Read the letter and study the other contents of the envelope. These paper shreds motivated Abigail to leave for Listenburg. What is in this message that no one was allowed to read?

Abigail became intrigued by this internal police fax. If the two missing people had been found, why would it be kept secret? Abby put a letter on each snippet to point her sister to a secret message:
L O O K    I N S I D E    T H E    E N V E L O P E

Read the notebook carefully to understand as much as you can about Abby’s investigation. Then focus your attention on the last page that wasn’t ripped out. Have you seen something like this code anywhere else? Solve the paper shreds first. If you do, you’ll know where to find an important clue.Read the letter and study the other contents of the envelope. These paper shreds motivated Abigail to leave for Listenburg. What is in this message that no one was allowed to read?

Look inside the envelope. On the right is a short message by Abigail: “This way only you can read my secrets.” Can you figure out what the encrypted text on the left reads?Read the letter and study the other contents of the envelope. These paper shreds motivated Abigail to leave for Listenburg. What is in this message that no one was allowed to read?

The message on the right is written in a strange fashion: six columns of five letters each. Compare this to the code on the left.Read the letter and study the other contents of the envelope. These paper shreds motivated Abigail to leave for Listenburg. What is in this message that no one was allowed to read?

The letters on the left are the same, except written in a different order: the first word on the left is the first column of the message on the right. Abigail is showing her sister how her cipher works! Where can you apply this new-found knowledge?Read the letter and study the other contents of the envelope. These paper shreds motivated Abigail to leave for Listenburg. What is in this message that no one was allowed to read?

When you decrypt message in red at the end of the notebook, using the same method as shown inside the envelope, you get:

“LINE LICENSE UP WITH THIS BLOT TO SEE WORDS JUST NEXT TO ABCDE”

Read the letter and study the other contents of the envelope. These paper shreds motivated Abigail to leave for Listenburg. What is in this message that no one was allowed to read?

Solve the secret message in the back of the notebook first.

“Line license up with this blot to see words just next to ABCDE.” What blot? And where do you see ABCDE?

There is a stain at the bottom of the notebook page that has the message. See if there is anything special about the shape.

The stain was made on purpose to fit the burnt edges of the driver’s license – but only in a certain position! It’s only lined up just right if the whole stain is enclosed perfectly.

With the inside of the license towards you, close the left page (the front) and leave the right page open. The combined shape of the burnt edges at the bottom fit the stain on the notebook perfectly. Now, what was the encoded instruction in the notebook again?

“…to see words just next to ABCDE.” Those are letters signifying the type of license – even with some if it burnt away, you can still see Van Baaren had stamps for ‘B’ and ‘D’. What words can you see next to each letter?

‘BOX HAS A FALSE BOTTOM’

Solve the notebook and the driver’s license first.

Using the driver’s license, Abigail told Helena the ‘Box has a false bottom’. Have you found it yet?

The orange box containing the map can be completely unfolded to uncover several hidden items: some kind of staff list, plus the final pages torn from Abigail’s notebook. Read this new information carefully, before moving on to the next puzzle.

On the last hidden page of her notebook, Abigail tells her sister to “fold the sheep’s heads onto themselves”. What could this mean?

There are two orange bars at the top and bottom of the napkin, each containing little identical sheep’s heads at both ends. Notice that the sheep in the top bar are different from those at the bottom.

Fold the napkin vertically, so the identical heads are on top of each other. This reveals a hidden message in Abby’s handwriting.

“Helena, take the paper off this tube and place it where I end up in my last article. Abby.”

Read the newspaper carefully to find anything helpful to the case. Solve the napkin before you read the next hint.

The secret message in the napkin says to “take the paper off this tube and place it where I end up in my last article.” Abigail’s last article is on the front page. She describes a tour she takes through the village of Listenburg. Can you figure out where she ends up?

This is a local newspaper, so Abigail assumes some knowledge on the reader’s part. Like which statue is the Weeping Mary, or what ‘The Eagle’s Nest’ and ‘The Dart’ are. Depending on which Mary statue you start out with, the tour ends up at a different place. However, she drops a hint quite early in her description of the route that tells you which Mary is the right one.

After she reaches some fortifications, she looks back at the church clock. The clock is clearly only visible in the case where she started off towards the statue at the bottom of the map, near the Market Hall. From the fortifications, she turns south – but the map has no compass rose! Which way is south?

There are at least two ways to find out what south is. One is by looking closely at the tiny compass on top of the church. Or you could notice the encircled little ad on the back of the newspaper, where Abby underlined that the Sheep’s Head Pub is at the north edge of town.Next, the tour takes a turn away from the ‘Eagle’s Nest’. What is that?

There is a large ad in the newspaper, showing the Eagle’s Next is the new high rise building. The committee wanted to keep the jury away from that, so the tour took a right and crossed ‘The Dart’, the meaning of which can now be made out from context. Where does the tour end?

The Dart is the (pointy) bridge over the Lisset river. Abigail ends up at the VANTAGE POINT.

Before you read the next hint, make sure you’ve solved the puzzles in the napkin and the front page article.

The napkin tells you to “take the paper off this tube and place it where I end up in my last article,” to find a code for “Dad’s old encryption method”. If you haven’t removed the green wrapping from the tube yet, this would be the time (be gentle if you’d like to regift the game).

Abigail ended up at the vantage point in her article. Place the shiny cylinder on the correct circle on the map and see if you can spot something.

As Abigail pointed out in her notes: the map is all wrong: the nature around town is misrepresented. The shape of the river, distorted in the reflection, forms three numbers:
‍
5
17
12

Don’t read the next hint until you’ve found a code in the tourist map.

A number code was hidden in the map that was delivered to Abigail on the night of her disappearance: 5, 17, 12. In her hidden notes, torn from the notebook, she explains what these numbers are for.

She writes: “Helena! I just noticed the ad I’m supposed to place below the letter. I guess they’re still using dad’s old encryption methods!” What ad is she talking about, and what encryption method?

The ‘Aperture encryption’ disk was an invention of Simon Vandermist (as detailed by Helena in her content list). Closely follow the instructions on the disk.

Set the disk to 5, 17, 12 (top to bottom) and align the bottom with the line in the ‘Eagle’s Nest’ ad. Can you read the message someone left Abigail, hidden in the threatening letter to the editor?Be sure to ‘apply the reading order of the base text’. In other words: read the words in the left column first.

“We received your message, now please check out the rear exit of every bar in the area.”

Along with the map and the ‘letter to the editor’, Abigail received a new Yellow Pages book. Someone was trying to tell her something. Can you use the information gained from the map and the newspaper to find the message left for her in this yellow page?(solve the map and the newspaper before reading the next hint).

The seemingly threatening letter told Abigail to “check out the rear exit of every bar in the area.” What could the ‘rear exit’ signify?

All you have to go by are the names of the bars.

Read the last letter of every bar in the list, in order.

“You have your Dad’s talent. I came to clean up my colleagues’ mess but they lied to me. Claimed both dead were Soviets but Bakker was clearly just a witness. You can join my unit, but stop hiding messages in the newspaper header.”To which Abigail added: “One more won’t hurt. Helena must notice this time.”

Once more, back to the newspaper! What’s the final message Abby left for her sister before disappearing?

Don’t overthink it. It’s really right there, in the header.

You may need a magnifying glass, or a zoomed in camera phone.

The title of the newspaper has tiny letters hidden in the gothic font.

“Lena, you did it! I left with Judy Katz to infiltrate the S.E.A. Come find me if I don’t return.”Someone at the S.E.A. offered Abigail a job – a Judy Katz, apparently. Where is her unit located?

J. Katz is right there on the S.E.A. staff list, along with her location.You should now be ready to enter your solution!