The Typing Pool

A letter left the ministry that should never have left it. Nobody signed it, but the machine that typed it can be read off the page — a chipped e, a carriage that rides high — so you know exactly which typewriter did it. What you do not know is who was sitting at it.

The pool was reorganized. Machines go downstairs to be serviced and come back to a different desk; the women get moved along with them. So the question is a grid: which machine stood on which desk, and who sat there.

It is a quarter past five. The typists went home at five, so not one of them can simply be asked. But the charwoman, the night porter and the canteen watched that pool all day. You are Sarah Wessen, and you can knock on any door in the building. Every call costs you twenty-five minutes, and the last collection is at eight.

Six lessons, a new case every day, and twelve more from easy to hard. Every case is proved solvable without guessing. Seven languages. The code and translations were made with AI assistance.