have you ever dreamed of encountering a gruesome murder wherein logic must prevail so as to earn the justice for the victim?
have you ever imagined yourself engaged in a battle of wills against a murderer?
have you ever fancied deductive acts?
oh well, i do.
and i'm going to share some nice mini-mysteries to you..
first, try to solve it. then, if you're really stuck and you think that you've squeezed everything from your brain, read the solution below...
but first, try to solve it. who knows... you might be the next great detective.

THE CASE OF THE INVISIBLE MURDERER

Thomas P. Stanwick, the amateur logician, and Inspector Matthew Walker of the Royston Police Department were grateful for the sea breeze on that hot August day as they walked from Walker’s car to the entryway of the Sea Maiden restaurant. The two had been discussing another case in Walker’s office when the call had come in about a murder at the Sea Maiden.

Inside the stuffy restaurant, two uniformed officers were recording the names and addresses of those who had been there when the body was discovered. The discovery had occurred at 3:30PM, less than an hour before Stanwick and Walker arrived, so only six patrons – one couple and a family of four – were being detained. They sat in a row of chairs along a side wall. With them were a cashier, a busboy, two waiters, two waitresses, and the chef.

Walker introduced himself to the agitated owner of the restaurant, Steven Evans. Evans, Walker, and Stanwick then passed through the main dining room, which contained seventeen tables, to a smaller dining room on the right.
“Hello, Ernie,” said Walker to the police photographer.
“Are you fellows about through?”
“Just about. Jim is still dusting for prints.”

The smaller room was connected to the main room by an open doorway. One of the five tables still had dirty utensils and dishes of half-eaten food. Slumped across this table was the dead man, a wealthy publishing executive named Gerald Hottleman. A knife protruded from his back.

“It was a restaurant steak knife with no prints,” reported the fingerprinter. “Wiped clean.” Walker nodded and glanced around the plainly decorated room.
Several small windows near the ceiling did little to relieve the warmth and stuffiness of the room. An odor of fish lingered in the air.

“How was the body discovered?” Walker asked Evans.
“About an hour ago, Kris, the waitress for this room, started to come in to ask Mr. Hottleman if he wanted coffee or dessert,” replied the perspiring owner.
“She saw him from the doorway and stood there, screaming.”
“No one else was in this room, then?” asked Stanwick.
“He was the only one in here. An elderly couple who had lunch here left about twenty minutes before we found Mr. Hottleman.”
“Did anyone see Hottleman alive after they left?” Walker asked.
“Oh, yes. When the old folks were about halfway to the cash register, Mr. Hottleman came out and gave the lady her sunglasses, which she had left on the table.”
“Then Hottleman came back here?”
“That’s right.”
“And who else entered the room between the time Hottleman returned to his table and the time his body was discovered?”
“Why, no one, Inspector. The other guests were in the main dining room, and Kris was on break.”
Stanwick eyed the owner quizzically. “How can you be sure that no one slipped into this room?” he asked.
“I was sitting at a small table near the cash register looking over our receipts,” Evans replied, “and I would have noticed it.”
Just then the medical examiner’s assistants entered the room to remove the body.
Evans excused himself and hurried off. Walker returned to the main room to talk to the uniformed officers. Stanwick lingered in the small room and glanced about, thoughtfully fingering a tip of his mustache.
No doorways led into the room except the one from the main dining room. The windows were too small for human entry and too high up for the knife to have been thrown in from outside, even if the angle of the knife in the body permitted such a hypothesis. Stanwick frowned, returned to the main dining room, and took Walker aside.

“Matt, was anything taken?” he asked quietly.
“Hottleman’s wallet is gone. If you mean evidence, nothing was touched until we arrived.”
“Then how was Hottleman identified?”
“The owner and the staff here know him. He’s been here many times.”
“Rather late for lunch, isn’t it?” Stanwick smiled slightly.
Walker shrugged. “Not everyone thought so.”
The two walked back to the side room and paused by the doorway. Photographers, fingerprinters, and medical examiners were gone, as were the dead man and the murder weapon. The busboy apologetically brushed by Stanwick and Walker with a small cart and began to clear away the effects of the victim’s table.

“We’re still taking statements,” said Walker quietly, “but everything we’ve heard so far corroborates the owner’s story. He was seated at the table near the cash register the whole time. Frankly, Tom, I’m puzzled. The only way anyone could enter the room is through this doorway. No one was in there after the old couple left except for Hottleman, he was seen re-entering the room, and no one else was seen entering the room until the body was discovered.”

“An impossible crime,eh?” chuckled Stanwick. “Or at least a crime committed by an invisible killer. Well, there are more ways than one to be invisible, my friend. I can tell you who the murderer is.”



WHO MURDERED HOTTLEMAN?
(Try to solve it yourself, and then read the Solution below!)




Solution
The circumstances of Hottleman’s death make suicide or natural death impossible, so he was murdered. The murderer must have entered the room through the main doorway after Hottleman re-entered it following his return of the sunglasses.

Stanwick’s main clue was the condition of the tables in the murder room. Only the victim’s table still had dirty utensils and dishes. The others, including whichever table the elderly couple had used, had been cleared. Nothing had been touched after the discovery of the body, so the tables must have been cleared before then but after the couple had left. Only one person could have done this without seeming out of place or attracting even the slightest notice from the preoccupied owner: the “invisible” busboy.

The busboy was therefore the murderer.

Subsequent investigation by Walker proved that Stanwick’s deduction was correct. The busboy had murdered the wealthy Hottleman for his wallet.
As adapted from Five-Minute Crimebusters by Stan Smith (Sterling Publishing, 2000)

ONE MORNING AT THE FESTIVAL

The village of Knordwyn in Northumbria, England, was celebrating its annual Queen Anne Festival. For several August days, people from around the shire came to enjoy craft displays, athletic competitions, farm shows, and cooking and music contests.

Also attending the festival was Thomas P. Stanwick, the amateur logician. He visited the village every year or two, and found Knordwynians invariably intriguing: about half were lifelong liars, and the rest were lifelong truthtellers. Conversations with them were thus real tests of his skill at deduction.

On the second festival day, Stanwick arrived at the grounds early to see the pigs. He was curious to see a particularly hefty specimen named Miss Porky Pine (because of her prickly disposition, according to a wag at the village pub). When he reached the stalls, however, he found hers empty and her owner, Ian Craigmore, angrily questioning three men and a woman. Upon seeing Stanwick, Craigmore turned to him.

“Tom, my lad,” he sputtered, “someone stole Miss Porky Pine from her stall last night. It must have been one thief: she is nervous and squeals loudly if two try to handle her.”

“And you suspect these four?”

“Yes. Charles Hagman, Thomas Leary, and Dora Glasker are festival attendants, and Louis Parrella was cooking a suspiciously early barbecue not far from the festival grounds, so I brought him over. All four are from the village.”

Stanwick knew Craigmore to be a villager and a truthteller. Turning to the suspects, he asked if they could tell him anything about the theft.

“Louis never attends the festival,” said Hagman. “Also, Thomas and Dora are not both truthtellers.”

“Dora stole the pig,” announced Leary. “She and Louis are both liars.”

Glasker cleared her throat angrily. “Neither Charles nor Thomas is the thief,” she said. “Louis attends the festival every other year.”

“Either Dora or Thomas is a liar,” stated Parrella. “The thief, however, is not Charles or Dora.”

Stanwick smiled pleasantly.

“In an admittedly indirect way,” he said, “you’ve been very helpful. And now,” he continued, turning to one of them, “perhaps you could tell us why you stole the portly pig.”

WHO STOLE MISS PORKY PINE?
(Try to solve it yourself, and then read the Solution below!)




Solution

If Hagman were a liar, then Leary and Glasker would both be truthtellers. Glasker would also be a liar, because of Leary’s second statement. Since this is impossible, Hagman is a truthteller.

Parrella therefore never attends the festival, so Glasker is a liar. Since Parrella’s first statement is a restatement of Hagman’s second statement, Parrella is also a truthteller.

Since Glasker is a liar, by her first statement the thief must be either Hagman or Leary. By Parrella’s second statement, however, Hagman is not the thief. The thief is therefore Leary.

When presented with this reasoning, Leary confessed to stealing Miss Porky Pine for culinary reasons. She was returned, squealing but intact.

As adapted from Five-Minute Crimebusters by Stan Smith (Sterling Publishing, 2000)

there.
just two mini-mysteries for now...
hope you had fun solving! if you want harder cases and not just some five-minute mysteries, buy a mystery book.
If you're into classics, of course, who doesn't know Sherlock Holmes? Try Arthur Conan DOyle's The Sign of Four. That's his most famous book. And/or The Hounds of Baskervilles. Another famous book.
Okay, till here!
Ja ne!
sleepy na ako e.. aga ko nagisng kanina para sa anime marathon ko.
from about past 6 in the morning till now, walang patayan yung pc... kumain lang tpos naligo tpos go nnman.. hehe.. adik nga ako. i know that full well.