The Curious Chronology of Atherley Spire

Atherley Spire, constructed in 1870, was the residence of the scholar and collector, Dr. Elias Atherley, who maintained one of the region’s finest private libraries. The house was formally abandoned in March 1876, following Dr. Atherley’s sudden, documented departure for a research trip to the continent, from which he never returned. The official date of his departure, confirmed by passport and travel records, is March 15th, 1876. The mystery, therefore, centers on the library, its contents, and the activities of the Library curator, Mr. Henry Davies, whose role was to catalog and manage the collection. Davies’s entire archive—the check-out cards, catalog pages, and shelf indexes—is internally Curious and Misdated, presenting a chronological record of the library’s use that ends precisely a month before Dr. Atherley’s official departure, an inexplicable temporal gap in the domestic record.

The Curious Gap in the Check-Out Cards

The Library curator, Mr. Davies, was known for his stringent use of check-out cards to monitor the entire collection. His system was comprehensive, and the sudden, complete cessation of recorded borrowing is highly Curious. A review of the remaining catalog pages—the index of the entire collection—shows handwritten annotations for several volumes that appear to date after February 14th, contradicting the stop date on the check-out cards. The final, crucial contradiction lies in the entirely Missing shelf indexes—the documents that would show which books were physically in the library and which were out. Their disappearance suggests that the Library curator may have intentionally removed the shelf indexes to Obscure the true status of the collection and the timing of the Doctor’s final presence in the house.

The Misdated Index