MobileRead Winter Contest: Discussion

[red_phoenix]

Originally Posted by samhy

And you? What were your submissions?

This is the e-mail I sent.

Spoiler:

Dear Mods:

Thank you for a wonderful contest. It has been a great deal of fun anticipating the release, then reading and discussing the episodes...not to mention all the interactions with members and dead Mods.

This was a great deal of fun even without the added incentive of possibly winning prizes.

My guess for the murderer is: poohbear_nc

His motivation? Jealousy

In Episode 3 pooh was alone in the lounge with Dr. Dribs and dreams' scissors & hammer. He killed Dr. Dribs then but because of the smoke his death was not discovered until Episode 7.

He faked his own death by cooking an already dead chicken in the microwave before ravenne arrived that afternoon. He may have left ravenne alive in order to try to frame her for murder if the frame he was erecting around dreams did not last. Mr. Jellby's idea of how that "accident" could have happened is just too far fetched, although entertaining.

Once everyone thought he was dead and eaten he could easily move about the house setting up the booby traps that ultimately killed the rest of the Mods. At some point before Christmas Eve he must have made a copy of Alex's keys.

I am really looking forward to the solution. Whether I am right or wrong I had a great deal of fun.

I knew the motive I came up with was incorrect. I even had the thought of bullying go through my head but I didn't listen to my subconscious.

Good thing that didn't have to be correct to be entered into the contest.

[pdurrant]

Yes, all you needed was the right name to get into the hat for the prize draw. We have had fun reading the entries. Some were longer than one of the story episodes!

[Billi]

Originally Posted by DreamWriter

Initially, I thought the murderer could have been Ravenne

I also suspected Ravenne for a long time but not as the murderer (that would have been a little bit too obvious) but as some kind of helper/robber bride or as the woman men are killing for (gifted but poor boy Alex sees a way to get a little money with insurances to have something to offer to her, no murder of course, no, but a few accidents ). But alas, there was no romance involved in this mystery.

Thanks pooh and all the other moderators who helped, well done!

[5thWiggle]

I didn't suspect Ravenne, but my fevered, cold addled brain kept picturing her as Magenta from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", especially when the dinner gong was rang in episode 4...

I can't be the only one who did that...can I???

[DreamWriter]

Originally Posted by 5thWiggle

I didn't suspect Ravenne, but my fevered, cold addled brain kept picturing her as Magenta from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", especially when the dinner gong was rang in episode 4...

I can't be the only one who did that...can I???

I didn't have that picture of Ravenne in my mind while reading the mystery, but I do now.

[tilia]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Perhaps some competitors dismissed Pooh as being too obvious a suspect. But you're right, over 50% of the entries correctly named poohbear_nc as the villain (Boo! Hiss!), so I think the difficulty was about right.

poohbear was my choose, but I suspected he was too obvious as the murderer, and that I was missing some clues. That has happened before

Clearly I was over-thinking things, and I'm way better at this than I though!

Hopefully the wicked fowl will be caught, and brought to justice (at a Mobileread barbecue maybe? With extra spicy sauce!)

[troll05]

Dismissed pooh for exactly this reason. I thought pdurrant did it because he was long not mentioned and his corpse was not "obviously" dead, only slimy and green.

Bad luck

Waiting for the next mystery:

[phenomshel]

Well,I must say I'm disappointed in Pooh. I thought you were a bigger chicken than that! (kidding!!).

Actually, I love to read mysteries, but I am completely hopeless at figuring them out, so I didn't even try.

[Dylrob]

I suspected that fowl from the very beginning.

So when will we be serving him for real?

[Dylrob]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Perhaps some competitors dismissed Pooh as being too obvious a suspect. But you're right, over 50% of the entries correctly named poohbear_nc as the villain (Boo! Hiss!), so I think the difficulty was about right.

Over 50%? Ugh, I don't like those odds.

He did seem a little obvious. Though Ravenne was even more so, clearly making her the red herring.

[Iznogood]

I am quite pleased with myself - I guessed the right murderator and the right motive. There were many points on which I were uncertain, especially about the order in which the culprit killed the mods and what was poisoned and when.

On some points I must have read more from the clues than what were really there, e.g. about the vacuum cleaner and the "belated" arrival of pdurrant, WT Sharpe and pooh to the first crime scene (see my e-mail below).

Nevertheless, this is what makes me love mysteries; the clues, the red herrings, the thinking and the guessing. Thanks to all the chickens, moderators and murderators for this wonderful story.

Spoiler:

Before I present my theory on the murder, let's take a short recap of
what I see as the most critical moments of this terrible (but
memorable) evening: the moments straight after pilotbobs tragical
death.

This happens in chapter 3:
1) Alex, Dr. Drib, pdurrant, HarryT and Dale is carrying the body
upstairs. Pooh and Nate is nowhere to be seen. Pooh soon reappears,
but Nate is not seen or heard from until dinner.
2) WT Sharpe and dreams are examining the light cord and concludes
that it has been cut - the death was not an accident. It was murder.
3) WT Sharpe and dreams are returning to the moderators lounge,
finding pooh and Dr. Drib. Pooh goes off to the kitchen to pop corn.
DaleDe, HarryT, pdurrant and Nate is all gone from the story from here

Let's have a look at what must have happened at the kitchen after pooh
left the lounge:

a) Pooh must have entered the kitchen and popped many bags of popcorn.
Ravenne testifies to finding all the popcorn on the floor.
b) Pooh must have been killed and put in the oven. All this must have
happened before Ravenne even entered the house. She testifies that
there were nobody on the kitchen when she came on duty.
c) Ravenne must have entered the house. She says she didn't see anyone
when she entered, but the microwave was on
d) Ravenne must have cleaned up the corn
e) Ravenne must have cleaned up the mess after dreams baking using a
vacuum cleaner

While this happens in the kitchen, let's return to dreams and WT Sharpe:
4) WT Sharpe and dreams are frantically searching the moderators
lounge for the scissors, but they are gone.
5) The door bell rings. Alex runs down the stairs to open for Jellby.
6) After a short while of conversation, Jellby rings for ravenne to
dispose of the light cord
7) Ravenne goes back to the kitchen and calls Marc_Liest
8) Ravenne announces that the dinner is ready. Everybody comes downstairs.

After ravenne answers the ring from Jellby, we, the reader, follow her
the entire time - so all the points a) to e) must be done during point
4 and 5. It's incredible! We don't know how long dreams and WT Sharpe
is "searching frantically", but cooking a chicken is not something
accomplished in just a few minutes. She must either be a very special
and gifted housekeeper, or there is something missing here.

We don't know when ravenne arrived at the house that night, but let's
try to establish that:
1) She used a vacuum cleaner to clean up the sprinkles from dreams' baking
2) The kitchen is adjacent to the lounge/living room (Agatha said so
in the forums last night, and also that it would be possible for sound
to travel from the lounge to the kitchen, and naturally vice versa.)
3) In episode 2 it is written: "Nate remembered to shout across the
room (...). (WT Sharpes ukulele was rather loud)
Later we can find "It was now so quiet you could hear pooh slam and
lock his door upstairs"

I have never played ukulele, but it doesn't strike me as a loud
instrument to make it necessary to shout. I think it was necessary to
shout because ravenne was using the vacuum cleaner in the kitchen at
the time, making noise that made it necessary to shout, even in the
moderator lounge. It is my belief that ravenne had been in the house
for a long time - at least since way earlier than point 3).

It is also my belief that Pooh - the foul fowl - is the killer. Pooh
had prepared the chicken and the corn well in advance. Instead of
going to his room, he locked his door from the outside, and went to
the roof to kill pilotbob. Remember that pooh was standing by the
fireplace when he was insulted by pdurrant and WT Sharpe, and could
easily have taken the scissors.

At the discovery of the body of bob, pdurrant, WT sharpe and pooh were
late to arrive. My guess is that pdurrant and wtsharpe tried to
apologise to an empty room, but left when they heard bob fall. When
they reached the stairs (or somewhere) pooh went back to his room,
locked up from the outside and pretended to pdurrant and WT Sharpe
that he had been in there the whole time, and that he also heard
something and asked what was wrong.

When pooh leaves the lounges for the second time that day (and says
he's going to pop corn) he doesn't go to the kitchen, but hides
somewhere. Ravenne is in the kitchen, cleaning up, and the dummy
chicken is cooking in the oven.

Pooh is now killing pdurrant and Dr. Drib somewhere between now and
the time they are found. None of them can be observed during dinner
and both are found just after dinner. Pooh has spent a long time in
front of the fireplace tonight, and knows that there is a hammer on
the mantel. We can also assume that pooh is setting the booby trap in
the library and in the stairs somewhere between now and the time the
traps were sprung. He can sneak around in the hose unseen and unheard.
During and after dinner, nobody uses the stairs until DaleDe meets his
doom on the Stairway to Heaven (or Hell? Let's hope the former), so
there is ample time to set the trap. He also tempers with WT Sharpes
ukulele - in episode 1, WT Sharpe is playing, but suddenly in episode
11 it "sounds awful" because it has been tempered with. He also
poisoned the cookies. He could have done this by poisoning the
sprinkles in the kitchen and putting them somewhere dreams would find
them and use them, but he had ample time to poison the cookies
directly while all the others ate his bait. Nate did not start to
"sneak some of Santa's cookies" until in chapter 7.

Pooh has a key to the library. We don't get many descriptions about
the house, so the reader must be allowed to assume that the house is
an ordinary one, even though the folks inside are anything but
ordinary. In ordinary houses, we don't find Yale locks on the interior
doors. All doors have the same key, and pooh have one (he used it to
lock his door, remember?) When it comes to locking and unlocking the
front door, nothing is easier when you're on the inside of the house.
From the outside you need a key - Alex may have the only key since
front doors have unique keys - but from the inside you have a handle
to lock or unlock the door.

After WT Sharpe is dead, dreams faints. We don't know for how long,
but since the fire had gone out, we can assume that there were ample
time to set the trap for dreams.

When Alex and Jellby arrives, they find a locked door. Pooh must still
be inside. Without a key, he cannot leave the house and lock the door
behind him. Perhaps he waited until Alex put away the key somewhere
after they had entered and the five survivors were busy arranging the
bodies in the lounge before he took the key, went out and locked the
door from the outside. Or he locked the door from the inside and is
still in the house. Or Jellby is not telling the truth about the door
- he might lie to muddle the waters.

Pooh had the motive to kill the other moderators - they made fun of
him. He killed pilotbob first since pilotbob was the biggest sinner in
this aspect, and then he took them one by one. Dreams, who had been
kindest to him, but who had also forfeited her life by laughing when
pdurrant and WT Sharpe made jokes in chapter 2, were the last to fall.

It is not known when pooh sabotaged the light cord. It could have been
on the roof. I can clearly imagine pooh sneaking up to the roof,
looking down on pilotbob hanging in the cords, waving at him, cutting
into the cord, watching pilotbobs expression as he understood, and
watch him fall before he goes downstairs to trick pdurrant and WT
Sharpe into believing that he has been on his room. But of course, the
cord could have been prepared beforehand as the sprinkles and dreams
wine.

This is the solution as I see it. I want to thank Agatha Chicken for a
wonderful and curious Christmas Story, and I look forward to the
"official" solution

With regards,
Iznogood

[dreams]

As pdurrant said, reading the entries has been great fun.

Originally Posted by 5thWiggle

AHA! I was right! I guess this darn head cold didn't impair my cognitive functions as much as I thought.

Time to resurrect Dreams, unless she's permantly gone Goth from the trauma, and restart the "Chicken" thread to catch us a murderer.

(Dr Drib can come back as a zombie - I'm sure he'd like that)

Although I do love the goth dress, I have now laid my umbrella down and gone out shopping for a new outfit.

Originally Posted by tilia

<snip> Hopefully the wicked fowl will be caught, and brought to justice (at a Mobileread barbecue maybe? With extra spicy sauce!)

Ooooo! Great idea!

[Dylrob]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I don't believe anyone guessed me as the killer, even after I posted this to suggest how I might have pulled it off even after my apparent decapitation.

It just goes to show that you all think I'm the one person on the Moderation Team who's too nice to be a murderer.

"He was a quiet man."

I know exactly how that trick works. It couldn't have been done the way it was in the mystery.

[Iznogood]

Originally Posted by Dylrob

I know exactly how that trick works. It couldn't have been done the way it was in the mystery.

Could you enlighten the rest of us? I suppose it isn't a film trick - after all there is an audience watching in real time

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by tilia

poohbear was my choose, but I suspected he was too obvious as the murderer, and that I was missing some clues. That has happened before

Clearly I was over-thinking things, and I'm way better at this than I though!

Hopefully the wicked fowl will be caught, and brought to justice (at a Mobileread barbecue maybe? With extra spicy sauce!)

If I'm caught & consumed -- there won't be a sequel!