OT: Murder mystery puzzle
 

Not of my own creation... but thought this might be worth working on.

Incidentally, I do not (yet) know the answer myself, so I apologize in advance if this turns out to be beyond all of us.

- - - - -

The murder of Professor Plum shocked everyone who wasn't in his class. After a tricky test, foul revenge made some of his former students secretly happy. Although the body was found in the courtyard, evidence suggested the murder was done elsewhere. But no clue beyond the scrap of paper lying crumpled at his side was to be found.

Scrap of Paper

Reporters and police cry out, "Who did this? Where? Why?" But most importantly, "Who?"

That's the question, Jimmy.

Do we know if the numbers on the paper were handwritten or typed? What I am really getting at is do we have any reason to beleive (either way) that Professor Plum created the numbers as part of his message (assuming that it is a message) or that the numbers were preexisting on a scrap of paper that he had at hand.

I believe every bit of information that we have is either in the text of my first post, or in the graphic. That's it.

On first look, it's tough to know what the correlation between the marks and the columns of numbers is -- some marks are to the left of numbers, some to the right.

And I don't have any idea if the use of Professor Plum (a character from Clue) is meaningful... buf if it is, maybe the fact that the numbers are all 1-6 is relevant? That's the same number of characters and weapons in the game Clue. Could be some sort of code there.

edit - there does seem to be a zero in that list -- dunno how it affects this theory...

And that sheet looks kind of like the detective note pad that came with Clue.

Not all of them. The last number is a 0.

marks are only next to numbers 4,5, and 6.

The order for play in clue goes:

1. Miss Scarlet
2. Colonel Mustard
3. Mrs. White
4. Mr. Green
5. Mrs. Peacock
6. Professor Plum

the paper could also represent the clue board.

Also, Clue is played with dice, that could explain the 1-6.
And in Clue, if I remember correctly, in order to solve the murder, you need to be in the Murder room. Hence the last 0, where you already are in the room. Could it be moves in the game of Clue?

Just guessing at this point, really...

I thought you had to go to the Hall...

There is some order to the numbers, at least reading across. Larger numbers tend to be on rows together, and smaller ones together. Alos, they don't move all that much up and down each column - never more than two at a time.

6 is mysteriously absent from both columns 2 & 3

There are 3 columns of #s but 4 columns of marks? This is confusing.

Matthew Van Atta?

Yes, Google is back up and running. Thanks.

Well, here is something.

If the columns of numbers represent the number of Xs in adjacent squares, then I think this grid satisfies all the numbers on the slip of paper.


Now, I don't have any clue at all what this leads us to... but it pretty clearly seems to explain the numbers themselves. (Done by brute force, there may still be a mistake or two)

No, I ASKED JEEVES.

I never was that good at minesweeper.

I wonder if that becomes some sort of binary code, perhaps?

3
5
11
13
14
11
1
8
11
12
15
14
13
14
4
8

Without the numbers

Without the numbers and with the marks bolded.

Maybe this will help:

Okay, we only have 16 rows of Xs andOs, but if we had them to overlay onto the whole 21 rows needed for the Clue cards, that woudl be pretty cool.

Perhaps the answer is, indeed, in a Clue format -- like Colonel Mustard, in the Conservatory, with the lead pipe?

(The "why" doesn't fit too well from the opening text, though)

To build on that, maybe we only need 20 rows, unless we consider Pr Plum to be a suspect in his own murder. Hmm, could this be suicide after all?

A slight wrinkle. In the traditional Clue game, of course, Prof. Plum is a suspect. Which he is not here because he is the victim and the death is classified as a murder. Any attempts to lay this matrix unto the traditional Clue board or notepads may have to account for that.

dola

f^3 beat me to it.

But, anyway, in Clue -- the only reason you have four columns for each name is to use the slip four times, right? All you're doing is filling out little marks to indicate who has been ruled out in each game.

How would we make these 4 columns of 16 items fit into a system that really only needs one column of 21 (or 20) items?

Just throwing out something but the numbers are counting down at the bottom.

1 2 3
2 3 5
4 3 4
5 4 4
5 4 4
3 3 4
2 2 3
2 2 3
4 3 2
5 4 4
6 5 3
6 5 4
6 5 3
5 4 2
4 3 1
2 1 0

odd wording: Reporters and police cry out, "Who did this? Where? Why?" But most importantly, "Who?"

Who is repeated, somewhat clumsily. Perhaps "who" is the only question anwsered by the grid?

Also note that 'with what' has been subsituted with 'why.'

Color me bewildered.

So I go to bed and nothing more happens in here?

Slackers!

I suspect that communism is just a red herring, and so is the reference to the board game of Clue.

Also, if this IS a Minesweeper grid we're looking at, why don't we count the squares that have numbers in them? They'd certainly be part of a grid in the game of Minesweeper. The matrix then becomes:
And the binary equivalents become:
5
17
69
81
84
69
1
16
69
72
85
84
73
76
16
64

First column pertains to who? Second Column to where? and third column to why?

I am inclined to agree with ShkSpr, that the Clue references probably go nowhere.

But I can't make anything from his set of numbers, either.

Plus -- I'm thinking it woudl be prety tough to start with a set of numbers that translated in any easy way to letters or the like, and to then build this whole minesweeper complex out of it. Just putting myself in the puzzle-maker's shoes, I find that tough to believe that it would just build itself that way.

Suicide?

Professor Plum was 6 in play order. Maybe it's missing from the last two columns because he can't be the murderer and the victim.

I might be over-reading, but the puzzle describes the death as a murder, which rules out suicide in my book.

We also do not seem to be able to do anything with the red markings. I am feeling pretty out of ideas on this one right now.

The message doesn't say anything about cause of death. I'm assuming that means no obvious wounds - would that indicate poison?


The message does say the murder occured somewhere else - so he took the poison walked into the courtyard and died there? Almost a D.O.A. scenario?

This also keeps the posibility of suicide open.

Perhaps a veiled way of saying the murder took place in the classroom?

Strange how it says "evidence suggested..." and "no clue beyond the scrap of paper" Is the evidence that suggest the murder was not in the courtyard not a clue?
Also, thinking that the "test" killed some former students, thus their revenge. So scrap could be like a mine field, russian roulette, etc. and students just turned it on the proff.

Also, minesweeper grids can have mines under numbers, too. In fact, that's all it is. There are no blank squares.

So does the grid really represent this with no spaces in between? If so, how does that affect where the mines are located?


Hmmm.... When I try to figure this out, it won't work because there would be no way to satisfy the sixes on the left edge (unless there are mines further left than the numbers show)...

I don't think the columns of (Xs and Os) mines and blanks that has been discussed earlier is some sort of concidence. I don't think we're looking for some completely different structure.

I'm confident that is the right structure -- what we're clearly missing is what to do with it. I am so stuck on the binary idea that I just can't get past it.

I suspect there is at least one play on words somewhere in the lead-in text, but I'll be damned if I can pick up anything from it.

Maybe the red dots represent areas where we are supposed to put zeros in place of ones? Of course, that makes one wonder why the grid was not made that way in the first place.

if it turns out to be Winston Churchill, I am NEVER reading one of these threads again

So what's the freaking answer? I'm too stupid for this junk but you guys should be able to figure it out!

The paragraph reads that evidence suggests that the murder was not done in the courtyard. The next sentence reads that the only clue was the scrap of paper. Does this mean that the evidence suggesting that the murder did not occur in the courtyard IS the scrap. Is this a clue to help us decipher the meaning of the scrap of paper?

dola:

the paragraph reads that the murder of prof plum shocked everyone who wasn't in his class. I took this to mean the people in his class were not suprised, but maybe it means the people in his class were not shocked with electricity. Maybe the old man was electrocuted but the class room was insulated in some way. Does the scrap of paper have any meaning to our resident electricians? electrical engineers? Ben Franklin?