Welcome back my dear friends! Finally the moment of truth has arrived. I know you are all eager to know what the solution is to the mystery I presented to you a few weeks ago and whether or not you guessed it right. Let me start by telling you that almost EVERYONE who sent me a solution got it right!
You may be surprised to hear that there are actually two solutions to this puzzle...but don't feel bad. I didn't even know this until someone sent in the alternative solution. Confused? Let me clarify.
SOLUTION
Everything that happens before the very end of the story is very straightforward:
* The guest in the green mask is Ms. Bhatia. (allergy reference)
* The guest in the yellow mask is Mrs. Anand (medical career reference)
* The guest in the white mask is Mr. Lakhani (bandana reference)
* The guest in the blue mask is Mrs. Chatterji (mentions cleaning the house)
* The guest in the purple mask is Professor Jaitley (losing glasses)
Here is where it gets a little tricky. Most of you used the process of elimination to determine that the guest in red was Mr. Khan and concluded that he must have been the culprit who left the room with the check in the end of the story. This is exactly how I had intended the solution to be, so all of you who sent in this answer are winners of this contest.
However, there is another answer that was sent in by someone who clearly thought outside the box, and this solution is just as valid if not more. Near the end of the story, I had mentioned that the guest in purple (Professor Jaitley) had placed the awarded check in a secure location. If it truly was secure location, Mr. Khan should not have been able to find it within minutes. That is why another answer could be that after Mr. Khan entered the room, he and Professor Jaitley had a scuffle in which Mr. Khan was the one who fell to the floor. After that, Professor Jaitley decided to exchange masks with Mr. Khan to make sure that no one else would recognize him as the winner of the contest and try to steal the check from him again. Finally, the professor left the room triumphantly in the red mask, glad that Mr. Khan had not been able to take his prize away from him.
WINNERS
I would like to extend my congratulations to immione, m_kal2011, Rashida13, DJ_Apurva, dr.fahmi, Shagnika, luv_cid_shreya, darkknight007, LINSA, astonish, suhaaani.cid, nycsweetie, pooja83, zulaikha, nimi697, notepad697, NessCID, priya_sparsha, shreela, Ramya_CIDnSSfan, Tanza, desisweetheart9, sayhi2su, simi rocks, luv_cid_shreya, nishalpvsk, kimiwalia, star571, preetha_6, chinnu_manikyam, debayon, Saadrita, aditi. and aadrika01 for answering this correctly. A extra special congratulations to Tanza for thinking outside the box!
PRIZE
Please use this signature if you are one of the winners. Hope you all like it!
Thank you for participating!
Edited by SuhanaSafar - 13 years ago