Whodunnit Foxer #2

Roman, my Chief Foxer Setter, isn’t willing to commit to a Whodunnit Foxer every Wednesday, but hopefully we’ll see at least one a month from now on. Intended for both solo and co-op play (If you intend to tackle it on your tod, don’t read the comments!) each one contains five pieces of information related to a fictional murder. Discern those five pieces of information to ‘defox ‘ the foxer and solve the crime.

Anagramed on the typewriter keyboard below you’ll find…

  • The murder weapon
  • The murder location (always a generic Cluedo-style location rather than the name of a specific place)
  • The victim’s occupation
  • The hour of the murder (a number between zero and twenty-three)
  • The murderer’s first name

Every key is used once. All five answers begin with the same colour letter and then alternate in letter colour (so all answers are either red-white-red-white… or white-red-white-red…). And every answer is spread between two rows of keys.

Whodunnits come with a selection of clues (the header picture isn’t a clue) that aid defoxing. Here, for reference, is a solved puzzle together with its clues.

Today’s puzzle and its clues:

  1. The last letter of the victim’s occupation also happens to be the first letter of the time.
  2. The victim was a member of the medical profession.
  3. The murder location was dark and dank, and can be found on the top half of the keyboard.
  4. The weapon was a type of poison.
  5. The murderer was Italian.
  6. The murder occurred in the afternoon and the hour has the same number of letters as the murderer.
  7. The time can be found on adjacent rows.

The solution to the last whodunnit foxer:

Red start. Weapon = duelling pistol (2 and 4). Location = boathouse (1 and 3). Occupation = chauffeur (1 and 4). Time = twenty three (2 and 3). Murderer = neville (1 and 4).  

3 Comments

  1. Huh, I missed the first one of these. Looks interesting! …although perhaps borderline impossible. Oh well, I’ll give it a try!

    Seems like the time is the place to start, present in three clues and a relatively small number of options. It being afternoon means (being very generous with the definition of “afternoon”) that it will either start in “twenty-” or end in “-teen”. Only one W on the keyboard, and no T in either that row or adjacent, so “-teen” seems to be the way to go.

    Again, no T at all in the first two rows, which means it has to be on either 2-3 or 3-4. No F or X means we can rule out fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen. Also no G in those rows, so not eighteen either. The V in row 4 seems like it might permit seventeen, but we’re short an E so I think we can rule that out too. That leaves thirteen and nineteen.

    I can see a possible white start thirteen on 2-3 or 3-4, or white start nineteen on 2-3 or 3-4. I’m leaning toward thirteen — nineteen really stretches the “afternoon” clue, and I can’t offhand think of a medical-related profession that ends in N, while plenty end in “-ist”. Either way though, unless I missed a possibility, I think we’re starting on white with this one.

  2. I’m certain I’ve done this now, but I find it super hard spelling and keeping the red-white in my head at the same time. I mark up an image in Paint with coloured blobs, but that only partially works and soon turns into a real mess.

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