Skip to content

Nancy Drew: Legend of the Crystal Skull

by Alina 53 sections about 32 minutes to read

A complete walkthrough for Nancy Drew: Legend of the Crystal Skull, played on the Junior Detective difficulty. Nancy investigates the death of Dr Bruno Bolet in New Orleans, hunting twenty-five glass eyes through his house and the cemetery beyond it. You play as Nancy and, in places, as Bess Marvin.

A note on versions

This guide was translated from a Russian localisation. Two puzzles work on the language of the release and are flagged where they come up: the phrase entered on the trunk in the antique shop storeroom, and Bruno’s eight gravestone riddles, which in Russian are puns on Russian words and in English are puns on English ones. The painting order and the pirate dummy’s syllables were checked and are the same in both.

Before you start

  • Read the book What every detective should know to get to grips with the game’s features, then read the case materials in the folder on the desk. Click the plane ticket to begin.
  • The interaction icons sit along the bottom. All movement directions are given from the point of view of someone sitting at the monitor, unless stated otherwise.
  • There is no division into days and no clock in this game.
  • You can save manually at almost any point. Saves live in your Documents folder, in a subfolder named after the game.

Achievements

All optional. Names are translated back from the Russian, so exact wording on the English release may differ.

  • Truth Seeker — for exposing the secret of the forged letter.
  • Sweet Tooth — for a weakness for chocolate.
  • Cajun Food Connoisseur — for bravely trying the spicy gumbo.
  • Gum Lover — for a firm attachment to chewing gum.
  • Wasp Tamer — for knowing how to calm the winged things.
  • Professor of Demagogy — for a love of long conversations.
  • Syllable Fan — for paying attention to the talking pirate.
  • Marble Wonder — for solving the marble puzzle in record time.
  • Alchemist — for an undisguised interest in various powders.
  • Hard-Boiled — for finding an Easter egg.
  • Master Searcher — for finding all three Easter eggs.
  • Scholar — for answering the final question correctly.

Bruno Bolet’s house

The library

Playing as Nancy Drew. Walk towards the house and knock. Go in and note the muddy footprints on the floor. Go into the room, call out to the figure in the skeleton costume, and…

You come round after a sudden attack, with an unfamiliar woman leaning over you offering a remedy. Meet Renée Amande, the former housekeeper of the house’s owner, Bruno Bolet. Leave the library and go left.

At the stairs to the first floor, turn left into the parlour.

The parlour

Go forward and look left. Pick up the drawing of a raven from the floor. Examine the portrait gallery on the wall; one portrait is clearly missing.

Turn left and examine the fireplace. Take the charred fragment of a receipt from it and look at it, then take a piece of charcoal.

Turn around and go to the model of the cemetery on the table. Study the layout of the objects on the model carefully, because you will be using it to find your way around the real cemetery, and you will be walking those paths often.

Examine the bottom right corner, the Mausoleum of Eternal Sleep. Move the cursor onto the mausoleum, and when the white hand appears, hold the left button and drag the model left until a miniature crypt appears on the right. Click the model crypt to turn it, open its door and take a glass eye (1/25).

Zoom out and examine the top left corner. Using the white hand, move to the Park of Sorrows and look at the crypt on the left. Note the four pictures on its roof. Study them closely, though you do not yet know their correct order.

Turn around and go to the little table by the sofa.

Puzzle: the marble laser maze

You have to walk the little figure across to the glass eye on the far side. Three lasers block the way. Control the figure, which starts in the bottom left, with the movement arrows on the puzzle. Bring the figure up to a movable brick or ball and press an arrow to push it.

  • Move up, right, up, right twice, down twice, left. Stand below the movable block.
  • Push the block up four squares. Move left, up, and stand to the left of the block.
  • Push the block right two squares so it sits above the ball.
  • Move down five times and right. Stand under the ball and push it up; the block stops it.
  • Move left, up five times, and push the block right two squares.
  • Move up, right, stand above the block and push it down one square, so it sits to the right of the ball.
  • Move left, down, stand between the ball and the block.
  • Push the block right two squares; it partly blocks the second laser.
  • Move up, left three times, down, stand to the left of the ball.
  • Push the ball right; the block on the left stops it, and it partly blocks the first laser.
  • Move down and right four times. Stand under the ball and push it up; it now fully blocks the first laser.
  • Move right twice, up four times, right four times, down. Stand right of the second ball and push it left towards the first; it sits under the laser and fully blocks it.
  • Move left four times, down, left twice, down, stand left of the movable block.
  • Push the block right one square.
  • Move down, right, stand under the block and push it up one square.
  • Move left, up twice, push the block right.
  • Move down, right twice, stand under the block.
  • Push the block up one square.
  • Move left, up twice, stand between the balls and the block. Push the block three squares right, as far as it goes.
  • Move up, right twice, stand above the block, push it three squares down as far as it goes.
  • Move right twice, down twice, left. Stand right of the block.
  • Push the block left two squares.
  • Move left, down, left three times, up twice, right twice. Stand above the block and push it down one square.
  • Move left twice, down twice, right. Stand left of the block and push it right one square.
  • Move right, up, right. Stand above the block and push it down one square.
  • Move down, left, down. Stand left of the block and push it right one square. The third laser is now fully blocked.
  • Move down, right three times, up, right.

Move off the edge of the puzzle to collect a glass eye (2/25).

The library again

Return to the library and talk to Henry twice about everything, learning about the wild animals in the house and grounds and getting his permission to examine anything you can see.

Turn left and go to the trophy stand. Take the large silver cup, turn it over and take its lid off, then take a glass eye (3/25).

Leave for the corridor and go up to the first floor.

Henry’s room

Go into the dim room and to the bedside cabinet. Pull the drawer out and take a glass eye (4/25). Take out your phone and try to call a taxi, then call Ned and Bess, and control passes to Bess.

Guido’s curiosity shop

Playing as Bess Marvin. Cross the road along the arrow and go into the antique shop. Meet Lamont, the owner.

You want to look at the box Henry sold him, but not with Lamont there, so you need him out of the way. Turn right and go to the cabinet of powder bottles. Examine them in turn and note the one on the far right: sneezing powder. Take it.

Zoom out, turn left and go to the shelf of assorted objects.

Puzzle: the domino chain

Arrange the objects on the shelves so the domino principle works: a push on one thing knocks the rest over in sequence. One arrangement:

  • Top shelf, left to right: bowling ball, accordion, sneezing powder from your inventory, false teeth.
  • Middle shelf: fan, sailing ship.
  • Bottom shelf: idol head, single book, stack of books, dancer figurine, gramophone.

Stand on the scales in the bottom right corner to test your construction, and watch a short amusing video.

The storeroom

Turn around and follow the arrow behind the counter, then forward into the storeroom. Click Henry’s box on the shelf and examine the things in it, noting the loquat, an exotic sweet fruit, lying beside a comically dressed iguana.

To the right of the trunk note the skeleton costume. On the lid of the trunk, which has a code lock, is a letter.

Puzzle: the trunk phrase

Leaf through the pages and look at the back of the letter, where a blue sticky note gives the hint.

The hint lets you work out the code. An entry like “Hamlet 2, 10, 33” means: in the text of the letter find and write down the second letter, then count on ten letters from it and write that one down, then count on another thirty-three letters from there.

Counting out and writing down every letter that way gives you a phrase about Bruno’s secret. Click the matching letters on the trunk to spell it and the trunk opens; take out another letter.

Version note: the phrase comes out of the letters of the release’s own language, so work it out from your own copy of the letter rather than copying a phrase from this guide.

Read the letter and you automatically call Nancy, who you now control.

The veranda and garden

Playing as Nancy Drew. After Bess’s call, go to the library and out into the garden through the opposite door, to the right of Henry’s chair. Look left, where Renée is busy with her plants on the veranda.

Talk to the housekeeper, who fills you in on parts of Dr Bolet’s will. Note the spade with the unusual handle hanging on the wall to the right.

Despite the pouring rain, turn around, go out into the garden and straight to the fountain. Examine the drain opening at its base: at the bottom of it is a key, but a poisonous spider beside it stops you taking it. Leave the spider for now.

Turn right and go to look at the strange structure guarded by four statues of birds of prey. This is the crypt Bruno Bolet built for himself. Look at the base of the plinth: opening it needs a special key. Turn around and go back into the garden.

Go round the fountain on the left and head for the wall where fireflies are circling. Go to the wall, push the ivy aside and pull two stones out of the masonry.

Turn around, go out onto the path and head for the cemetery gates. Open them.

The cemetery: the lightning rod

Through the gates, step forward and turn around. Follow the arrow to the wall on the right, look up along the arrow and take the lightning rod from the wall.

Zoom out and turn around. From the cemetery gates go straight along the path to the fountain, from which several paths run in different directions. You remember the cemetery plan, so from the fountain go straight. You reach a fork with a dead tree; from that tree go straight again and you reach the Bolet family crypt.

Look at the panels at the base of the crypt: to copy the pictures from them you need paper. Try the door; it is locked.

Go right along the path and twice down the screen. Open the cemetery gates and follow the path to the fountain, then to the house.

Renée’s room

Go up to the veranda and ask Renée about paper. Take the key to her room and go into the house. Cross the library, go out to the corridor and up to the second floor. Unlock the door on the left with Renée’s key and go in.

Go to the bedside cabinet and take blank sheets of paper from the top drawer. Look down, open the cabinet door and take out chocolate for Renée. She offered you some, so try it: eat chocolate until Nancy feels ill from the sweetness.

Turn around and go to the table with the paraffin lamp. Note the bottle of hiccups on the table and open it. Look left and examine the symbols on the wall.

Carry on looking round and notice the doll in the armchair, which appeared after you overate. Look into the right corner and go to the chest. Press its glowing surface.

Puzzle: Renée’s chest

In the corners of the puzzle are four medallions with pictures, and each picture is made of four component elements. Pressing the buttons around the glowing circle makes one element of a corner picture appear in the centre. By pressing the right buttons you must build each of the four medallion pictures in the centre.

Counting from the top button clockwise:

  • Press buttons 1, 4, 7, 15. The medallion turns over.
  • Press 5, 8, 10, 12. The medallion turns over.
  • Press 2, 9, 16, 17. The medallion turns over.
  • Press 11, 13, 14, 18. The medallion turns and the chest lid opens.

Take the book Voodoo signs and symbols and read it. You saw some of those symbols on the wall; find the matching ones in the book and decipher them to get the syllables BAH, ZAH, LOO, PAH, DEE, MOO, KAH.

Easter egg 1

Close the chest lid and press these buttons: 3, 12, 13, 17; then 1, 2, 6, 9; then 3, 4, 11, 14. With every button pressed in the right order you hear a cockerel crow. Look in the chest and take the first Easter egg.

The library: the books and the crystal skull book

Leave the room, go down to the ground floor and into the library. Go to the bookshelf with the iguana on it; the frightened creature runs off and the books scatter. Henry asks you to put them back, so arrange them on the shelf.

Then take Beatrice Hotchkiss’s book Crystal skulls: truth or fiction? from the shelf and read it. Among the pages find a card with letters, and on the last page Beatrice Hotchkiss’s phone number, which goes into your phone automatically.

Talk to Henry and note Dr Beauford’s phone number. Note the charm shaped like a glass eye. Finish the conversation and go out to the veranda. Talk to Renée about everything, then go down into the garden and head for the Bolet family crypt.

The crypt rubbings

Go to the front of the crypt and use the paper on each of the four reliefs in turn, using the charcoal from the parlour fireplace to take four rubbings. Note the order the pictures run in: raven, bones, snake, coffin.

Return to the house and go to the cemetery model in the parlour. Find the model of the Bolet family crypt in the top left corner and click its roof. Study the four pictures closely and use the arrows to set the correct order. Done right, the crypt lid on the model opens. Take the key and zoom out.

Take out your phone and call Beatrice Hotchkiss, familiar from Treasure in the Royal Tower. The professor says that if Bruno owned a genuine crystal skull, his death was not natural.

Then call Bruno Bolet’s doctor, Gilbert Beauford. His secretary gives an address where Beauford can be found, so call Bess and ask her to find him.

Bess and the antique shop

Playing as Bess Marvin. After Nancy’s call, go to the dark-skinned man at the table. Meet Dr Gilbert Beauford and discuss everything with him. You learn about the iguana, whose passion is stealing papers and other objects, and that Bruno trained it to bring stolen things back.

Go to the counter and talk to Lamont, raising the subject of the food van. He advises against the dishes with hot sauce, because of the effect it has on him personally.

Easter egg 2, part one

Finish talking and go to the left corner. Go to the sarcophagus and open it. Find the active spot and pull a note from the mummy. Call Nancy.

Playing as Nancy Drew. After Bess’s call, go to the grandfather clock at the end of the corridor. Decipher the note by finding rhymes for the words in it, which gives the numbers 12, 7, 8, 9, 4, 1.

To get the second Easter egg, use the circular arrow to set each of those hours on the dial in turn, pressing the button above the dial after each number to confirm. You hear a cockerel crow and get the second Easter egg.

The family crypt and the missing painting

Now you have the crypt key, go there. Leave the house, cross the garden and the cemetery by the familiar route to the crypt whose reliefs you rubbed, and click it. You find Henry weeping at the doors; on seeing you he hurries off. Unlock the crypt door and go in.

In the right corner find a rolled-up painting. Take it and look at it: this is the painting missing from the gallery.

Puzzle: the portrait gallery

Return to the house and go into the parlour. Go to the wall of paintings and put the one from the crypt into its frame. Every painting is now present, but are they in the right places?

Take the card you found in the book and study it against the paintings. The number of letters matches the number of paintings, and so does their arrangement in the upper and lower rows. Each painting contains an object that does not belong, and the object’s initial letter is on the card. So find the out-of-place object in each painting and hang the paintings in the order the card gives.

The nine objects, in order, are:

toothbrush, banana, fax, monkey, lollipop, hat, axe, poodle, umbrella

With the paintings in that order you hear a click.

The secret passage

A secret passage opens in the wall on the left; go in. Look through the peephole in the wall, press the + to zoom and look closely at the book on the shelf.

Step left and overhear Henry’s phone conversation with his girlfriend. Turn around and go up the stairs. Pull the door handle; it is locked. Beside the handle, note the drawing of a web with different numbers of dashes, from 1 to 8, beside the wires. That is clearly a hint: if you press the wires by the drain opening in that order, you can drive the spider off and take the key that fits this door.

Leave the secret room and go to the library. Go to the bookshelf with the horse figurine and take the book The eye of the beholder. Open it and take out a glass eye (5/25).

Puzzle: the spider’s web

Go down into the garden and to the fountain. Bend over the drain opening and press the wires around it in the same order the web drawing gave. They are not just wires but tensioned strings that sound a note each. A platform rises from below, the spider runs off, and you take the key.

Bruno’s secret room

Return to the house, go to the parlour and into the secret passage. Go up the stairs and unlock the door with the web drawing. Go into Bruno’s secret room and look around.

Go to the cabinet with the octopus on it. Open it and take a glass eye (6/25). You realise the twenty-five glass eyes have to be arranged in this cabinet’s slots. Close the doors and the eyes return to your inventory.

Go to the writing desk in the corner and switch on the resonant pendulum with the lever at the left of its base. To stop the pendulum weights, press the round handle on the right. When the weights are up to speed and a glass eye flies out beyond the pendulum, catch it by double-clicking it, and take the glass eye (7/25).

Zoom in on the desk and study everything on it. The Invitation tells you the doctor recommended his friend Bruno for the Jolly Roger society. Examine the photograph and its dedication. Note the calendar on the left, take it and open it. Leaf through the doctor’s notes, and on the last page find the entry Crossbones, which looks very much like a password. Remember it and note Nancy’s comment.

Find the book Short stories for tired eyes, written by Bruno Bolet, on the desk. Open it and read the summary; you will be working from this book from now on. Note the poster on the wall.

Try to coax the iguana out of the ventilation shaft, but Iggy does not respond. Look in the cabinet holding the iguana’s outfits.

Puzzle: card billiards

Go to the arcade machine by the wall and start playing. Take the ball from the top right corner and press it with the left mouse button. An arrow appears in front of the ball, and the longer the arrow the harder the shot. Release the ball and it flips one of the cards.

For the third Easter egg you must play this game twice. First flip all the cards showing a cockerel, to hear the crow. Then flip the cards showing teeth, to hear laughter.

Then turn all the cards eyes-up. Take a glass eye (8/25) from the pocket at the top right, and after that the third Easter egg from the same pocket.

Puzzle: the pirate dummy

Go left to the pirate dummy and look at it closely. Click the voice device in its hands. Press the buttons above the syllables you deciphered from the voodoo book, in the order you saw on the wall in Renée’s room, then press talk at the bottom left.

The dummy says: BAH, ZAH, LOO, PAH, DEE, MOO, KAH. Take a glass eye (9/25).

Take the note from the eye socket; you do not know the answer yet, so keep it for later. Also take the token for the chewing gum machine.

Go to the table with the gum machine and drop in the token from the doll’s eye socket. Take a glass eye (10/25).

Pressing the machine’s red button without a token rolls out a gumball, which Nancy happily eats. Do that several times for the achievement.

To the right of the machine is a toy barrel organ. Turn its handle until a spider jumps out, and remember the notes you heard and their order.

You find a doorway in the wall to the right of the table. Press it, but you cannot leave that way. Above the table hangs a candelabrum; press it. The candelabrum lowers and the secret room door swings open.

Remember: this is the only way out of Bruno’s secret room.

Go out and you are in Henry’s room.

The grandfather clock riddles

Go down to the hall and to the grandfather clock. Open Bruno’s book and read the riddles from part one, Time will tell. Work out the time intervals of the first riddle, which give the numbers 12, 3, 5, 8, 2, 11.

Put the cursor on the dial so it becomes a circular arrow and set the hands to each number in turn, pressing the button above the dial each time. Take a glass eye (11/25).

Solve the second riddle the same way for 12, 7, 10, 3, 2, 1 and take a glass eye (12/25).

Solve the third for 12, 8, 10, 4, 9, 11 and take a glass eye (13/25).

The card catalogue

Go to the library and to the card catalogue to the right of the cups. Press the cabinet doors and start going through the cards. The key is The librarian’s tale in Bruno’s book; Nancy comments when you find that card.

At the end of the story you read that the titles and edition numbers added together are the key to his book. Find every card whose title contains the word eye:

  • 401
  • 608
  • 010
  • 004
  • 511
  • 006

Adding those gives 1540.

Follow the up arrow to the top shelf and find the book called The librarian’s tale, locked with a code. Click it and enter 1540 with the arrows, then take a glass eye (14/25).

The cards also hold references to earlier games in the series, including a book by Bill Kessler from The White Wolf of Icicle Creek and one by Prudence Rutherford, whom you have spoken to on the phone twice before.

Talk to Henry, lean on him a little, and he hands over the charm with a glass eye (15/25).

The fountain strings

Leave the house, go down into the garden and to the fountain. Click the spider hole to examine it closely again. The strings stretched around it sound a whole octave when pressed in turn.

Play the melody you heard when you turned the barrel organ handle in Bruno’s secret room: C three times, D, E three times, D, C, D, E, C.

By string number that is: 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 1. Take a glass eye (16/25) from the spider hole.

The teeth bookshelf

Return to the house and go to the bookshelves to the right of the card catalogue, where teeth stand on stands beside the books.

Take Bruno’s book and read the story of Quincy T. Bookiger, which deals first with treating milk teeth and then with treating molars. Recall the poster in Bruno’s room and press the books in the order the case history describes, using the poster for the names and positions of the teeth.

Start with the bottom shelf of blue books, which represent milk teeth. Press books 1, 5, 6 and 17. You hear a click. Then look at the top shelf, which holds thirty-two books, exactly the number of teeth in an adult. Press books 22, 12, 27 and 32.

The shelf slides aside; take a glass eye (17/25) from the cache.

The bird statues

Leave the house and go down into the garden. Go right from the fountain to the statues of birds of prey.

Open Bruno’s book and read the story Keys to statues, statues as keys. Look at the drawing in the book, then look up: you have to extend the feathers on a bird’s head to match the drawing. Go deep into Bruno’s tomb and turn around.

Look at the bird statues. Each press on a statue’s eye brings up particular feathers on the bird’s head. Press the eyes in this order: first, third, third, second, first, fourth.

When the feathers match the book’s drawing, a key falls from the statue’s head; pick it up.

Use that key to open the bases of all four statues, taking glass eyes 18/25, 19/25, 20/25 and 21/25 in turn.

Mushrooms, and the Dark Bog

Picking the mushrooms

Return to the house and ask Renée for the spade with the unusual handle. Agree to her request, take the mushroom bag and go into the garden.

  • Go left from the fountain and after a couple of paces look left. Under the trees, find and pick the first mushroom; it goes into the bag automatically.
  • Head for the cemetery gates and turn around. Look left and find the second mushroom. Take it, turn around and open the gates.
  • Enter the cemetery and from the fountain go up to the dead tree. From the tree turn right, and from the unmarked mausoleum follow the right-hand path, then go through the gates. Step forward and pick the third mushroom from a log. You also meet the resident crocodile.
  • Turn around, go out through the gates and into the left screen. At the crossing take the lower left path. From the dead tree go up, and from the family crypt go down. Go up through the arch and pick the fourth mushroom at the left edge of the cemetery, then turn around.
  • Return to the cemetery fountain and go left from it, picking the fifth mushroom by the wall.

Return to Renée, talk to her and hand over the mushrooms. Note her information that the crocodile Bernie attacks anyone who pushes the log. Take the spade from the wall.

In Bruno’s book, read the entry Steps in the right direction.

The Dark Bog

Go to the cemetery and the Bolet family crypt. From the crypt go down and descend the left-hand staircase, and you reach the left part of the cemetery, the Dark Bog, as the sign at the gates says.

Go to Charlie Wicker’s tomb and hold a sheet of paper against the letters engraved on its facade; these will guide you across the bog.

With that hint, follow the arrow straight into the Dark Bog. To reach the treasure you play a mini-game, moving in the compass directions engraved on Charlie Wicker’s tomb. Save before you start.

The first direction is west, which is where the compass needle points. Look at the skeleton’s hand above, showing four fingers, and press the centre of the compass four times to take four steps. Carry on, matching the direction to the compass points and the number of steps to the skeleton’s hand.

To change direction, click the name of the compass point you want on the compass rim and the needle turns. The full route:

  • 4 steps west
  • 2 steps north
  • 1 step east
  • 3 steps south
  • 2 steps west
  • 2 steps north
  • 3 steps west
  • 3 steps south
  • 1 step east
  • 2 steps north
  • 1 step east
  • 3 steps north
  • 4 steps east
  • 5 steps south
  • 2 steps west

The mini-game ends with you in the right place. Take the spade and dig where it brought you. You dig up a metal box; take a glass eye (22/25) and also the broken spade handle.

Bruno’s riddles

Return to the house and go into the parlour. To the right of the cemetery model, on a plinth, is the Book of Sorrows, listing the names of the dead. Leaf through to the end and read the last entry.

Take the note you pulled from the doll’s eye socket in Bruno’s secret room and read the task. Type the name Tammy Tasleman into the note and press Enter to confirm. Note that she is buried in the Terra Siesta complex, and study the model to work out the route so you do not get lost.

How the riddles work

Each gravestone carries a clue, and the answer is a name in the Book of Sorrows that reads as a word or phrase when you run it together. A clue meaning “he never gave in”, for instance, resolves to a name like Will Power. Whatever the answer, type each name into the note exactly as it is written in the Book of Sorrows, then go to the complex it names for the next clue. There are eight more to find.

Version note: the Russian localisation replaces these with puns on Russian words, so its eight answers do not work on the English release. The mechanic is identical: read the clue, find the name in the Book of Sorrows that is a run-together word, type it in, and go where it sends you.

The route between the complexes

The clues send you round the cemetery in this order, so use these directions as you go:

  • Terra Siesta: from the fountain go straight, from the dead tree go right, then take the upper path.
  • Gloomy Crypts: from the cemetery fountain go right, then left.
  • Park of Sorrows: from the dead tree take the upper path, then from the Bolet family crypt go left.
  • Old Tombs: from the dead tree go left.
  • Sleepy Garden: from the dead tree go right, then the left path.
  • Mausoleum of Eternal Sleep: from the cemetery fountain go right, then the right path again.

When the last line of the note is filled in, go to the Mausoleum of Eternal Sleep and press the final inscription. Take the last hint from the niche, which asks for the name of little Bruno’s dog. Call Ned to share the news, then call Bess.

Bess, the gumbo and the skeleton costume

Playing as Bess Marvin. Go to Lamont and talk to him. Go outside and click the food van, now active. Click the menu line for grandma’s seafood gumbo, add hot sauce from the bottle and put the plastic lid on.

You can have Bess try every dish on the menu with hot sauce added. If she tries them all with pepper, the screen turns red.

Click the doctor to discuss a few things, then return to the shop and talk to Lamont. As soon as he hurries off, go behind the counter and into the storeroom. Shake the things out of the box and examine the photograph. You automatically call Nancy.

Playing as Nancy Drew. After Bess’s call, go into the parlour and leaf through the Book of Sorrows. Find the name Derek Grant, buried in the Old Tombs complex.

Leave the house and go to the cemetery. From the dead tree go left and click Grant’s grave or its plaque. From the niche below, take a small pirate hat and a glass eye (23/25).

The wasps and the loquat

Return to the house. From the path leading to the house turn left, or right if you are coming out of the house, and go up the steps. Go to the tree and click the sprayer. Loquat grows on this tree, which Iggy loves, but wasps have built a nest in its crown.

In this mini-game you must calm the wasps for a while by clicking them with the sprayer. Start from the top, not giving them time to react. If a wasp gets very angry and turns red, deal with it first. If the wasps sting you, you go home in disgrace.

Once they are subdued, take the loquat.

Dressing the iguana

Go to Bruno’s secret room and click the ventilation shaft above the pirate dummy’s head. Put the loquat in the shaft and coax the iguana out. Once Iggy has eaten, you can dress him. Click the clothes cabinet.

First outfit, the pirate: tie on the jabot with the parrot on the shoulder, attach the belt with the cutlass, and put on the pirate hat. Zoom out and Iggy disappears into the shaft. After a while he brings you a pirate chest, locked with a code you do not know.

Study the inscription on the chest lid and recall the photograph of the Jolly Roger society members, on the desk to the right of the resonant pendulum, if you have not read its caption.

Call Professor Hotchkiss, then call Bess. Ask Bess to find out the name the society members say before each meeting, and tell her the society password: Crossbones.

Bess and the Jolly Roger society

Playing as Bess Marvin. Dr Beauford has hurried off and the van has gone. Go into the alley, now active, and turn left behind the rubbish bin.

The back entrance to Guido’s is locked with a code. Take the powder compact from your inventory and use it on the lock. Clear fingerprints show first, presumably the start of the code, then fainter ones. Enter 28905 and go into the storeroom.

Take the things out of the box and take the skeleton costume. Click the costume and Bess changes into it automatically. Leave the shop and follow the arrow left. Knock on the door and give the password Crossbones. If the phrase is not visible in the dialogue box, scroll down with the bar on the right. Watch a short video.

The pirate chest

Playing as Nancy Drew. Learn the word you need from Bess. Go to the chest and enter the code you heard: Jean Lafitte. Click the buttons, remembering that one key may carry several letters.

Take a glass eye (24/25) from the chest. Turn around, press the candelabrum and go out into Henry’s room. Go down to the hall and out into the garden.

The last two outfits

Iggy will do nothing without a loquat, so go back to the wasp tree, spray them and get another fruit.

In the secret room, put the loquat in the shaft and dress the iguana. Second outfit, the postman: give Iggy the postbag, clip on the tie and put on the postman’s cap. Zoom out and Iggy brings you a letter.

Read it and call Chase Milo. Chase says his letter stated that the skull sent to him was genuine, which means somebody swapped the letter, and the swapped letter caused Bruno’s heart attack. Call Ned and report.

Go down and talk to Renée, showing her the letter Iggy brought.

Go out and get another loquat from the fruit tree, spraying the wasps a third time.

Back in the secret room, offer Iggy the loquat and dress him again. Third outfit, the ophthalmologist: put on the name badge, clip the glasses over his eyes and attach the ophthalmoscope to the belt. Zoom out and Iggy brings the last glass eye (25/25).

The glass eyes, and the tomb

Go to the cabinet with the painted octopus and open it. The glass eyes distribute themselves into the niches automatically.

Puzzle: the directions of the eyes

Read Bruno’s last story, Pirates and the sea monster, right to the end. Certain letters in some words are highlighted, and those letters indicate a direction; mentions of compass points also indicate direction. Click the glass eyes to turn them so their pupils point the way the story describes.

  • First row: down, left, down, right, left
  • Second row: down, down, up, down, right
  • Third row: right, left, right, down, down
  • Fourth row: down, down, left, up, left
  • Fifth row: right, left, down, right, left

Take the drawing and another eye, this one in a mount, from the cache.

Bruno’s tomb

Leave the house and go to the crypt where Bruno is buried, the one guarded by the bird statues. Go behind the statues and look at the circle in the ground.

You must assemble the unusual key shown in Bruno’s drawing: put the lightning rod in the centre of the circle, fix the broken spade handle on top of it, and place the eye in its mount into the skeleton’s hand. Watch the short video.

Descend on the platform into the crypt and you see the crystal skull on a plinth. The moment you lift it, a protective mechanism triggers and the crypt lid starts to close. Watch another short video.

Puzzle: the matching pictures

When the lid has closed, look down along the arrow and start matching pairs of pictures. It is not difficult, though the pictures are only visible in the flashes of lightning, and there is no time limit. The pairs are generated randomly, so every player gets a different layout.

When it is done, the platform rises and you are free.

Finale

Examine the muddy footprints on the path and follow them into the cemetery. At the fountain you hear an outboard motor, so hurry to the bog.

From the dead tree go right and head for the gates along the right-hand path. Watch the video, and when the crocodile Bernie appears in front of the boat, click the log on the left, the one the mushroom grew on. Watch the final video.

Answer the randomly chosen quiz question and look over the achievements you earned.

Senior Detective differences

Puzzle: the lasers

The maze gains a fourth laser. The full route:

  • Move up, right, up, right twice, down twice, left. Stand below the movable block.
  • Push the block up four squares. Move left, up, stand to the left of the block.
  • Push the block right four squares so it partly blocks the first laser. Stay left of the block.
  • Move down, right, down. Stand right of the ball and push it left as far as it goes.
  • Move left four times, down, left. Stand under the ball and push it up as far as it goes.
  • Move up six times, left, up. Stand left of the ball and push it right; it blocks the laser at its base.
  • Move down three times, right five times. Stand left of the block and push it three squares right so it partly blocks the third laser.
  • Move left, down four times, left. Stand under the ball and push it up; it stops under the upper ball.
  • Move left, up four times. Stand left of the ball and push it right; it stops left of the block and partly blocks the second laser.
  • Move down, right four times. Stand under the ball and push it up to fully block the second laser.
  • Move right and stand under the block. Push it up one square.
  • Move left, up two squares. Stand left of the block and push it right one square, partly blocking the fourth laser.
  • Move left twice, down, left twice, up. Stand left of the ball and push it right; it stops left of the block.
  • Move right twice, down, right. Stand under the ball and push it up to fully block the third laser.
  • Move right twice, up three times, right three times, down. Stand right of the ball and push it left; it partly blocks the fourth laser.
  • Move down three times, left twice, down, left twice, up twice, left, up. Stand left of the block and push it right one square.
  • Stand under the ball left of the block and push it up to fully block the fourth laser.
  • Move down, right. Stand under the block and push it up one square. Move left, up twice, stand left of the block and push it three squares right.
  • Move up, right. Stand above the block and push it three squares down.
  • Move right twice, down twice, left. Stand right of the block and push it two squares left.
  • Move up three times, left three times, down twice, right. Stand above the block and push it down one square.
  • Move left twice, down twice, right, and push the block one square right.
  • Move right, up, right. Stand above the block and push it down one square.
  • Move down, left, down. Stand left of the block and push it right one square, fully blocking the laser.
  • Move down, right three times, up, right, then right off the edge of the puzzle to collect the glass eye.