SPOILER ALERT. This section contains solutions.
The various components of room 45, put together properly produce the following question:
“What house will all live in?”
- W + hat = What
- shoe + U (horseshoe shaped) = House
- Will (common to both names “– iam shake spear” and “wood row — sun”)
- awl = All (versus nun = none)
- elvi = Live (third reading is “vile”)
- eye + N (sideways Z) = In
On the table, there are a row of up ended logs and a poster with a shaking spear and a ideographic sun. These can be interpreted as “wood row Will’s son” or Woodrow Wilson. A quote attributed to President Wilson is: “Without God, the world would be a maze without a clue”.
Beginning at the first room of the path, a hint can be phrased:
“Like Atlas, you bear it upon your shoulders.”
1: Like is written backwards on the banner hanging near the entryway.
26: salt + A = Atlas
30: From text, “Why ‘O’ and ‘U’?” = You
42: A Bear is the main feature of this room.
4: The holes and pegs are a form of intelligence test, abbr. I.T. alternately, the torches are I’s and the gavel is a T
29: up + on = Upon
17: Why + Oh + You + Are = Your
Skip room 45
23: Taken from the text is the word “shoulder” to which we add the S from room 8. This is not entirely satisfying, because the next rooms do a good job of providing most of the letters, but not in quite the right order.
8: S
12: U D
39: R and on the tire O
4: “ELL” in maze on wall spells L
15: hat, hare, heart, helmet, house, hero all start with H
37: sphere, bottle, vase, cone, dice all end with E (clued in text)
20: S
The acceptable answers were:
“The World, Earth, or Globe.”
Scott Purdy wrote the earlier version of this answer and thanked Andrew C. Plotkin for the information provided by the publisher and Narciso Jaramillo for his assistance in determining the reasons for several statements. Chris McManus proposed the 8 room path through the Maze. John Bailey located the Woodrow Wilson quote.