Brain Teasers
Typing In Riddles
Mystery
Mystery teasers are little stories where you need to figure out what happened based on the given clues.Mystery
Detective Larson gazed around the cluttered dingy apartment. The aging famous columnist Max Worthington had been fatally stabbed. His agent, Roger, had called the police when Max failed to submit his column to the newspaper.
Max's body was draped over his manual typewriter. The detective glanced at the paper in the typewriter. It appeared to be the writer's column. The victim's head rested on the keyboard and had apparently hit random keys causing the last line of the article to be followed by "49t34 w5qgg3e j3". The detective was surprised to see that Max had used a typewriter rather than a computer. Roger, Max's agent, explained that Max found it therapeutic to pound the keys on his typewriter, and despised computers.
Out of a list of acquaintances provided by Max's agent, the detective questioned the following people.
Marisa had been separated from Max for the last year and a half. Although initially the split had been amicable, lately things had gotten nasty about the latest division of their assets. Max was willing to give Marisa the mansion and a generous lump sum payment, but wanted to draw the line at the excessive alimony being demanded by Marisa's lawyer. Marisa was living in the mansion and had a generous pre-alimony settlement and an extremely attractive new boyfriend.
Jillian was Max's current girlfriend. She definitely was a looker and by all appearances was extremely high maintenance. She was also the spring in this May/December romance. Although crying, she was devastatingly attractive in her designer dress. She had a Gucci bag, wore emerald and diamond jewelry and on her wrist a new Rolex. The detective suspected her grief was for the loss of her "gravy train" and not for the deceased.
Max's brother, Gerald, had been dating Marisa when Max had stolen her away. Gerald still held a grudge and blatantly told the detective that "he was glad his brother was dead and good riddance". He hinted that he might try to win Marisa back, now that his brother was dead.
After a brief investigation an arrest was made. Who did the detective arrest?
Max's body was draped over his manual typewriter. The detective glanced at the paper in the typewriter. It appeared to be the writer's column. The victim's head rested on the keyboard and had apparently hit random keys causing the last line of the article to be followed by "49t34 w5qgg3e j3". The detective was surprised to see that Max had used a typewriter rather than a computer. Roger, Max's agent, explained that Max found it therapeutic to pound the keys on his typewriter, and despised computers.
Out of a list of acquaintances provided by Max's agent, the detective questioned the following people.
Marisa had been separated from Max for the last year and a half. Although initially the split had been amicable, lately things had gotten nasty about the latest division of their assets. Max was willing to give Marisa the mansion and a generous lump sum payment, but wanted to draw the line at the excessive alimony being demanded by Marisa's lawyer. Marisa was living in the mansion and had a generous pre-alimony settlement and an extremely attractive new boyfriend.
Jillian was Max's current girlfriend. She definitely was a looker and by all appearances was extremely high maintenance. She was also the spring in this May/December romance. Although crying, she was devastatingly attractive in her designer dress. She had a Gucci bag, wore emerald and diamond jewelry and on her wrist a new Rolex. The detective suspected her grief was for the loss of her "gravy train" and not for the deceased.
Max's brother, Gerald, had been dating Marisa when Max had stolen her away. Gerald still held a grudge and blatantly told the detective that "he was glad his brother was dead and good riddance". He hinted that he might try to win Marisa back, now that his brother was dead.
After a brief investigation an arrest was made. Who did the detective arrest?
Answer
The detective arrested Roger, the agent. After looking at the paper in the typewriter, the detective realized that the last line on the news column contained the phrase "roger stabbed me". (49t34 w5qgg3e j3) Max had managed to type the message after being stabbed, but his fingers were positioned one line too high on the keyboard, when he typed his final message.Apparently Max had planned to terminate his association with Roger and in a fit of anger, Roger had stabbed him.
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Comments
You make really great quizzes!
I mean teasers, sorry
That was pretty good! Really enjoyed it.
d99i
would never have figured that one out... too sophisticated for me... although i have to say it is brilliant... keep 'em coming cheese
that actually really cool
I love your teasers, they are really cool, I wish I could make up teasers like you can.
great teaser! I would never have got it though!
this is amazing! very creative!
The answer obviously had something to do with the typed "message" but I still couldn't solve it. Tried backwards and uncoding to no avail!
Thank goodness the detective was smarter than me! Fun mystery!
Thank goodness the detective was smarter than me! Fun mystery!
i figured it was something like that...
great teaser
great teaser
nice one. i knew it had to do w/ the typewriter, i just didnt figure on a fast type w/ hands moved up the keyboard.
Feb 18, 2008
Nice... but next time make more than one person have the same # of letters in their name as the culprit.
Good luck
Good luck
I liked this one quite a bit. Feed us gluttons more wonderful teasers, won't you?
I figured out the first wor was roger because the first and last letter were the same, then i looked at my keyboard and got it. Good teaser!
well done!!!
Very fun, love the riddles, although repeating Roger's occupation and name too often gives away a bit, especially having him 'call the police' simply because the writer 'failed to submit a column.' The concrete evidence did have me stumped for a while, though.
Good one. I tried all combinations of the keyboard
Still, I would use only the name of the criminal.
See, there are some things that needs some explanation to cover all corners...
For instance, if the guy was stabbed, and had the strength to type the complete sentence, wouldn't it be easier to call an ambulance or something? Or write just the name, single handed. I agree above: Why call the police when they guy just didn't show up with the column
Anyway, this is a good teaser format, keep on it!
Will
Still, I would use only the name of the criminal.
See, there are some things that needs some explanation to cover all corners...
For instance, if the guy was stabbed, and had the strength to type the complete sentence, wouldn't it be easier to call an ambulance or something? Or write just the name, single handed. I agree above: Why call the police when they guy just didn't show up with the column
Anyway, this is a good teaser format, keep on it!
Will
Hey, I thought the solution to this one was a little obvious, and I normally don't do well on these. Thanks.
Great teaser Cam.
Great job! I got it as soon as I seen the mess of numbers and letters... NO reflection on you! I just VERY frequently do the same and have no excuse!!! Good job though!
Got it on my first try, this was Fun & Easy!
$D
$D
I liked this one. My friend printed it out and showed me on the bus, and I couldn't get it at all. I automatically thought that you needed a computer nearby to figure it out, but I still tried just about EVERYTHING with those letters (I basically ignored the rest of it because none of it was actual, hard evidence) and I couldn't get it on the bus. When I got home, I solved it in a few seconds
cute...I knew it had to be the agent but not how they figured it out...
I never realized that was the answer..But great job! Post some more difficult teasers like that.
I thought it was the brother... good teaser!
This teaser is amazing!!! Love it alot...soooo cool!!!
6yw6 3qw t54q6!!!
Yes, decent riddle, decent Teaser and clever for the dying man to have a final yahoo....
VG
EXELLENT teaser!
j9d4 0j4
This belongs in Cryptography, though. I thought it was the brother because the brother always did it. Unless there is a butler, then the butler did it.
This belongs in Cryptography, though. I thought it was the brother because the brother always did it. Unless there is a butler, then the butler did it.
Jun 17, 2010
If every other key was pressed 1 up then why wasn't the space bar?
waaaaaaaay way way way way too long that made it unadvertising so i didn't read it sorry ha!
I didn't think it was very long. If a long riddle is what it takes to make a understandable riddle, it's fine by me.
And babo_bear you have made made a very good point..
And babo_bear you have made made a very good point..
I knew it had to do with what Max had typed, but I never would have guessed that his fingers were one line too high.
I thought the letters and numbers were supposed to look like someone's name or something.
I thought the letters and numbers were supposed to look like someone's name or something.
extremely well done!!! I knew it had something to do with the code of course, but couldn't figure it out. It makes much more sense in a real life situation unlike other brain teasers in which the victim purposely encodes the murderer for no reason.
Brilliant! I loved this. Wouldn't have got it in a million years.
Wow!! That was so unexpected!!!
Got to the right answer a simpler way:- Why would Roger call the police just because of a missing article unless he knew foulplay was afoot?
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