The Chain of the Impaler [Solved]

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#42

This makes no sense because the narrative states that the door had to be broken down by the butler before the chain could be removed. The way you describe it I doubt you could close the door…

Well then, since we are having desparate ideas: There was a window unlocked, but closed in the waiting room! The maid, being the culprit and a world-class javelin thrower at that, just killed him through the opened window and closed it from outside. When the butler was rushing to the bathroom, she quickly locked it, which is actually quite possible since one of the windows is mentioned to be right beside the door to the hallway.

And just for fun: It was an accident! The victim went shopping this morning in an antique shop and acquirred this neat looking spear. Since he was supposed to be hard at work and feared that the servants would tell his wife that he was slacking off, he had put on a large coat and a mask to smuggle the spear in, pretending to be some student interested in his job offer. He left a window in the study open, left to be seen leaving in this disguise by the butler, got rid of his disguise and returned through the window into his own study, locking it from the inside again. He then went into the waiting room and wanted to look for a neat place at the wall where he could hang the spear, but noticed that a lightbulb from the chandelier was broken. So he leaned the spear at the side of the couch and stepped onto the table to change it, but stepped onto his glasses, slipped and fell back first onto the spear, accidentally impaling himself. His fall then caused the blood-soaked spear to slither over the floor, causing something roughly resembling a ‘V’ to be painted on it, before he slumped down striking a pose. Case closed!

#43

Step out of the room, close the door, lock, weld the chain between door and frame. People show up, see the weird chain (and again i don’t just mean “set” in a normal way, I mean you take a piece of chain and just attach it between the door and the frame and make it impossible to just remove without cutting), no response from the other side, they try to knock down the door, chain holds the door in place after being broken down, but they can see the victim through the gap, they get the clippers.

Still works out from that angle. The reason it’s weird is mainly because of the narrator’s comments if anything, but hey who knows.

This could work, though… it just needs to be adjusted a bit.

The person in the coat - and the killer - was the butler, secretly taking experimental treatment from the victim. During the experiement, he opened one of the study windows and left it be without the victim noticing. He then left, with the victim locking the door and setting the chain behind him. Waiting in the courtyard for the victim to go to the bathroom, he snuck into the study through the window and went into the waiting room area. There, he opened a window and drew the ‘V’. He then escaped through the study. The victim returned from the bathroom and saw the window in the study opened, and closed it. Then, the victim went into the waiting room to listen to the radio. The butler, waiting outside, threw the spear through the open window, killing the victim. He then simply shut the window, making it look closed. Later, when checking if the windows were locked, he locked it himself. This should, I think, cover everything…

#44

The chain is part of a normal chain lock that works as you’d expect.

If it’d just been a chain abnormally attached to the door or anything, this would have been pointed out in the story.

Not bad. But when it was said the “maid was willing to confirm it”, this actually meant exactly that.
When the butler checked the windows in the waiting room, the maid did as well. Both of them confirmed all windows to be locked before the bathroom trip even happened. If either of them had tried to lock a window at that time, the other person would have seen it.

Good stuff. But I think I already confirmed that it was murder. :stuck_out_tongue:

#45

The maid commited the crime, created the closed room with the chain and left through a window in the study. She then returned to the study, locked the window, and saw while the butler was cutting the chain in the waiting room, she wasn’t hiding, and the butler simply thought she was by his side the whole time.

Repeat this: When the chain was cut, nobody was inside the waiting room, nor the hallway, nor the study, nor the bathroom.

#46

Sure, I’m feeling generous. Here’s my parting gift for the night.

When the chain was cut, nobody was inside the waiting room, nor the hallway, nor the study, nor the bathroom.

(except the victim, but let’s just say dead people don’t count. And save yourself arguing for a second corpse, there’s no trick here.)

#47

Running out of ideas, but…

The sargeant is the killer. He killed the victim, appeared to be leaving to be seen by the butler, to further implicate the idea only the maid and the butler were in on it. Then he reentered through the study window, locked the study window, cut the chain, attached a longer piece of the chain between the two parts, set the chain from the outside, locked the door, then used string to get the key under the door and near the victim. When he came with the rest of the police, he removed the extra part of the chain, completing the illusion that the chain couldn’t have possibly been set from the outside.

#48

Heh, for once the key is also an issue.

When the door is locked there are no gaps in it for any object to pass through.

#49

Same thing but the key the maid found wasn’t the one the door was locked with and sergeant just switched it once she handed it over?

Alternatively, while the killer did not hide in the waiting room or the study, he did hide behind the door leading to the hallway, from which he later escaped from after the butler rushed in to vomit, thanks to a poisonous substance that had been left in the air previously.

#50

The key the maid found is the same that the door was locked with and in fact the only relevant key in the story.

For your hiding, refer to a few posts before.

I guess you could argue that the chain was cut beforehand though so I’ll add that it’s impossible to hide in the hallway. It’s pretty compact as is, being only slightly wider than the door leading into it. There’s no space behind the door for a human to fit.

#51

Hm, what if…

What if the links the chain consists of had been removed by the killer? For example, the killer sets the chain from inside the room, then removes the link somewhere in-between, effectively splitting the chain into two - one half is set, the other isn’t. The killer then stepped out of the room, put the door ajar, took the two pieces of the hanging chain, which he could hold through the gap, and then re-added the link back into it, making it complete once more. No tool was used, and no string was needed. The chain was not cut or broken. During this interval, however, it was not whole either, making it possible to be tampered with. Once the link is put back into place, it becomes the standard chain. If we assume the killer is the maid, the key could’ve just been planted after the fact.

#52

Still finding ways to mess with that chain I see.
The chain can’t be taken apart. No parts of the chain can be removed without just straight up breaking it.

#53

I’ll never stop.

Back to the sargeant theory. Same theory about how he handled the chain, the remaining mystery is that of the key. After pretending to leave, he saw the maid check the door and find it locked. As she was heading outside, he got out from his hiding place in the hallway, unlocked the door, threw the key in through the gap and simply closed it. The butler and maid forgot to check if it was locked when they broke it down.

#54

Guess I’ll eliminate the root cause then. That’s quite enough chain manipulation.

When the butler cut the chain, it was still in perfect condition. He really cut the chain, not anything attached to it. This refers to the time he cut it that is mentioned in his testimony.

#55

This theory again, with one major altercation - in addition to drawing the ‘V’, the killer set up a trap designed to lunge the spear into the victim. It was set on a timer that was linked to the time the victim would’ve gone to listen to the radio. The traces of the trap (probably just strings and maybe some sort of spring) were removed by the butler during his episode of ‘sickness’.

#56

You can rely on these witnesses, really. The maid would have seen if the butler picked up anything in the waiting room or the hallway.

So he couldn’t have removed the trap, and the police would have found it. There’s his time in the bathroom, so I guess he could’ve picked up his trap there, but then you’d have to explain how this trap shot a spear through two closed doors.

#57

Funny thing is, I could very well do it, but then I can’t explain how he leaves the room the first time around without the victim noticing.

In any case, it feels like I’m missing something, but let’s just try going over this. Again.

We know the moment the chain was cut, nobody is allowed to be in the room.
We know that the windows in the waiting room couldn’t have been locked by the maid or by the butler after they entered the room, otherwise one would notice.
We know that neither of them would’ve been able to close any of the study windows, since they never entered.
We know that all of the windows were locked by the time police showed up, and until they did, the butler and maid were in the waiting room.

This leads to the simple conclusion that:

The culprit must not be inside the room at the time the chain is broken.

However, we can extend it even further. If the killer is not the maid, it’s impossible to escape the room after the door is broken down. If the killer is the maid, then the next point follows logically enough, anyway:

The culprit must be able to be outside the room after the deed is done, with all the entrances intact, closed and locked.

We know the doors can’t be tampered with. The windows… well, not sure about the windows, so might as well give this a shot: the killer removed the glass from the locked window in the study, allowing him to escape, and then placed the glass back. Alternatively, the study window, when locked, was taken off in its entirety, the culprit left, then put it back.

I’m not expecting much of it, so let’s just assume that gets shot down.

In that case, we can conclude that:

The culprit may only use the door to leave the room.

Therefore, the chain is the next obstacle. We know the chain can’t be tampered with, and we know it can’t be set from the outside, be it either normally or otherwise. Meaning… well…

The chain has to be set from the inside.

Which leaves a contradiction. If you set the chain from the inside, you can no longer leave the room, because you have to use the study windows. Leave through the study windows and you no longer have the ability to lock them. You can’t lock them and hide, because hiding it’s allowed. You can’t lock them after that fact because the only ones who could’ve done it were the sergeant and the police, and we know the window was locked by the time they showed up.

So, the natural solution seems to be to set the chain from inside of the room, while being outside of the room.

Which is to say, through the window in the waiting room.

But then you run into the issue of how that window gets closed. Victim died instantly, so they can’t have done it. Has to be locked by a human hand from the inside, once again bringing up the theory similar to the one with the study windows: either the glass or the window itself was removed, and an object was passed through to set the chain.

The alternative to this is if we assume the chain and the door were both settled at the start, and that the killer never had to enter to do it, but it’s unlikely.

The victim was certainly dead when the body was found, meaning that it couldn’t have been done after the fact. The victim wasn’t killed by a trap because there’s no evidence of it (at first glance, either). The only thing I can think of is that the evidence of the trap from my previous theory did exist when the door was broken down, but was later covered up by the sergeant, who is the killer.

All of this is to say, I’ve kind of reached a dead end. Something’s got to give, I just don’t know what.

#58

Nice thought route. I’ll try to reward it with decisive reds.

The windows weren’t removed or otherwise tampered with. This goes for all parts of them.
Assume this to mean the only thing allowed is opening, closing, and using their latch to lock/unlock them.

No trap was used to commit this crime.
Assume this to include anything that would relieve the killer of his/her duty of directly wielding the spear when it was time to kill.

#59

The culprit commited the crime and hid in the bathroom, when the butler had to go there, the culprit went to the study, and stayed there until the police arrived, while they were investigating the bathroom, the culprit, figuring they would investigate the study afterwards, changed his hiding spot to the waiting room. This way, when the police investigated each of the rooms, nobody was hiding inside of them.

#60

Isn’t that denied by your repetition request from earlier?

#61

ahem It’s been a stressful week, I forgot about it
A little adjustment:
The culprit left through one of the windows in the study, but upon realising they couldn’t lock it from the outside, they returned.