Swamped

"Our old anaestheticist left us a while back," the doctor says. "Never seemed satisfied with the job, they were more interested in researching new chemical compounds and felt the regulations on what you can test on humans and greblings are too strict. That was probably less of a concern at their new job."

"What new job?" you ask.

"One of the shipping firms was having a lot of problems with insect infestations on their longer voyages. They wanted someone to figure out a way to keep bugs out of the cargo bay. I'm not sure if they're in port or out right now, though, since they often go on trips to observe the effects of their experiments. But they definitely would have known the code."

And they'd probably be extra-sensitive to it, if they were doing any experiments they didn't want discovered. Which is also a plausible explanation for why they might be poking around here - perhaps they left something behind, and it's suddenly become important not to leave any traces of it.

"So it'd be them or a current employee secretly staying late," you conclude.

"It'd be strange for a current employee to risk searching the records room at this hour, though," the doctor says. "We've known a new clerk was coming for a week, and we weren't all that busy until today. It would have been easy to volunteer to tidy the records up for him, since no one really wants to do that. Not impossible, I suppose, but strange."

And the anaestheticist fits with what you saw. So they'd seem to be the prime suspect. Maybe you can pass that along to Sunflower later, or investigate it yourself.

You arrive at the records room, and the doctor pulls out a blank sheet and starts making a sign. As he does, you try to catch a glimpse at the boxes the intruder was looking through.

None of these were boxes that particularly caught your own eye, but you think you remember which one they took the paper from. You wonder if the other papers in that box might offer any clue as to what could be missing, so you take a quick look at them.