Printable View
Eh, I dunno...number 2, step forward. Hmm...now turn to your left.
I'm trying to figure out whether the cause of death was a mechanism or a person. I'm leaning towards the first, but then the problem-solver in me tries to figure out all the specific mechanics...
Let me just explain it:Quote:
Originally Posted by Pendragon
As I said, everything depends on the veiw from that window. I gave two indisputable scientific statements hoping to jog someone's memory. If what goes up must come down, could the opposite be correct was what I was driving at?
The windows were too high to get UP TO and DOWN FROM easily, but if one used a rope and the handy gargoyle, they could come DOWN TO the window, open it while hanging from the rope, then either enter the room and commit the deed or throw the knife. After which they use the rope again to close the window and GO UP to the roof, to exit elsewhere, knowing all attention will be on that room and the rest of the house overlooked. The murderer could be inside the house, a member of the family or a servant, or an outside man with acrobatic skills at climbing. That is what The Shadow saw in the view from the window-- a means of murder and escape in the opposite direction the police were likely to look. ;) :D
Now that was cheap :p. You're telling me we didn't have to tell you "It was this person, and this is how he did it," we had to tell you "this is a vague idea of how it COULD be done"?
Lol, yeah, pretty much... the answer to my first one was a fan:
A human fan cheers
A paper fan flaps
and the other fan spins.
All the way back on this post, I stated it was not a clue to who but how Sometimes I play the game for the game's sake... Even Conan Doyle did at times. John Dickerson Carr's Dr. Gideon Fell, master of the impossibe crime, figures he's done his job if he can figure out how. The next will have a deffinate criminal, I promise! :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Pendragon
Kent Allard is The Shadow's real name. He was a spy in WWI, called "The Dark Eagle." After the war, he dissappeared in an experimental plane over Central America. He was believed lost there for twenty years, but in reality, it was only two. When the Shadow was caught in his "Lamont Cranston" disguise by an unexpected newspaper report, he is forced to unmask as himself, the one person the Shadow could not be in the world's estimation.
This story should give no trouble, but my editor asked some questions, so who knows? ;)
The Balaam Murders by Jonathan Blade
Kent Allard was once again at the Manassas, VA country estate of his friend
Roland Tycylff. The two men smoked in silence a few minutes, then Tycylff nodded toward a field of green corn.
“Kirk says the crops this year will be the best yet. Since Dick is in prison—“
Kent raised a hand. “It’s best not to dwell on it, Roland.”
The men were interrupted by a knock on the door. It was the police. They came right to the point: “Mr. Kent Allard?”
Allard smiled. “I’m Allard. What’s up?”
“Well, first, I’m Sheriff Riley, Mr. Allard. The Deputy’s handle is Norwhich. We’ve got a bad deal on our hands. Last night, Davy Whately was found hanged in his own barn. You’d think suicide, but there wasn’t a thing he could have used to hang himself. Then, too, it makes the third in as many nights. The other men were Ty Appleby and Pete Dunkirk. Same method in each case and no clues.”
“Did the men live near each other?” Allard inquired.
“Whately and Appleby had adjoining farms.” Deputy Norwhich read from written notes. “Abe Stokley has owned the place above them for years. The guy below inherited his place two years ago. Name is Kimball Penwick, a city-educated man, inherited his uncle’s place. He also rents the farm across from Appleby, other side of Bull Run Creek, from a dude in Alexandria named Kurt Palmer. Dunkirk’s land was above Palmer’s. Then it’s just cliffs on that side of the creek.”
“Malcolm Dunbar, a self-made millionaire, lives atop the cliffs.” Tycylff explained.
“I need to see both men at their farms.” Allard said.
The Sheriff and Deputy were happy to give him a ride. At the elegant Dunbar estate, Allard found the old man feeding hay to a corral of elderly mules sheltered by a comfortable barn. He shook hands with the farmer turned millionaire.
“Ah broke muh back tuh git me a place like this so’s me and th’ boys could rest.” He said, pointing at the mules. “They worked as hard as ah did. Naow they kin rest too.”
At the Penwick place, the young farmer had his own corral of mules, and easily showed how thin his veneer of city education. “What can I do for y’all?”
“Nice mules.” Allard stated. “They must help a lot, keeping two farms working.”
“For a fact they do!” Penwick grinned. “But not those two over there. Ben and Bess are my breeding pair.”
Allard nodded thoughtfully, glancing back at the car, and the waiting men. The Sheriff exploded on the ride home. “I’m hanged if that did any good! I saw nothing wrong at either place!”
Allard chuckled grimly. “Not so. One man is not what he seems. His animals told on him.”
WHAT DID THE SHADOW MEAN?
Penwick's the suspicious one--mules are a hybrid of donkeys and horses, and are therefore sterile. "Breeding pair," my eye (the other figure of speech is censored--pity, it would have fit so well...) ;).
I do believe I could guess your other "figure of speech" and yes, it would fit very well, very well indeed. You are of course correct. But would you believe my publisher had to ask what the point was? And also why I called this one "The Balaam Murders"? And he's a college professor? I did not think it should cause anyone trouble. Ah, but you never know...Quote:
Originally Posted by RobinHood3000
Kudus, Archer. :thumbs_up :thumbs_up :thumbs_up
The Height of a Shadow by Jonathan Blade
Victor Boniface lay facedown on the carpet in his office, a deadly dagger buried to the hilt in the back of his neck. The Coroner looked up at Police Commissioner Ralph Weston, Ace Detective Joe Cardona, and the commissioner’s friend, Lamont Cranston, amateur criminologist.
“Dead less than two hours, gentlemen. The dagger was perfectly placed. I doubt if he ever knew what hit him.” The little official stood and pantomimed. “He was stabbed here as he stood by the desk. He fell, struck a shoulder, half-spun, landed on the other shoulder, then face-down.”
“Cardona?” Weston barked.
“Problems, no doubt about it. This office was locked from the inside—we had to break in. We’re on the 26th floor and this building doesn’t go for ledges. So the windows are out, even if they weren’t locked.
“The door there goes into the outer office. Boniface’s secretary, Miss Carolyn Wheats worked there. The bathroom is opposite her desk.
The waiting area is beyond the outer office. Four men were there, all with appointments to see Boniface, who was a stockbroker: Ramesy Locklear, Norbert Twillinger, Colin Cardiff, and Ernest LaSurare. They have all been detained.”
“What tipped you off as to trouble?” asked Cranston, idly examining the office wall.
“Well, he was past due to see his clients, and LaSurare finally asked Miss Wheats to page him. When they received no reply, they sent for the police.”
“Did you notice this cabinet, Joe?” Cranston had opened a small wall cabinet. Through it, past shelves of medicine and first aid supplies, a half-open door showed the bathroom.
“Yeah. That’s my trouble. Not even Miss Wheats could get through there, and the men are all over six feet tall!”
“Let’s interview the suspects.” Weston suggested. No on noticed Cranston’s eyes seem to gleam as they went.
“Did any of you go into the bathroom?” Cranston asked.
Locklear snorted. “We all did! We’d been kept waiting for an hour drinking coffee!” He jabbed a thick cigar a green ashtray, knocking it off the mantle straight onto Norbert Twillinger’s alligator boot with a thump. Twillinger took no notice.
“Wow! Where’d you buy those boots, Bert?” Colin Cardiff asked. “I’ll bet that malachite ashtray weighed six pounds and you never flinched!”
Twillinger frowned at the scuff on his boot. “I got them in Florida last trip. Gator hide is very tough leather.”
“Are we going to be here all night?” wailed Miss Wheats.
“I’ll get your statement right now, then you can go.” Offered Cardona.
“Actually” Cranston said, stepping around Twillinger, and in the process, stepping on his other foot, “They can all go except for Bert here. He’s our man.”
“He was never in that office!” Weston protested.
“The cabinet connecting the office and bathroom was entrance and exit.”
“I happen to be six foot four!” Twillinger protested
“I think not. And I’ll prove it!” Cranston smiled.
WHAT DOES THE SHADOW MEAN?
Is it to do with the consistency of alligator hide, the semantics associated with such hides, or the protected status of crocodilians in Florida?
Um, no. Those are all good points, but would have nothing to do with proving the man was not six foot four. And I don't think they were a protected species in the 30's and 40's, the time period of the Shadow stories. But the boots are where you should be looking for clues! :brow:Quote:
Originally Posted by RobinHood3000
Is it important that the Shadow steps on the boot? More specifically, does the act of stepping constitute a test?
Hmm... isn't alligator skin suppose to be tough? Does it have anything to do with the scuff? (woah, made a rhyme) Or does it have to do with the thump? Either way though... that doesn't prove that he is six foot four, just simply that the boot isn't really made out of alligator skin. It has to either be obvious but hidden, or complicated but apparent. It still needs to be proved that it's because of the boots that he's six foot four.
Yes. Stepping on the boot further comfirms something The Shadow already suspects. And note that he steps on the OPPOSITE boot from the one the heavy ashtray crashed onto. :brow:Quote:
Originally Posted by RobinHood3000
Yes, But I chose Alligator hide for a reason. Sometimes the truth must not be obvious, so the hide "hides" the real reason, maybe? :brow:Quote:
Originally Posted by DigitalCrash