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Death at Blackridge Observatory

Case 008 · 20 August 2026 · Medium

Blackridge sits nine miles above the nearest road, and on the clearest night of the year the four people working there had all agreed on one thing: Professor Leonard Marsh was about to publish work that was not his. At twenty past three the observatory went quiet, and Marsh was found under the telescope. The road had been shut by snow since Tuesday, so nobody came up and nobody went down. Who killed him, what did they use, and where were they at twenty past three?

Suspects

• Martha Cole

  Night assistant

  Keeps the plates, the times and the temperature log, and is the only person here who writes everything down. Two pages of that night's log have been torn out.

  158 cm

• Julia Vance

  Visiting astronomer

  Came up for six nights of observing time she had waited two years for. The paper Marsh was about to publish was built on her measurements.

  176 cm

• Emil Novak

  Deputy director

  Tallest man on the mountain and second in everything for eleven years. He offered, twice that week, to put his own name on the paper instead.

  190 cm

• Peter Lang

  Caretaker and engineer

  Runs the generator, the heating and the dome motor, and is the only one who can stop the dome from turning. He says he was mending the motor; the motor did not need mending.

  165 cm

Possible weapons

• The brass eyepiece

  Small, precious and always signed out. It was signed out that night and back again an hour after the dome stopped.

  190 g

• The counterweight bar

  Solid steel, taken off the telescope's tail when the instrument is rebalanced, and the heaviest loose thing in the building.

  5.2 kg

• The pipe wrench

  From the generator hut, with a fresh dent in the jaw that nobody can explain.

  2.1 kg

• The storm lantern

  Paraffin, heavy in the base, and carried by anyone crossing between buildings in the dark.

  800 g

Places

• The plate store

  A cold dark room of glass negatives in wooden racks, with a red lamp and a door that must stay shut.

  Indoors

• The generator hut

  Forty steps across the snow from the main building, loud, and warm for the wrong reasons.

  Outdoors

• The dome

  Thirty feet of steel above the telescope, turning all night on a rail, with one open slit onto the sky.

  Indoors

• The computing room

  Desks, tables of figures and the stove that keeps the whole east side of the building alive.

  Indoors

Evidence & statements

1. The heaviest of the four things was carried by whoever was up in the dome.
2. Whoever had the counterweight bar is taller than whoever had the pipe wrench.
3. Exactly one of these is true, never both: whoever was in the plate store is the tallest of the four, or Emil Novak had the pipe wrench.
4. The brass eyepiece never went out to the generator hut.
5. Whoever had the brass eyepiece is the shortest of the four.
6. Marsh was killed where he was found, under the open slit: the killer was up in the dome.

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