Dragon Prow
Cases unlock in order, like levels. This is case 95 of 100.
Viking Ship Museum, Roskilde, Denmark, 6:10 am. The cleaner found the pedestal of the Ormen's dragon prow empty: carved oak from the 11th century, the most valuable piece in the museum.
The prow was last seen at 10:00 pm, at the end of the sponsors' dinner. No door was forced, no glass broken. Whoever took it had a key, a code or a badge.
The 8:00 am truck to Hamburg, loaded at the museum's dock, has been held in the yard. Three people spent the night near the prow. One of them is lying.
The museum's restoration workshop, a smell of tar and sawdust, the grey fjord behind the windows.
Suspects
Asger HolmThe museum's shipwright, 61
Mikkel BrandtNight guard, 29
Ingrid VestergaardThe museum's chief curator, 48
The real case
The director who looted the Girolamini Library
Naples, Italy, 2012
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
The Girolamini Library in Naples is one of the oldest in Italy, with manuscripts and incunabula from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In 2012, researchers noticed empty shelves and books missing from the catalog turning up at auctions. The library's director, appointed the year before, was removing volumes at night with helpers and selling them to dealers.
Thousands of books were taken; some were recovered from auctions in Germany and from dealers' premises. The director was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2013.
The game borrows the custodian who uses his own access to divert a rare piece. The replica in the crate, the characters and the outcome are fiction.
Sources
Case glossary
Words from this case you might not know.
- prow
- The pointed front part of a ship; on Viking ships it was often carved as a dragon's head.
- shipwright
- A craftsman who builds and repairs wooden ships.
- Roskilde
- A Danish city on a fjord west of Copenhagen, home to a famous Viking ship museum.