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Post by Nalkarj on May 5, 2017 16:46:28 GMT
I finally gave in and looked at sostie 's solution. While we both reasoned that Jeff is the killer, I don't think the solution to the identity of the victim has enough clues. Point 7 is superfluous--a red herring, I suppose? However, the argument that Ben is still alive because Jeff is installing his computer next week is, as I wrote before, shaky. The puzzle says that Jeff wants to install Ben's new computer next week. The computer is still Ben's even if he is dead, just as property still belongs to a deceased person until the terms of that person's will are carried out. The argument that Dan cannot be the victim is even shakier, I think. As we were not told the date on which the murder took place, for all we know it was committed after the marathon. Unless there's something I'm missing? Perhaps "in seclusion since the crime" suggests a long period after the murder? Perhaps, but that's hardly ironclad logic. Anyway, many thanks for the puzzle, tarathian123! The piece about the identity of the murderer was very clever and deducible. |
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Post by Nalkarj on May 5, 2017 22:04:52 GMT
I've actually got another long riddle at the ready--sorry if I'm boring you, fellas, and please do tell me if I am!--so let me know when you have finished with the dog and the poem...
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Post by brimfin on May 6, 2017 1:36:10 GMT
Oh, the weekend is finally here, but I’ve so much to cover. I’ll do these one at a time: The peacock poem: First, let me join with salzmank in saying I wasn’t mad at you, pete, just a little annoyed at the puzzle. I thought it was supposed to be a riddle to solve, not just something to say, “Gee, it sounds cuter if you punctuate it differently”.
I admit there’s a certain poetry to “As big as the moon and higher, I saw the Sun” or even “out in the midst of night, I saw a man.” However, I would never use phrases like “swallow up a whale, I saw an ocean,” “creep along the ground, I saw a spider,” or especially “drop down hail, I saw a cloud.” I would only use the last one if I was trying to warn my friend Hailie that an electrical storm was coming and we should get down on the ground. “Drop down, Hail! I saw a cloud!” Hey, life is full of all kinds of experiences, and this was something different at least. I still think your first puzzle, the one you made up, was awesome!
But let me add something about rhymes and rhyme schemes from my own experiences. I like to watch movies all the way to the end of the credits. Sometimes I get a treat, like at the end of ARMEGGEDON, when they played a new version of “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane” by Chantal Kreviazuk. But when I stayed to the end of MEET JOE BLACK, I got my first taste of a truly awful song – a reggae version of “Over the Rainbow” It could have been a great song, except the moron singing it mixed up the lyrics and completely messed up the rhyme scheme for no good reason. It was like listening to a five-year-old sing a song. Sometimes, they mess up the lyrics but hey – they’re only five years old. When I heard this adult sing, “Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly. And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true,” I was mortified. “It’s ‘skies are blue, you idiot’ I felt like screaming. As I left the theater, I hoped to never hear that dreadful song again. But unfortunately it pops up again and again, at the end of 50 FIRST DATES (an otherwise adorable movie), on American Idol (from an pitiful singer who stayed on way too long) and my brother-in-law even used it on someone’s memorial tape. Needless to say, I could only watch it with the mute button on. To this day, I literally hate that song! But it does make me appreciate just what a wonderful song the original version of “Over the Rainbow” was.
So is messing up a rhyme scheme always fatal? No. Take “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell, a bouncy song about not realizing what we have until it’s gone. Late in the song came these lyrics:
“Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man.”
I was very young when I first heard those lyrics. I thought it meant that they took her father away. Wasn’t sure if they took him to an old age home, or maybe it had become a totalitarian society what with putting the trees in a museum and paving over paradise and they simply took him away to be killed.
Fast forward about 40 years, and a new version of the song came out by Counting Crows with a male lead singer. When they came to that line, he said.
“Listen, late last night, I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi took my girl away.”
At that point, I realized the lyric meant that his girl friend had voluntarily taken a cab and left him. Now I realized “old man” was the vernacular for boy friend in the original song. It made sense now. Now notice, since they had a male singer they couldn’t make that line rhyme anymore. So he sort of changed the bouncier style of the earlier verses and made this more like a sad, poignant little speech within the song. It’s a touching moment and it works. And it fits well with the message of the song. Most of what he talked about earlier was about changes in the world, but suddenly it was something that affected him on a very personal level. So I enjoy this song very much – both versions of it, even if one doesn’t always rhyme.
And that’s my riff on rhymes. |
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Post by brimfin on May 6, 2017 1:49:31 GMT
The dog poem: Whew. A toughie. When I first saw it, I had no idea where to go. Then I saw that someone else had already solved it! Good grief! I tried all kinds of classic moves - first letter of every word, embedded messages, seeing if right or left was within the text. No luck. I noticed that the poem didn't always rhyme. I tried mixing up the lines to make it rhyme, seeing if it would make more sense that way. As I wrote the lines out, I noticed the first letters were close to spelling something out. I put them back it the right order and saw they spelled "Try again." I read the story to see if he's tried one path before talking to his dog. Nope, he hadn't. So I "tried again." I checked the first letters of the second line, and of the last words in each line. And then I checked the last letter of each line and there it was - "the right" So the right path was the correct fork to take.
But one thing still puzzles me:
How did you get your dog to talk? |
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Post by Nalkarj on May 6, 2017 2:15:07 GMT
The dog poem: Whew. A toughie. When I first saw it, I had no idea where to go. Then I saw that someone else had already solved it! Good grief! I tried all kinds of classic moves - first letter of every word, embedded messages, seeing if right or left was within the text. No luck. I noticed that the poem didn't always rhyme. I tried mixing up the lines to make it rhyme, seeing if it would make more sense that way. As I wrote the lines out, I noticed the first letters were close to spelling something out. I put them back it the right order and saw they spelled "Try again." I read the story to see if he's tried one path before talking to his dog. Nope, he hadn't. So I "tried again." I checked the first letters of the second line, and of the last words in each line. And then I checked the last letter of each line and there it was - "the right" So the right path was the correct fork to take.
But one thing still puzzles me:
How did you get your dog to talk? Thanks for working on it, Brimfin, and excellent work, too! I was interested in seeing what people would think of "try again." I like the idea of providing a false solution that is not, however, a red herring but rather a clue to the actual solution. Yeah, silly of me, I know.
As for the dog... I plead the 5th! As I told jervistetch, I wrote the poem before I wrote the story around it, so I have absolutely no idea how the doggie talked!  |
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Post by Nalkarj on May 6, 2017 2:21:45 GMT
Can't wait for your new riddle K. Go ahead. Let's get at it! In the meantime... So you want to work at Bletchley? Solve this simple cipher! Ciphertext is: wklv lv d vhfuhw phvvdjh Plaintext is: ? I couldn't dream of working at Bletchley--my simple mind would explode. I'll have to pass on that! As for my (long) riddle, I'll break it up into three or four parts and post it below. |
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Post by Nalkarj on May 6, 2017 2:23:10 GMT
“Thirteen at Dinner”
A Geoffrey Lord Mystery
Unfortunately for the renown of Mr. Geoffrey Lord, the amateur sleuth who solved the mystery with ease, the strange business of the Thirteen Club was rather quickly hushed up, involving as it did a fine lot of some of the most prestigious members of New York society, who were behaving as children playing at pirate—or, at least, playing until the first murder occurred. That good-natured, white-haired Irishman, Insp. James O’Leary, known the world over as “Pop,” brought the matter to Geoff’s attention, and Geoff—always ready to help a friend in need—savored the challenge despite the constant sighs of none other than his own private Watson, amanuensis, secretary, and all-around girl Friday, the pert and lovely Miss Paula Vale.
Sgt. Thaddeus Mack, the gentle giant with the absurd forename, was the first visitor at Geoff’s door on that wild-weathered day in April.
“It’s like this, Maestro,” he shot out in gravelly tones: “one of these fellas has gotta be guilty, but the Inspector and I ’ll be damned—sorry, Miss Vale—if we can guess who it is.”
Geoff, rising from the chair whence he was dictating his latest novel (The King of Diamonds Murder, you remember) to the ethereal Miss Vale, removed his spectacles and tapped his pipe on the table. “But, Sergeant,” he murmured, confused, “I’m still completely in the dark as to what happened, or even as to what this ‘Thirteen Club’ is.”
“It’s a wonderful title for your next book, though, Geoff,” Paula put in, “as good as the title to this book—you know, the one we’re supposed to be working on.”
“Hm, what? Oh, yes, of course, Paula. But…”
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Post by Nalkarj on May 6, 2017 2:24:29 GMT
It was at that moment that Pop O’Leary entered the ever-bustling 87th St. apartment and shook off his drenched raincoat in the mudroom.
“‘Cruellest month,’ indeed,” he muttered. After some customary pleasantries, he sat on the Lordian sofa which had been—er—graced by kings and presidents, come to consult the Great Man about some case that had meant the security of nations.
“Miss Vale!” Geoff snapped, to which Paula only sighed, “Yes?” “Pen and pad ready?”
“Naturally, Mr. Lord,” she replied, having to keep herself from giggling.
“Well, Geoff, Miss Vale,” Pop started, warming his hands by the Lordian hearth, “the Thirteen Club—named to break the old superstition that it’s unlucky to have thirteen at dinner—is one of the most illustrious secret clubs in the City, made even more so by the fact that the entrance fee is…”
Pop mentioned a figure that caused everyone’s ears to perk up.
“The funny thing is, for this group of successful actors, businessmen, bankers, doctors, and lawyers, they’re not very bright as far as money is concerned.”
Geoff said, “I wouldn’t expect it of actors—having known a few in my time—but the rest of them?”
Pop nodded. “Not only that, but they’re so committed to their jobs that only a few of them married, and so each member of the Club decided, by and large, to will the majority of his fortune to the remaining members of the Club after he died…”
“A Tontine, eh, Pop?” Geoff put in. He stole a glimpse at Paula’s eyes, which were large and sparkling, and made the excellent, accurate, and amusing deduction she had forgotten all about the book they were supposed to type out before.
“Exactly. Bunch of fools, if y’ask me… Anyhoo, it seems that the Tontine will plan has backfired: the members of the Thirteen Club have ended up as unlucky after all. They seem to be killing each other for the money.”
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Post by Nalkarj on May 6, 2017 2:29:26 GMT
“That’s terrible!” cried the innocent Miss Vale. “Geoff, we have to stop it before someone else is killed!”
Geoff put his arm around her. “What’s happened so far?”
“Four of the members have already kicked the bucket,” Sgt. Mack’s voice grated. “Milton Jackson, Jonathan Adams, and Fred Miller were each found at their apartments, shot through the head. Same gun according to the ballistics, Maestro.”
“But you said four, Sergeant. Who’s the fourth?”
O’Leary looked at Paula, then said, “George Johnson, the writer, was shot today in his living room; his wife and housekeeper were away, but, when Mrs. Johnson returned, she found her husband lying there and called an ambulance. He was rushed to the hospital and rallied for a while—Mack here was able to get there as he regained consciousness—but the docs weren’t able to save him in the long run. He died just about an hour before we got here.”
“The poor man,” Paula murmured softly.
Geoff said, “Any clues, Pop?”
“Besides the ballistics, just two—no fingerprints on the gun or around the apartment, worse luck. Mack, you tell Mr. Lord what you heard before Johnson died.”
“Well,” said the giant, “I only hears a few words, at the end, before he’s gone—y’know?”
“Yes?”
“Johnson laughed to himself, Maestro, and spit out, ‘He’s the only one not part of it.’”
Geoff rose and stared at the fire for a good minute. “‘He’s the only one not part of it’! Oh, Heaven, I’ve dealt with some difficult dying clues in my time, but this one beats all the others!” He broke off. “You said there were two clues.”
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Post by Nalkarj on May 6, 2017 2:30:17 GMT
“That’s right, Geoff,” O’Leary responded, “but I can’t imagine what the other one has to do with anything. It was on Johnson’s desk—must have been working on it when he was shot—but it was just a list of names, the members of the club.”
“Do you have it?”
They did indeed, and Geoff saw exactly that—a list of names. Other than the three men Pop had mentioned earlier, and Johnson himself, there were Laurence Marsden and Hal Quincy, the actors; Ken Flaherty and Bruce Nalley, the politicians; Pete Jeffers and Walter Davis, the bankers; the two Theodores, Ted Alton and Theodore Smith (the one a lawyer and the other a retired ad executive); and, last but not least, Leo Oscar, the grocery-store entrepreneur.
It was a long while that Geoff considered those names and said nothing. He was obviously deep in thought, going through every possible permutation of the...
“Of course,” Geoffrey Lord muttered to himself. “How simple.”
“Oh, yes,” sighed Miss Vale. “How very simple.”
“Hm?”
“Well, I see the pattern too, Geoff. I’m just agreeing with you that it’s so simple.”
“We certainly ain’t seein’ it!”—this from a disgruntled Sgt. Mack.
“Ah!” said the Great Man. “Well, you go first, Paula.”
“Thank you, Geoff,” said the fair Paula. “The murderer is…”
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Post by Nalkarj on May 6, 2017 2:31:35 GMT
CHALLENGE TO THE READER
Who is the murderer?
How did Geoffrey Lord know?
What was the meaning of George Johnson’s dying words?
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Post by Nalkarj on May 6, 2017 2:39:50 GMT
It's one of my own, I just borrowed the title from Christie. (If I ever received a cease and desist letter from the Christie estate  , I'd happily change it to "The Thirteen Club." Works either way.) |
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Post by tarathian123 on May 6, 2017 5:06:28 GMT
“Oh, yes,” sighed Miss Vale. “How very simple.”Really? Well goody-goody for her!!  Queries:
1. “George Johnson, shot today in his living room; his wife and housekeeper were away, but Mrs. Johnson found her husband lying there and called an ambulance."
Query - Two Mrs Johnsons?
2. “Milton Jackson, Jonathan Adams, and Fred Miller were each found at their apartments, shot through the head. Same gun according to the ballistics."
Query - Johnson killing - “Just two—no fingerprints on the gun or around the apartment,..." - Same gun? No ballistics?
3. "It was on Johnson’s desk—must have been working on it when he was shot—but it was just a list of names, the members of the club.”
Query - Was he working on the desk, or on the list, or both i.e. on the list on the desk? "I see the pattern too, Geoff"I wish I did!  --------- I'll have another crack at it later
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Post by brimfin on May 6, 2017 9:39:31 GMT
Tarathian123 Murder Case: Ah, a "logic puzzle." I've always enjoyed those.
I conclude Jeff killed Mike. Here is the logic:
We know 2 things about the murderer - he is Jack's brother, whom he grew up with, and he had his leg amputated last month. That eliminates Jack of course. Also eliminates Dan, who ran in a marathon yesterday. So who is Jack's brother? Not Ben whom he first met 6 months ago. And not Mike who "moved to the city" and hence didn't grow up in Seattle, a big city. So the murderer is Jeff by elimination.
So who is the victim? It's not Jack, who's been in seclusion "since the crime." Nor Ben; if Jeff wants to install his computer next week, he must still be alive to need one. Now here's where it gets a little wonky. it appears that when they state that Dan ran in the marathon yesterday "with one of the innocent men" that implies that he would not have been "innocent" if the crime had not already been committed. Hence, Dan is also alive after the crime. The victim, by elimination, is Mike. I'm not really happy with that logic; you could easily call someone "the innocent man" prior to the crime - especially in a logic puzzle like this where your job is usually to solve it by process of elimination. Another possibility is that the murder took place in Seattle, so it was unlikely (though not impossible) that Dan returned to Seattle in time to get killed. But it's never stated that the murder took place in Seattle so that logic is even weaker. One other note: if Jeff is planning to install people's computers next week, clearly he hasn't been caught, and may not even be a suspect yet. So, is my logic correct? Or did I miss something? Oh, and the cipher solution is: "This is a secret message." |
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Post by brimfin on May 6, 2017 10:05:36 GMT
Okay, I haven't started the "Thirteen at Dinner" puzzle yet, as I know once I do I'll be obsessed with it until it's solved. So let me toss in my own puzzle. You've heard the phrase, "Stop me if you've heard this before..." Well, chances are you might have heard this one before. But I'm asking you to solve it anyway, because I'm going to add a new wrinkle to it after it is solved.
Two men meet in a barber shop. As the waiting time is long, they start to talk. Phil asks Joel if he has any kids. Joel says, "Yes, I have 3 boys." "What ages?" asks Phil. "Tell you what," says Joel, who loves puzzles like we do, "I'll give you clues and you tell me when you can figure that out for yourself." "Sounds like fun," agrees Phil.
"First clue," Joel says, "The sum of my sons' ages is 13."
"Need more, obviously," replies Phil.
"Second clue," Joel challenges, "The product of their ages is 36."
"Not quite there yet," muses Phil.
"Third clue. My oldest son loves hot dogs."
"I've got it!" declares Phil.
What is the solution?
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Post by tarathian123 on May 6, 2017 11:24:20 GMT
Yep, you worked them both out Brimfin. Jeff killed Mike. Seattle, i.e. where they grew up is irrelevant. Could have been Chicago or anywhere. The first solution is an elimination process, and the second an easy Caesar cypher. (each letter goes three forward, a = d. The single lettered word "a" is indeed the key. Well done. Now for Joel and Phil. :-) |
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Post by tarathian123 on May 6, 2017 11:53:13 GMT
Phil & Joel. I have an answer but... 2 x 2 x 9 = 36; 2 + 2 + 9 = 13. Male twins each aged 2, whose teeth haven't yet devloped enough to enjoy hot dogs as the 9 year old does. ...is it the right one? |
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Post by brimfin on May 6, 2017 12:06:19 GMT
Phil & Joel. I have an answer but... 2 x 2 x 9 = 36; 2 + 2 + 9 = 13. Male twins each aged 2, whose teeth haven't yet devloped enough to enjoy hot dogs as the 9 year old does. ...is it the right one? Possible, but he didn't say that only his oldest son liked hot dogs so what you deduce wouldn't be sufficient proof. For all we know, more than one of his kids could like hot dogs.
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Post by Nalkarj on May 6, 2017 12:21:03 GMT
“Oh, yes,” sighed Miss Vale. “How very simple.”
Really? Well goody-goody for her!! Queries:
1. “George Johnson, shot today in his living room; his wife and housekeeper were away, but Mrs. Johnson found her husband lying there and called an ambulance."
Query - Two Mrs Johnsons?
2. “Milton Jackson, Jonathan Adams, and Fred Miller were each found at their apartments, shot through the head. Same gun according to the ballistics."
Query - Johnson killing - “Just two—no fingerprints on the gun or around the apartment,..." - Same gun? No ballistics?
3. "It was on Johnson’s desk—must have been working on it when he was shot—but it was just a list of names, the members of the club.”
Query - Was he working on the desk, or on the list, or both i.e. on the list on the desk? "I see the pattern too, Geoff"I wish I did! --------- I'll have another crack at it later Hah! Well, Paula may think it's "very simple," but she's not necessarily correct... 1. Silly me--I knew my phraseology was awkward with that sentence. It should read, "...when Mrs. Johnson returned home, she found her husband lying there..."
2. Make that two clues in addition to ballistics, which determined that it was the same gun used in all four cases.
3. Yes, I'm writing too quickly for my own good, as usual: he was working on writing the list, just as what's his name--Littel--was working on a list in "The Puzzle Murder Case."
I'll change those sentences
Don't sweat it too much, but thanks! |
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Post by tarathian123 on May 6, 2017 12:24:46 GMT
Phil & Joel Mmm... Surely the proof is the maths? 3 + 1 + 9 = 13, but 3 x 1 x 9 = 27, not 36. 2, 2, and 9 are the only numbers which fit both equations. Unless I've missed a combination somewhere. |
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, I'd happily change it to "The Thirteen Club." Works either way.)
