13. Who Killed Home Body?
“I say, might I have a refill, Mrs. Wash?” Professor Plum Pudding asked, his empty glass floating up in the glow of his magic. With only a small tirade under her breath, White Wash leaned over and tilted the lemonade pitcher over his glass until it was full. She set it down on the end table and relaxed back into her wicker chair with a dramatically loud sigh.
All six of them were spread out on the mansion’s front porch, taking in the relaxing summer sunset. Behind them, trunks and steamers were piled high by the door in preparation for their departure in the morning. Another fantastic week at the Body mansion was coming to a close.
“This is nice,” Peacock Poppycock sighed, kicking her legs so that the porch swing kept rocking. Next to her, Green Mail hummed in agreement and sipped from his own beverage.
“The past week simply flew by,” Colonel H. Mustard said, stretching his wings. “I almost don’t want this night to end!”
“Well some of us can’t wait!” White Wash muttered under her breath.
Scarlet Letter rolled her neck to work out a kink. “Have you noticed how well we're getting along today? Nopony’s raised their voice…”
“Or raised a revolver!” the Colonel cut in, and everypony shared a laugh. They fell back into companionable silence until the front doors ground open and two ponies stepped out.
“That's all taken care of!” Mayor Mare said cheerfully, tapping a hoof against a scroll poking out of her important-looking saddlebags. “I’ll get this to the town hall records straight away. A pleasure talking with you as always, Home Body! I hope to see you around town more often, now. You shouldn’t spend all your time cooped up here!”
“I’ll try!” Home Body laughed, showing her down the front steps. He waved after her as she disappeared around the bend and then turned around to appraise his guests. “What’s this? Enjoying the air?”
“Do join us!” Scarlet suggested, pointing to an empty chair next to hers. Their host gratefully took the seat and White poured him a glass of lemonade. The next minute passed in relative peace.
“So… had some business to take care of?” Peacock asked, her curiosity only matched by the rest of the guests.
Green tapped his nose knowingly. “Making a few donations to the local government, eh? I understand, say no more…”
“No,” Home said with a wave of his hoof, “Nothing like that. I just had some documents to update.”
“You’re not in trouble, I hope!” Peacock said, concerned. The others all added their own mutters of support.
Home felt a tear come to his eye and hastily wiped it away. “Everything is fine, nothing to worry about. It’s just… well, you all are my best friends in the whole world!”
“Hear, hear!” Mustard cried, raising his glass high.
“And you all mean the world to me,” he paused and held his glass in his maid’s direction as her mouth popped open. “Yes, even you, Mrs. Wash. I value your company just as much!”
White closed her mouth and suppressed a smile.
“Now I know we sometimes get a little carried away with ourselves…”
“What, us?” Plum said in mock innocence and a thrill of giggles ran around the porch.
Home smiled as he continued. “But we’ve stayed close through it all. And I just wanted to make sure that whatever the future holds, you’re all taken care of. So I had the Mayor update my will.”
Silence suddenly fell on the porch as six pairs of eyes focused rather sharply on their host.
“I’ve made sure that each of you will get an equal share of my millions,” Body went on, oblivious to the change in the atmosphere. “I don’t want any of you to feel I’ve played favorites!”
“How generous…” Green said softly.
“Well, save for my faithful maid!” Body said slyly, giving her a nod. “I’ve left the whole mansion to you! On the stipulation that you continue to host parties for everypony!”
“How thoughtful…” White muttered thoughtfully.
“Of course, you’ll have to hire your own maids!” Body chuckled, pleased at his own joke. He blinked as he noticed that he was the only pony laughing. “Oh, don’t worry about me. It’s only a precaution. I'm not planning on dying for a very, very, very, very long time!”
Home Body was dead the next morning.
They all discovered the body together when they came downstairs for breakfast. Now all six of them were bunched together in the hall, staring through the open doorway into the room where the body lay sprawled. It appeared that he’d been killed the previous night, sometime before everypony had turned in to sleep.
Scarlet Letter was the first to speak, clearing her throat in a determined manner. “Well, I suppose we should call the authorities.”
“Right away!” White Wash said harshly, “I can’t wait to see which one of you ponies they arrest for this!”
“Implying that you aren’t the murderer!” Mustard retorted, poking her in the chest.
“It couldn’t have been me!” White proclaimed. “Home was my employer. Without him, I’m out of a job!”
“But into a nice fat inheritance!” Green Mail accused.
“The same applies to all of us,” Plum reminded him before any more threats could be made. “Each of us were just placed in his will, so we all have a motive.”
“So the murderer could have been any one of us,” Peacock huffed. The six of them eyed each other warily, nopony willing to be the first to make a move.
The Colonel cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose nopony is going to just admit to the crime. Did anypony set hoof in this room last night?”
Everypony shook their heads negative. It also came out that each pony had been watching the hall from the rooms they had been in, the tension causing them to pay closer attention to everypony’s movements than usual. Nor did either of the unicorns teleport last night, as all of them would have heard the pop of them appearing or disappearing in the quiet mansion.
“Well, I was in the library with Scarlet last night looking for a book to read,” Mustard went on, “Didn’t set hoof outside until I went upstairs to bed. Although I recall you left sooner than that, didn’t you?”
“Only because you kept tapping the lead pipe against the table while you read, and it was giving me a headache!” Scarlet snapped. “I went to the lounge to read in peace and quiet.”
“And you needed the wrench for that?” Mustard asked pointedly.
“As if I was the only one carrying a weapon!” Scarlet shot back. “Besides, nopony saw me leave the lounge after that, right?”
Everypony grumbled no.
“I spent the night in the kitchen with White Wash!” Green Mail put in, “I was showing her how to make a key lime meringue pie just like my Mam used to.”
“Not the whole night,” White said sourly, nervously wringing the rope in her hooves. “As soon as the pie was done you cut off a huge slice with the knife and ran out instead of helping me with the dishes!”
“I wanted to eat it while it was fresh!” Green said defensively. “And I only took it to the dining room. Nopony saw me go anywhere else, did they?”
Everypony grumbled no.
“That just leaves Peacock and I,” Plum said, “And the two of us were in the billiards room playing darts all night!”
Peacock coughed politely. “Um, I was, but you weren’t. You left after playing barely half an hour, remember?”
Plum swallowed uncomfortably. “Well, uh, the way you were holding the revolver was making me nervous. And I didn’t have any more money to lose to you at billiards. So I went to the study to… study.”
“And why did you take the candlestick with you?” she asked with an arched eyebrow.
“It was getting dark! I needed its light to see!” Plum Pudding said quickly, looking at each suspicious eye in turn. “Besides, everypony saw me go straight into the study and nowhere else, right?”
Everypony grumbled yes.
“Well, that counts us out. So it must have been either Mustard, White, or Peacock!” Green Mail shouted, pointing an accusing hoof at the three of them.
Mustard huffed in indignation. “Except everypony was watching the hall all night. Did anypony see us leave the rooms we were in at all?”
Everypony grumbled no.
Peacock huffed out an exasperated sigh. “So I guess none of us did it.”
But she was wrong. One of them had murdered their host. And only you can figure out who it is before they get away with it!
Who killed Home Body? Where? And with what?
And here's a map if you need it.
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- Pascoite · 7.1k words · 51 4 · 1.3k views
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Let's play Clue.
Motive, Means, Opportunity. We all know the first; Home Body making a will change, not perhaps his wisest move. So, weapons and rooms. The unicorns didn't teleport, so there was no cheating involved, and none of the ponies will admit to being in the room with the body, which we don't know yet. Let's sound off.
Mustard had the Lead Pipe in the Library.
Scarlet had the Wrench in the Lounge.
White had the Rope in the Kitchen.
Green had the Knife in the Dining Room.
Peacock had the Revolver in the Billiard Room.
Plum had the Candlestick in the Study.
So, that excludes those six rooms. The rooms remaining are the Hall, the Ballroom, and the Conservatory. And according to everypony, nopony left the rooms they were in...
...or did they? There's a way to move between rooms without even entering the hallways at all. The secret passages.
One secret passage connects the Study to the Kitchen. Plum was in one, and White was in the other, so it wouldn't have done them much good.
However, Scarlet was in the Lounge, and the secret passage from there connects to the Conservatory, one of our 'empty' rooms. She also seems a bit eager to point out that nopony saw her leaving it. (As do Green and Plum; but the Dining Room has no secret passages, and unless Plum also paid a visit to the Kitchen for some grub, they genuinely didn't leave the rooms until they went to bed.)
It's pretty clear cut, and there's no evidence to the contrary. Short, sweet, and simple.
It was SCARLET, with the WRENCH, in the CONSERVATORY.
Aside from the patsy in the last chapter, which didn't particularly matter but my reasoning's there anyway, I got everything, and the only other times I strayed from the truth it was down to overthinking it. All in all, a very enjoyable distraction, as I mentioned before, the story kept itself from becoming stale through different puzzles that still felt like they were built on the core Clue mechanics. I used to run a forum game of Clue, and haven't done since that forum died, so a return to the game in general was welcome anyway.
Thank you for putting the time and effort into it.
All that's missing now is Body and Scarlet being in on it together, and fake-murdering him so he could see how his friends get along without him. Also, a spelling mistake in the end note; the plural of alibi is alibis, not alibies.
8540320
Congratulations on getting a perfect score! Watching your thought process has been a treat!
Believe it or not, this chapter is probably one of the hardest in the whole set, in my opinion. One of my editors actually spent several days trying to figure it out, because he didn't realize that the solution wasn't in the story itself. After 12 chapters of collecting clues like breadcrumbs, he just couldn't grasp that I hadn't spelled it out in the narrative and kept rereading it over and over trying to find the one sentence he missed. Occasionally, something very simple can trip people up the most!
Anyway, I'm glad you liked it, and I hope to see you again when I do the next one!
8540509
Well, if you want to be technical, the solution to this one is in the narrative; only it's not in this chapter. It's in Chapter 6, when Plum and Green took the passage to head off Angel.
I will admit, I haven't read the Clue books in years... but reading through your fic felt just like reading one of those old books once more. Honestly, I feel like if you were to become an actual author for the clue series, it would be a solid revival for them.
If I know one thing from reading the Clue books, is that Home Body most likely survived his death...and is naïve enough to invite all his guests back.
8580146
Definitely. Real life's been taking my focus lately, especially with Christmas just around the corner, but I'm here for the long haul. The story is great, the characters fun and all have their own personalities and the mysteries are clever, challenging and fair.
Excellent writing. You deserve all the praise you get for this.
It's Colonel Mustard, he killed Miss White in the Study with the Rope.
8787530
I'm glad you enjoyed the story! I'm in the process of writing the sequel right now (Two and a half chapters finished) so there's more on the way!
And thank you so much for the feedback! Not many readers have mentioned which puzzles in specific where their favorites, so you're opinions are really helpful! It helps me pick the kinds of puzzles which will appear in the next one... Personally I like the ones where everything is vague and you need to piece it together by process of elimination, but I knew those would be the hardest to follow. Thanks again!
Scarlet was in the Lounge with the Wrench
Mustard was in the Library with the Lead Pipe
White was in the Kitchen
Green was in the Dining Room, and I assume he took the Knife he used to cut the pie with him
Peacock was in the Billiard Room
Plum was in the Study with the Candlestick
Nopony was seen leaving the rooms they were in
Out of all of the occupied rooms, only the Study, Lounge, and Kitchen have alternate exits via the secret passages.
The Study & Kitchen are connected to each other so Plum and White would have run into each other had either gone through.
The Lounge, however, is connected to the Conservatory, which no other suspect was occupying at the time.
So…
Home Body was murdered in the Conservatory, he was bludgeoned with the Wrench, and the murderer was Scarlet Letter!
Wow, my reasoning was a bit more complicated than yours, wasn't it? Anyway, looking forward to the sequel. This was fun.
8871627
Glad you enjoyed my story! If you don't mind me asking, did you try to solve each chapter like you did this one, and if so, how did you do? It's always fun hearing how people did on my little challenge, and it helps me adjust the difficulty in the sequel I'm currently writing.
8871658
Yes, I did. Unfortunately, I'm afraid I didn't save any of my notes on the previous ones.
But I can say I managed to solve every mystery except for two: Chapters 7 & 8.
Chapter 7 confused me so much that I was way off, and it probably didn't help that I was trying to solve it so late at night.
Chapter 8, I didn't even consider the possibility that Green faked the attack, so I ended up giving up.
BTW, I don't know if you saw it, but one of my previous comments has a floor plan of the movie mansion, which you said the mansion in this story is closer to, perhaps you could use that as your map in the sequel if you so choose?
8871689
It was exactly what I needed, actually! I'm so glad you could find it for me!
This was fun. I failed on only two (one, I failed, the other I just didn't bother - was very lazy that night.) I'm looking forward to more.
I did learn one thing from these stories: these are horrible, horrible, ponies and should not be trusted to be left alone with ANYTHING.
I think it was Green Mail in the hallways with the revolver.
Wow, I failed miserably.
All in all, this was a fun little puzzle. I got most of these wrong but I had fun reading each chapter anyways. I honestly wish more puzzle fanfics existed like this.
9195555
I'm glad you enjoyed reading my story, (and for commenting with your thoughts each chapter!). Even though you didn't get many of them, it sounds like you had a lot of fun!
If you want to keep an eye on me, I should have the sequel to this uploading in the next month or so. Struggling to find time with a new job, but I love writing these. I hope you stick around!
9195589
Yay, I’m looking forward to the sequel!