Butler's Whodunit

by Denis Greening
Solving Tips

Story


Hon. Freddy Threepwood was an avid consumer of the Detective mysteries so popular today. When Freddy left for America, he bequeathed his collection of these magazines to Beach, the unflappable butler in Blandings castle. Beach quickly became as addicted to this genre as young Freddy had been. After that terrible summer [Lord Clarence Emworth's prize pig the Empress of Blandings had been stolen not once but twice, that awful man Pilsbury had stolen Hon Galahad's inflammatory manuscript, and 2 young couples had set up complicated charades to get their unions blessed], Beach took a much deserved holiday during which he proceeded to consume detective mysteries in great quantities.

He read so many of them that he woke up dreaming about them one night and decided to convert some of these dreams into a novel that he could sell to Lord ['Stinky'] Tilbury's publishing house. The story came together pretty easily over the next several weeks, but Beach realized that he needed to add some interest to the main characters. He realized that he could model his characters after some of the interesting residents and visitors at Blandings. He modeled 6 characters loosely from 6 inhabitants of Blandings that he studies over the following week. He used 3 women [Lady Julia Keeble, Lady Constance Fish and Sue Brown] and 3 men [Hon Galahad Threepwood, Ron Fish and Rupert ['efficient'] Baxter] as his models. He chose a new model everyday [Monday to Saturday] and studied them in great detail. He chose 1 very distinctive physical characteristic or item of apparel to use in the book and assigned a role to each character].

From the clues below can you determine which resident of Blandings was chosen on as model, which day they were chosen, the unique identifying physical characteristic or piece of apparel that each had, and the role that their character played in the story.

Note: "4 or 6 days apart" really means including the days on both ends in the count. So "4 or 6 days apart in some order" could be Mon/Thur, Tues/Fri, Wed/Sat, or Mon/Sat or vice versa on all the pairs.


./Labels/h_Model.png ./Labels/h_Role.png ./Labels/h_Identifier.png
./Labels/v_Baxter.png ./Labels/v_Constance.png ./Labels/v_Gally.png ./Labels/v_Julia.png ./Labels/v_Ronnie.png ./Labels/v_Sue.png ./Labels/v_Accomplice.png ./Labels/v_Criminal.png ./Labels/v_Detective.png ./Labels/v_Victim.png ./Labels/v_Witness__2_.png ./Labels/v_Coat.png ./Labels/v_Eyes.png ./Labels/v_Footwear.png ./Labels/v_Hat.png ./Labels/v_Nervous_fidget.png ./Labels/v_Voice.png
./Labels/v_Day.png ./Labels/h_Monday.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Tuesday.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Wednesday.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Thursday.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Friday.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Saturday.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/v_Identifier.png ./Labels/h_Coat.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Eyes.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Footwear.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Hat.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Nervous_fidget.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Voice.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/v_Role.png ./Labels/h_Accomplice.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Criminal.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Detective.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Victim.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Witness__2_.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
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x o blank x o blank x o blank x o blank
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JavaScript Grid by Scott Noyes

Clues

  1. No two men were used as role models on consecutive days
  2. Witnesses were 1 man and 1 woman, and the witnesses were one after another
  3. The six people are: Sue, Ron, the woman on Tuesday, the person wearing a hat, and the witnesses
  4. The men are: Gally, nervous Fidgeting, and the person used on Saturday
  5. The women are: the criminal, the woman with interesting footwear, Julia (who was not wearing a hat)
  6. The following people were found on consecutive days from first to last: Constance, The person with the unusual voice, Baxter, a witness
  7. The victim was found sometime after the person with memorable eyes
  8. The accomplice and the person with the distinctive coat were found 4 or 6 days apart in some order
  9. The Detective and the person with the memorable eyes were found 4 or 6 days apart in some order



Solving Tips


Use an X when you are sure that two fields do not match. Use a dot when you are sure that two fields do match. Click once to place an X. Click a second time to place a dot. Click a third time to clear the box.

Select marker color by clicking the colored radio buttons. You can use colored marks to indicate which clue provided a value, or to indicate a guess that might not be correct, or just because you like solving puzzles in teal.

Use the "Save" button to save a puzzle in progress. Use the "Load" button to reload the puzzle. This feature uses cookies - fear not, we aren't tracking you or stealing credit card numbers (we couldn't, even if we wanted to.) At the moment, only one puzzle may be saved at a time on each computer (unless using different browsers or accounts). There is no warning if you save over another puzzle, and no undo!

Use the "Current Solution Window" button to parse the grid for your solution. This feature simply looks for dots in the top set of rows and creates a list that you can copy and paste into your email for submission.

If you want to clear the grid and start over, just refresh the page. Note that there is a bug in IE6 (and possibly other browsers), so that if a color other than the default is selected, that color may appear to be selected after the reload, but the actual color used will be the default.

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Scott
snoyes@gmail.com