copies.
What should I check to test that account?
Jonah’s message named the bound original.
Sam Cole
Guard
What happened from your point of view?
I let Vera run a demonstration under an approved test slot.
What should I check to test that account?
The approval was cancelled before the day.
Vera Lane
Event technician
What happened from your point of view?
The alarm was a surprise.
What should I check to test that account?
My signed equipment order mentions a smoke cue.
Jonah Hart
Archivist
What happened from your point of view?
I carried only waste paper out before the alarm.
What should I check to test that account?
The register was already missing when we returned.
Case records
Read each record on its own terms. A claim made by a person is different from a fact established by an independent record.
Case record · Event room
Private cue agreement
Vera and Sam agree to stage an unauthorised alarm to obtain dramatic promotional footage. Their stated plan names no register or archive access.
Case record · Event room
Smoke examination
The smoke originates in Vera’s demonstration unit. No burning archive material or accidental fire source is found.
Case record · Control desk
Alarm reference log
The alarm first sounds at 15:40, twenty-five minutes after the sealed cart leaves. It cannot date the removal to evacuation.
Case record · Copy desk
Buyer’s complete exchange
Before the copy job Jonah offers Esme the bound original; Esme agrees to a private payment and asks that it travel as waste.
Case record · Service yard
Waste-cart inspection
The original register, matching its bound accession, is hidden below paper in Jonah’s sealed waste cart dispatched at 15:15.
Case record · Control desk
Cancellation and acknowledgment
Vera and Sam both acknowledge that the smoke demonstration approval was withdrawn. Sam nevertheless grants Vera the private test interval.
Case record · Control desk
Separate message and movement audit
The complete preserved exchanges show no contact between the register agreement and smoke agreement. Vera and Sam remain in the event room throughout the copy and cart interval.
Case record · Archive
Register shelf and job record
The register is present at 15:00, handed exclusively to Jonah for a copy job at 15:05, and not returned at the job’s 15:12 completion.
Questions to resolve
Who removed the register?
Who knowingly agreed to the register diversion?
Who operated the unauthorised smoke demonstration?
Who knowingly enabled that demonstration?
What relation between the plans is established?
Use the interactive case desk to select your finding and cite the records that support it. The answer is checked there, and your progress stays in your browser.
Build your finding
Compare the records with each account. Work out what the evidence establishes, then separate that finding from anything it does not prove.