Nancy Drew: Secret of the Scarlet Hand

Nancy Drew: Secret of the Scarlet Hand is the sixth game in Her Interactive’s series and the first to feature Sonny Joon’s doodles. Nancy takes an internship at the Beech Hill Museum in Washington, a Mayan jade carving vanishes, and a red handprint is left behind. This walkthrough covers the whole case over seven in-game days on Junior Detective; the levels differ only in the temple maze.

How the game plays

• New to the series? Take the tutorial at the start, then pick a difficulty. Nancy’s task list as assistant curator lies on her lab desk; tick tasks off yourself. Other notes are in her laptop at the hotel.
• Days are loose; the clock bottom left matters only in that some places close in the evening. Save any time in seven slots.
• The lab phone dials suppliers and Franklin Rose only (dial 9 first); everyone else is called from the hotel.

Day one

Beech Hill Museum: Joanna Riggs’s office

Curator Joanna Riggs shows Nancy the highlights and says the task list is in the lab. Look at the figurines on the shelf. Left, leaf through the Art in America issue on Guatemala; click Prudence Rutherford’s quotes for Nancy’s comments, note her necklace and, a page on, the meaning of its glyph. Look at the picture and diplomas left of the door, ask Joanna the rest, leave.

The lobby

Take the museum plan from the front desk and study it: the glyph of the god of travel and trade on the cover, the layout inside, the glyph bottom right. At the red bench left of the Golden Gates, pick up the paper aeroplane from the floor: an addendum to the lease signed by Joanna Riggs. Behind the desk, open the drawer, lift the pencil case, take the electronic key card with a Mayan glyph. Note the headphones display’s missing door handle. Study the plaques either side of Joanna’s door; look at the lower part of the right one to hear Nancy’s comment, or you cannot phone Prudence Rutherford later. Through the arch into the exhibition hall, to the temple, through the Staff Only door on its right, then the Lab door on the right.

The lab

Meet Henrik van der Hune in his respirator and talk about everything. Left, a table of vase shards, incomplete. Look at the radio on his desk; read the radio manual from the book pile to the end, its last page with Morse damaged. Read Sheila Schultz‘s card from the Chaco Cultural Centre and note the number; Henrik came from there. His top drawer is locked; the transmitter on the right is off limits. Nancy’s desk left of the door: top drawer, a round furniture handle and Sonny Joon’s notes; read to the end; note the chocolate wrapper’s name. Left of the phone, the task list; right, the phone list. Dial 9 and Mr. Rose (his number appears). Ask Henrik about the audio and the equipment. First task: find the missing shards.

Storeroom and temple

Opposite the lab, the storeroom: in the far right corner, the box marked Sonny’s Things holds a shard and a floppy. Up the temple steps, look right, the two bowls: the second shard in the big one. In the lab, at the assembly table, rotate the platform with the half-circle cursor and fit the shards until Nancy comments. Tick task one; Sonny did task two; task three is to take the lease addendum to Alejandro del Rio at the Mexican consulate, but not this late. Through the Golden Gates to the Metro map, to the hotel.

Hotel Colonial

Click the laptop screen; Nancy’s notes are under the computer icon. Put the floppy in the drive, click the disk icon: the password is Sonny’s favourite chocolate, Koko Kringle. Read everything, it matters later. Set the alarm for 8.

Day two

Consulate: take the flyer under the notice board on provenance, talk to Alejandro del Rio about everything, lay the addendum on his papers; he will bring the signed lease himself. Museum lobby: behind the desk, fit the handle to the headphones case, take a pair of headphones. Talk to Joanna. In the hall, Sonny mapped which exhibits need audio matching: ten done, five left, three in the hall and two in the garden. Right into Who Were the Maya: open the left case by its keyhole, take the glyph tile, click the headphones photo and listen with the headphones in the inventory; close the case. The opposite case’s plaque on the radio as an archaeologist’s tool is section A. Lab: tick task three; task four, order packing material: dial 555-9963, Silvio’s, refused for unpaid bills; Henrik explains the vase glyph and lets you off; tick four. Task five: in the storeroom, the audio player left of the door: press the first button, scroll with the arrows, play with green. Sonny did most; sections B, D, G and J remain (his letters). In the hall: Language, the scribes, then the numeral plaque to the right, section D; Rituals opposite, body modification, section G. Garden, right arch: the Rutherford Stela plaque, section J; walk on, and Taylor Sinclair invites you to his office. At the Monsters exhibit take the second glyph tile and listen, section B. Storeroom player: D-07, G-09, J-13, B-14. Tick five. Task six, the numeral tiles in Language: open the case by the right keyhole. Sonny’s notes: zero is an empty turtle shell; dots are ones, bars are fives, bar vertical with dots to its left; head glyphs are also numbers: one, fish lips; two, a hat with five fingers and a half-circle; three, looks like a doctor; four, tongue out; five, wrinkles and a hat; six, a cross bandage on the eye; seven, square glasses and an oval on the brow; eight, a curl over the brow and a peace sign on the cheek; nine, a beard; ten, a noseless skull with a jaw; eleven, foam on the lips and three ovals; thirteen, a T on the cheek; fourteen to nineteen, the low numbers with a jawbone added. Lay the tiles zero to nineteen; lifting a tile shows its number. Tick six. Too late for Sinclair; hotel, call Bess and George, alarm for 9.

Day three

Sinclair’s office: look at the painting on the floor right of his desk (or you cannot phone the artist later); talk: weak museum alarms, and an unknown artist stirring the art world. Museum: question Joanna; Henrik is not in the lab; sirens, a film. Joanna gives leave to investigate. In the hall, read the kings plinth before Rulers; behind the tape, a sheet with a scarlet hand; take it and listen about Pacal. Consulate: talk to Alejandro. Joanna translates the glyph, “the wizard will suffer the yellow death”, and asks for a spectrograph reading. Lab: read Henrik’s note asking you to run every temple challenge; voicemail, then phone Rose (9 first). Spectrograph: switch on bottom right, open the chamber, sheet in, Start, wait; Compare, left arrow, Match, Exit, take the sheet, switch off. On the periodic table left of Nancy’s desk: Hg is mercury, and S sulphur is present. Joanna: cinnabar, used by the Maya and by the museum for restoration; she says none was ordered lately. Lab phone list, Mack’s, 555-6766: a big cinnabar delivery came, and it is toxic. Consulate, Alejandro; Sinclair: the thief left the hand on Prudence Rutherford’s box and at a New Mexico museum, and mentions the Chaco centre (needed to phone Prudence). Joanna’s office, empty: the microscope shows cinnabar on shards; the invoice on the desk; the drawer’s small key; the filing cabinet’s active drawer on the Pacal tablet’s history. Lab: Henrik still out; Joanna’s note; phone Rose for Prudence’s number, 1-785-555-7279, but wait for Rose to warn her. Garden: the monolith, one side damaged, another missing a piece. Back in the hall, a fall: Henrik is at the foot of the temple stairs.

Day four

Lab voicemail (0): Dr. Bluefoot at Eleanor Roosevelt Hospital, and Joanna. Phone Rose: Joanna gets a second chance if you catch the thief and return the relic. Phone 555-4000, the hospital. Visit Henrik, pin the scarlet-hand sheet to his memory board, learn the glyph’s true meaning. Consulate: Alejandro tipped off the police. Sinclair: take the photograph of the Pacal tablet. Hospital: pin it, talk about everything, receive Henrik’s key. Lab: unlock his desk, top drawer, the minidisc; bottom drawer, his diary, clicking the word “snake” on the last page; documents at the back; notes of travels with a talkative companion, Rabbit; the highlighted passage on the priestess Amoxcalli’s manuscript; the sheet of glyph translations behind the papers. Hotel: notes, phone George, minidisc in the external drive: it needs a password (do this or Nancy will not know). Alarm 10.

Day five

Hospital: Henrik snores; pin the translations to the board (required). Consulate: Alejandro’s memory needs Joanna’s Pacal file; fetch it from her cabinet (read and close, it goes to the inventory) and trade for the translation of snake: COATL. Sinclair’s false sympathy. Hospital: click the glyph decoding on the board so Nancy takes it as the password; talk about the Whisperer and Pacal’s accession. Hotel: disk icon, password, read all: Duddle’s number, and a radiogram to the smugglers with password snake. Phone Chaco, 1-505-555-1222, Sheila Schultz: three shards, a snake-headed statuette and a jade tablet stolen; call back later. Phone Prudence: badly received, call again tomorrow. Phone Henry Duddle, 1-605-555-3195, then his daughter 1-605-555-3197, Penelope, alias Poppy Dada, painter of “Deadly Midnight Dinner”: you may take the jade tablet from her canvas if you replace it with something edible; she calls Sinclair Rabbit. Bess and George have the Hardy Boys over; their number joins your list. Alarm 10.

Day six

Phone Chaco: Sheila will post the foam box the tablet travelled in (no promise, no parcel). Lab: reread the radio manual, note the Morse; switch on the transmitter, a blown valve. Section A’s exhibit radio: open the case with Joanna’s small key, turn the set, side door, take the valve, restore and close. Lab: turn the transmitter, side cover, swap valves, close. Switch on; keypad 2050, Connect. Code words, decoded from Henrik’s diary: ocho 8, tres 3, dos 2, siete 7, uno 1. The last three digits with a zero: 2710; the sum of all five: 21; 21 + 2710 = 2731. Enter, Connect, Spanish confirmation. Send COATL, then LECHE (send the goods now, all clear), in Morse from the manual: C dash dot dash dot, Send; O dash dash dash; A dot dash; T dash; L dot dash dot dot. Then L; E dot; C; H dot dot dot dot; E. The left arrow erases a letter, the double arrow the message. Confirmation; switch off with two clicks. Sinclair: ask for the Oaxaca cookies you refused, take one from the jar; ask to see the painting again, and when he leaves, click the tablet and use the cookie on it in close-up to swap. Leave before he returns.

Temple, level one

Up the temple and in. The machine left of the locked door: card in the reader bottom right, Instructions, read, no test yet. The green machine: card in; identify glyphs, glyph then meaning: Road, on your card; Black, in Culture and Crafts; 19, from the numeral tiles; Throne, the garden’s throne fragment; North, the lobby brochure; Ink, the other case in the numerals section. Ding, card back. The Bul machine, reader bottom left, card in, read the rules, Start: you play orange and blue, Move or Pass, two moves per warrior, landing on an enemy captures him; within five of an enemy do not pass; capture every blue warrior including the one on the board. Last, the test machine: card, Test, type the answers: Palenque; Ix Sak K’uk’; Tzolkin; Itzamna; K’iche’. Main Menu, Results, the green light. Card in the door reader, down.

Level two

Right machine, card bottom left, the ball game: angle in the right column, power with plus, then Hit: top angle, power four; middle, three; middle, five; bottom, six. The doll steps back on each success. Card back. The maze machine: login Sonny and the password from his floppy notes; press M for a mini-map, use the arrows and step on Pacal’s mask at the end. Test machine: Ix Wak Tun; the two-headed crocodile; huipil; sajal (governor); atanzahab (matchmaker). Main Menu, Results, card. Press the red button on the central plinth for useful information; card in the left reader, down.

Level three

The calendar task: set 12 Kaban. Find the month glyph below, remember the numerals, card in the reader, set the rings. Green machine: match gods and meanings: Ek Chuah, travel; Ah Puch, death; Xbalanque, jaguar god; Chac, rain; Centeotl, maize; Kukulkan, wind; Kinich Ahau, sun; Kawil, war; Ix Chel, moon. Across the suspension bridge to the locked doors; the reader on the right, Test: Sonny’s question needs Henrik. Hotel: the Hardys say Pacal’s ascent is not literal. Alarm 9.

Day seven

Storeroom: at the loading zone a parcel for Henrik from Honduras. Its lock: the Maya prized crossed eyes; press the eyes 1, 3, 2, 6, 4, 3, 3. Take the second key piece. Read the invoice on the wall. Hotel: phone Prudence, apologise; she sends a copy of the necklace. Hospital: Henrik hid the Pacal tablet in the sarcophagus; Sonny’s invented beast is the coatimundi; six keys, four directions plus the first king and the Copan jester. Storeroom: Prudence’s parcel, the letter, take the jade tablet off the necklace. Temple, card through two doors, down, across the bridge, card, Test: type coatimundi. Back over the bridge, left, card at the tomb: the sarcophagus opens; read about Pacal’s jade mask, slide it aside, take the tablet, close the lid, take the glow stick from the tray, card at the exit, click the glow stick, out through the garden to the lab. Phone Rose and get Joanna reinstated. Joanna, back at her desk, gives the code for a crate: storeroom, left half, top shelf, 0677, another key piece. At the loading zone, the Chaco parcel with the foam box (if absent, phone the centre again). Lab: box on the white platform opposite the door, click the casting machine twice, take the plaster tablet. Assembly table: roof on the cube, then the walls, turning the platform. Take the key cube. Hall, Gods, right case with Joanna’s key: take the stone rings, close, hurry to the garden monolith. Set the rings and set the date of Pacal’s accession from the Rutherford Stela: the sixth of Lamat: inner ring to six (a bar and one dot) at the left marker, outer ring to the Lamat glyph. Four keyholes appear; the cube shows its white plaster face. Left, click the hole, use the cube, turn it right once, click; left, next hole, cube as is; left, three turns right; left, two turns right. The monolith opens on the walled-up Whisperer. Save. Step in, take the book from the mummy, leaf through, a film; when the door slams, be quick: glow stick, turn left twice, take the bar from the mummy’s mouth, turn right once, look up, glow stick on the hotspot, the one-eyed stone bird; bar into the left eye; turn right twice, look down, take the real book and the stone flower; turn left, look up, flower into the right eye. The ending.