Welcome back all you future detectives! This is the moment, you've been waiting for. I will now be presenting the solution to the mystery of the murder of Abhijeet's sister (Maya), and announcing the winners who guessed both the culprit and the weapon correctly. Before I do all that, I'd like to thank everyone who participated. I was overwhelmed to see so much enthusiasm for this contest. I did also realize that I may have made this contest too easy because a majority of you got it right! Or maybe it's because IF has so many clever members. Well, either way, I'll try to make my next contest more challenging.
Solution
Just as a reminder, the guest's names were Dr. Anand, Miss Bhatia, Mrs. Chatterji, Professor Jaitley, Mr. Khan and Mr. Lakhani. The possible murder weapons were the revolver, the lead pipe, the rope, and the knife. Now for the solution. Here is the step by step account of what happened…
(1) Professor Jaitley was given sleeping medicine by Dr. Anand which would keep him asleep for the next 12 hours. He was NOT awake during the murderer, and thus he can be eliminated from the list of suspects.
(2) Miss Bhatia was the first to leave her room, which is evident from the "succession of sneezes" and the mention of allergy medicines. Minutes after she left, however, she was stabbed to death by a second guest, so she could not have been Maya's killer either.
(3) We later find out that Miss Bhatia's killer was Mr. Khan when his fear of his wife is mentioned. But he is strangled by a third guest which means Mr. Khan obviously did not kill Maya.
(4) This third guest is revealed to be Mr. Lakhani when his bandana is pointed out. He is not the culprit either, because he too is killed, this time with the revolver.
(5) There are only two guests left now, Dr. Anand and Mrs. Chatterji. Either of them could have been Mr. Lakhani's murderer, and the story doesn't make it completely clear who it was (although it's more likely that Maya's killer is also Mr. Lakhani's killer). However, ultimately, it doesn't make a difference who killed Mr. Lakhani.
(6) At the end of the story, the Maya's murderer steals her ring (in addition to her necklace) and puts it on the middle finger of her left hand. Earlier, Mr. Lakhani had examined a ring on the same finger of Dr. Anand's hand, and she had informed him that her ring could not be removed because her finger was swollen. It doesn't make sense for Dr. Anand to wear two rings on the same finger, and most likely Maya's ring wouldn't even have fit on that finger since it was swollen. This leaves Mrs. Chatterji, who is our culprit.
(7) Mr. Khan used the knife to kill Miss Bhatia, but when he was killed, that weapon was left behind. Same thing happened to the rope that Mr. Lakhani used to murder Mr. Khan. Someone (either Dr. Anand or Mrs. Chatterji) used the revolver to kill Mr. Lakhani, but that weapon was accidentally lost under a couch. So the weapon used to kill Maya has to be the fourth and final one, the lead pipe.
So, in short, here is the solution:
Maya's killer: Mrs. Chatterji
Weapon: Lead Pipe
Winners
Here are the usernames of everyone who got both answers right. Congratulations to you! You are all TOP DETECTIVES!!
suchi_dev2006, MyLuvRajat, *Jr.Nancy_drew*, adicoolnclassy, kiti_g, simtara, mumpet, harsimran95, nali476, arshitgupta, luna_lovegood, *blossom20*, Dark Love & bollycrazy
Here is your award!
Thanks again everyone for participating!
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