The missing view had a location
The woman introduced herself as Anja. She had written the note, then left her telephone charging in a room where she could not hear it. When Ivo explained the puzzle, she laughed at her own instructions. She had assumed the card would stay in the frame during shipping. It was a spacer, she said, and the crescent should fit around a small peg.
Her father had made the frame for her mother, who could no longer climb the stairs to see the garden from the bedroom. Anja remembered it standing near her mother's chair, but she had never understood how an empty frame could supply a view. She hoped a craftsperson would recognize the arrangement. Her father had left no drawing.
Ivo asked to see the chair's old position. From the sitting room, the pear tree was hidden behind a high garden wall. Above the fireplace, however, two small screw holes marked a rectangle on the plaster. Opposite them, beside the window, a narrow shelf had been painted over. Neither feature meant much alone. Together they suggested that the frame had been only one part of an installation.
Anja fetched a box from the attic. Among a lamp base and spare curtain rings was a rectangular mirror with a wooden peg near its edge. The postcard's crescent fitted around the peg exactly. Ivo finally understood why the frame needed hinges.