This week's puzzle is "Murder By the Stars." It's a 300 piece puzzle with all irregular shapes. The solution to the puzzle is not on the box.
There is a small novelet with the story and the last two pages are the solution. For the solution to the puzzle, a heated bulb or other heat source is used to singe the final page (front and back) and reveal the answer. My copy had the back page fully readable to but only a few lines on the front page. After a bit more singeing the rest of the story came to life!
"Completed" puzzle and box. The fun pieces were removed and placed to the side.
Final image.
1st page that needed a bit of extra burning to be able to read.
Second page.
Close up of "fun pieces."
Detective Barry noted that although a book lay
open on the blood-spattered desk in the Pro-
fessor's study, it's covers were soiled by blood.
The blood could not possibly have run beneath
the covers had the book been open on the desk
at the time of the supposed suicide. Obviously
it had been "planted" after commission of the
crime.
The second, inaccuracy in the story told by
Mrs. Montrose, who, police learned had fired
the shot into her husband's head and then forced
the revolver into his nerveless finger, was her
statement that the letter received by the Professor
that morning was from the Chicago astrologer.
He had not shown it to her. According to her
own words, he had glanced at the envelope, put
it into his pocket and left the table. How could
she have known the letter was from the astrologer?
Bary's finding of the key on the rug outside the
study convinced him to come had locked the
Professor in after the killing so that the police would
break down the door. And the bottle of ink
eradicator was used to eliminate the writing on a
previous letter from the astrologer, which Mrs.
Montrose had found in her husband's desk, leaving
a clean sheet of paper, with the astrologer's letter-
head, and an envelope with a Chicago postmark.
Mrs. Montrose herself subsequently had typed
the supposed prediction of suicide, had sealed it
into the envelope, and had planted the letter on
the mail salver in the downstairs foyer.
This Barry proved by comparison of the report
he had typed on her machine and the supposed
astrologer's letter. The top half of the letter "s"
was missing from words in both documents.
Mrs. Montrose, police grilling revealed, had
conceived an infatuation for a younger man named
Howard Hamilton who, believing her wealthy,
had urged her to elope with him. To clear the
way for marriage to Hamilton, she murdered
her husband for his estate. Her testimony thor-
oughly exonerated Thomas.
Thanks for reading,
Dr. Alex
