Shorthand, but in German!

March 26, 2010 1:07 AM

Name that children's fiction from the 70's/80's: it was a mystery that two kids (I think a boy and a girl) needed to solve. The solution turned on a note. It was in shorthand, but it turned out the shorthand was in German. I wish I had more, but that's it.
posted by lionelhutz5 to Society & Culture (2 answers total)

Best answer: Bit of a curveball here, but could it possibly be The Westing Game? That involves a mystery/puzzle in which about a dozen people compete for an inheritance. At one point one player's shorthand notes on the clues are stolen but prove to be written in Polish.
posted by stuck on an island at 2:47 AM on March 26, 2010

There was a Encyclopedia Brown that was similar - the note had a series of numbers on it, but one could have been either a 1 or a 7. They determined that since the author was european (German, I think), the 7 would have had a hash through the "stem," and therefore it was a 1.
posted by GJSchaller at 9:23 AM on March 26, 2010