|
|
Post by Saint on Jul 24, 2024 14:32:53 GMT
Another mystery from a TV detective show. As usual, answers by pm, please.
Inspector Rhys cast a professional eye over the body splayed on the brown carpet beside the bed.
‘Some sort of seizure?’, he speculated. ‘Poison, maybe?’
Sergeant Shaw blew out his cheeks. ‘Hard to say, sir. The wife was asleep beside him when it happened. Says she was woken by the noise when he fell from the bed.’ He nodded at various objects scattered around the body - a broken drinking glass, a reading lamp, a water carafe, a dog-eared crime novel, a face-down clock, and a silver blister pack of what appeared to be some sort of medication. ‘He must have had some sort of convulsion. He dragged that lot off the side table as he fell to the floor.’
Rhys thought for a moment. ‘Anything else?’
‘There is one thing, sir.’, Shaw said, a little awkwardly. ‘It’s a bit … peculiar. The wife says she woke at one point in the night and saw that the time by the clock was 05.10. She says when she woke again later, the time was 04.06.’
Rhys frowned. ‘Is she taking any kind of medication?’
‘No, sir. And she says her eyesight’s 20:20’
‘But it was dark. Maybe, she misread the …’
‘No, sir. It’s a digital clock’, Shaw cut in. ‘LSD night light’.
Inspector Rhys was so perplexed by the mystery of the time-travelling wife he decided to take early retirement. What really happened that night? Did the wife really travel through time, or is there a more mundane explanation?
|
|
Steve
Hero Protagonist
Posts: 3,698
|
Post by Steve on Jul 24, 2024 15:23:58 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by Saint on Jul 24, 2024 16:37:26 GMT
Okay, it's just been made clear to me that the presented scenario isn't exactly a model of clarity.
Just a few things:
The clock was pulled to the floor when the husband fell from the bed. It was perfectly upright and visible to the wife when she woke up during the night.
The wife awoke three times. The first two times she noted the time. The third time was when she was awakened by her husband falling from the bed.
This isn't a whodunnit. The detective show it's taken from does concentrate on the whodunnit aspect, but we're not concerned with that here. I'm more interested in thoughts about how the wife - a perfectly sensible, honest, and able-sighted woman - could have such an extraordinary recollection of the night's events.
Lastly, no third person entered the room that evening, and the clock was a perfectly ordinary digital clock which had not been interfered with in any way.
|
|
|
|
Post by Saint on Jul 24, 2024 17:03:01 GMT
I've just had a brilliant suggestion from Equivocal. It's not the answer, but it would have worked just fine as a solution.
It just goes to show there isn't always just one answer to these things. It wasn't the solution the writers came up with, but it is equally as clever.
|
|
|
|
Post by Saint on Jul 25, 2024 8:59:42 GMT
Okay, two entrants are currently neck and neck. I see both are currently online, so this might be a good time to drop a further clue.
Both have recognised that a characteristic of one of the named items holds the key to the solution. Neither has worked out the conditions that make that characteristic important in the current context.
The answer lies in some of the other items on the floor. The important element is not listed as one of the items, but its presence is strongly suggested by two of the named items.
|
|
|
|
Post by Saint on Jul 25, 2024 16:11:30 GMT
Clue: pis
|
|
|
|
Post by Saint on Jul 25, 2024 19:00:38 GMT
It's with a heavy heart that I announce that Monte has cracked it. He says he did so on the back of the first clue this morning. I thought the last clue was a bigger giveaway myself.
Two others are within a hair's breadth of getting it, but they're not quite there.
Frankly, I'm disappointed that anyone was able to get close to the answer. It eluded me.
|
|
|
|
Post by montegriffo on Jul 26, 2024 10:35:52 GMT
It's the H2O innit?
|
|
|
|
Post by Saint on Jul 26, 2024 10:45:31 GMT
Well done to Monte!!
I’m almost tempted to include Steve and Equivocal too, as they grasped the central idea (just without some of the finesses)
This is what happened:
A glass of water will invert the image of whatever it is placed before. When the wife awoke the first time and glanced at the clock, the time was actually 01.20. It appeared to be 05:10, inverted as it was by its being behind a glass of water.
Between the wife’s waking the first and second time, the husband took a sip of the water and replaced the glass. This time, the glass wasn’t placed directly in front of the time display. When the wife woke the second time, she saw the actual time.
The clues: The first clue tried to lead towards the fact that water was central. So, it was mentioned there was an ‘element’ that wasn’t present among the things listed but was nevertheless important. It was pointed out that two of the listed items strongly suggested its presence (the broken drinking glass and water carafe).
The second clue also led to water. Things changed in the scenario after the husband took a sip in the night. All entrants had already correctly guessed that the display numbers had been inverted, so it was hoped that an inverted use of the word sip (pis) might lead to the answer, or at least suggest water.
|
|
Steve
Hero Protagonist
Posts: 3,698
|
Post by Steve on Jul 26, 2024 10:47:37 GMT
Very good
|
|
|
|
Post by montegriffo on Jul 26, 2024 11:19:44 GMT
So, was the victim poisoned by something in his drinking water?
|
|
Steve
Hero Protagonist
Posts: 3,698
|
Post by Steve on Jul 26, 2024 11:51:57 GMT
So, was the victim poisoned by something in his drinking water? No he died of the stress trying to solve puzzle 12 |
|
|
|
Post by equivocal on Jul 26, 2024 12:05:16 GMT
Well done to Monte!! I’m almost tempted to include Steve and Equivocal too, as they grasped the central idea (just without some of the finesses) This is what happened: A glass of water will invert the image of whatever it is placed before. When the wife awoke the first time and glanced at the clock, the time was actually 01.20. It appeared to be 05:10, inverted as it was by its being behind a glass of water. Between the wife’s waking the first and second time, the husband took a sip of the water and replaced the glass. This time, the glass wasn’t placed directly in front of the time display. When the wife woke the second time, she saw the actual time. The clues: The first clue tried to lead towards the fact that water was central. So, it was mentioned there was an ‘element’ that wasn’t present among the things listed but was nevertheless important. It was pointed out that two of the listed items strongly suggested its presence (the broken drinking glass and water carafe). The second clue also led to water. Things changed in the scenario after the husband took a sip in the night. All entrants had already correctly guessed that the display numbers had been inverted, so it was hoped that an inverted use of the word sip (pis) might lead to the answer, or at least suggest water. I thought the clue was a reference to prism and tried to work out how a glass and carafe of water could act like an inverting prism, but couldn't. |
|
Steve
Hero Protagonist
Posts: 3,698
|
Post by Steve on Jul 26, 2024 12:17:49 GMT
It doesn't invert, it creates a reversed image making 01.20 look like 05:10
[/pedant mode]
|
|
|
|
Post by Saint on Jul 26, 2024 13:01:13 GMT
It doesn't invert, it creates a reversed image making 01.20 look like 05:10 [/pedant mode] I would class that as mild pedantry. For really hardcore and totally insufferable pedantry you have to go to Monte, who, after deducing the answer based on the use of the word element in the first clue, then went on to point out that water isn't strictly an element. |
|
