The Doppit Almanac · No. 03

Copyit, a daily deduction original

Unmask each copyist’s secret tic

What it is

Copyit is a Doppit original, filed at No. 03: a workshop mystery for the careful eye. A portrait is copied from easel to easel, and every copyist in the shop hides one habitual tic. One tilts hats. One flips smiles. The ledger records each commission: the original, the route it travelled, and the state it came home in.

Your business is to unmask every copyist by reading what changed along each route.

How it plays

Read what changed, then charge it to the only hand that could have done it.

• Every copyist owns exactly one tic, and no two own the same. The palette can hold more tics than copyists, so a tic may find no owner.
• A route applies its tics in order, left to right. On hard days the order is the whole game.
• A stamp lands only when the open ledger proves it. Guesses do not stick.
• Some commissions arrive under wax seal. Unmask the copyist who holds one and it opens.

The difficulties

Cases come in three weights. Easy closes in thirty seconds to a minute, medium in one to three, and a hard case is a proper three to six minutes at the desk. There is always a forced next deduction and exactly one answer, and the built-in hint will point at the right commission before it walks you through. A new case is docketed every day, free.

Expert is a fourth weight, kept for practice play. It is the same eight copyists and the same ledger, but reading one route at a time will not close it. On an expert case two or three copyists end up with only two or three tics between them. Those tics are taken, so no other copyist can have them, and that is the deduction the case needs. Six to twelve minutes.

Nearby in the almanac: Spyit, Rankit and Dominit