Museum Murder: Solution

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

 

Kevin burst into the lounge of Richter Hall.

 

"Where is he??" he asked, urgently.

 

The lounge was deserted apart from Dani sitting at her desk, listlessly checking an inventory. No one had really *liked* Biff, and yet things were so .. grey .. since he'd gone. No one hung out. Everyone was too uneasy to even make eye contact now, it seemed, and she'd already received four applications for transfers to other dormitories.

 

Of course, Richter Hall was always meant to be the last option for students needing a room, and transfers should have been impossible.. but she knew the University would make an exception. The students would clearly affected by grief, and .. well .. what about the murderer? Who could sleep amongst a dorm of your "friends", not knowing which of your "friends" had killed another of your "friends"? Dani shuddered. Would this feeling stop if SHE transferred out, as well? Was it her responsibility, anyway? It was her dorm, but how was she meant to know this kind of thing was going to happen? Was Biff's death her fault?

 

A small drop of water fell onto her clipboard with a plop.

 

A tear? Was she crying? She hadn't cried since.. since that time -

 

"Dani!" Kevin yelled, at her, on the verge of hysterics, "snap out of it! We have to find him before it's too late!!"

 

"Find who?" Dani said, still in a daze. What was Kevin so worked up about?

 

"The killer, Dani! Where is he? Where's *Scott*?!"

 

SCOTT? Dani shook her head. "SCOTT?" she said, surprised.

 

"Don't you get it, Dani? It was *Scott*! It HAD to be" Kevin said, wringing his paws together nervously. "Think it out".

 

"But .. Scott?" Dani said, not knowing what to think.

 

"The outside fusebox was locked Dani, no one could have been in the basement near the generator, so whoever caused the lights to go off had to use the switch. And who was standing next to the switch? *Scott*. Who was Biff calling to as he climbed in? *Scott*". Kevin said, pacing up and down in front of her, tail swishing rapidly.

 

"But.. Scott was standing next to you" Dani said.

 

"I know. I KNOW. That bit bothered me too". Kevin said. "The truth is, he never left my side".

 

"But, I thought you said-" Dani started.

 

"Here, look" Kevin said, grabbing her pen and drawing a quick diagram of the museum layout on a page of her clipboard. "Scott's standing here next to the switch, the window that Biff's going to come through is .. here" he said. "Now, look" he finished. He took the pen and drew a straight line across from Scott's location.

 

"He's exactly opposite Biff" Dani said.

 

"Not quite" Kevin said, drawing a small square on the line that went from Scott's location to the center window.

 

"The STAND the pot that got broken was on" Dani gasped.

 

"Scott needed a clear line of sight at Biff" Kevin said, taking a small rock from his pocket. "When I was examining the broken pot, I found this among the wreckage. I hid it my my sleeve while pretending to try and make the pottery pieces fit together".

 

Dani weighed the small rock up in her paw. "So no one bumped the pot, they threw this at it to make it break?"

 

"Why else would it be there?" Kevin said, with a shrug.

 

"So, why do it at all?" Dani asked.

 

"Think about the knife used to kill Biff" Kevin said, "how much of it would you say was sticking out of his chest, how much could we see?"

 

"Barely any" Dani replied.

 

"Now, how you stab someone with a knife if you're barely holding it?"

 

"Maybe it got pushed further in when he fell" Dani said.

 

"Maybe. But it was a very small, light thing, Dani. More like a .. throwing knife".

 

Dani blinked. Of course. Now it made sense. Or did it?

 

"So he breaks the pot so he can have a clear shot at Biff with his throwing knife .. MAYBE.." Dani said, "but what about the angle? It was wedged up under his ribs".

 

"Biff was climbing into the room through a small window, and he was in so far that his body could fall the rest of the way in. He would have put his legs in first, flat on the floor and then kind of .. limbo'd .. in, for want of a better word" Kevin said, demonstrating the angle Biff's body would have to have been at. Dani picked up the pen from the desk and touched it on Kevin's chest. The angle it made matched the wound Biff had died from. She let out a gasp and dropped the pen.

 

"But, we were in a darkened room, Kevin, Scott wouldn't have.. he could have missed. Especially wearing sunglasses" Dani said.

 

"The last piece of the puzzle" Kevin said, dropping a set of black glasses onto the table. "I ..uh.. recently liberated these from the Astronomy Club. The vision quality's poor, but they're still NIGHT VISION GOGGLES. Scott wasn't wearing sunglasses at all".

 

"But, WHY Kevin?" Dani asked. "Because of some dumb photo showing Scott doing HOMEWORK?"

 

"The photo wasn't as innocent as it looked" Kevin said, taking a copy of it out of his pocket. "Have a look again at the math".

 

Dani squinted her eyes and examined the sum. "It's wrong. Scott killed Biff because he had a photo of Scott doing a sum wrong? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, Kevin".

 

"It's only wrong in OUR number system", Kevin said patiently. "We use base 10, because we have 10 fingers, one, two, three.." he began, counting them off.

 

"I KNOW how to count, Kevin". Dani interrupted, tersely.

 

"Well, in base 10, yeah. But Scott's sum isn't in base 10. Scott's sum is in base EIGHT".

 

He paused, hoping Dani'd realise what he was getting at. She unfortunately didn't and just frowned disdainfully.

 

"So?" she asked.

 

"So.. look at the answer in the photo, Dani".

 

She squinted again. "Thirty one".

 

"Now" Kevin said, beginning to pace manically in front of her again. "In base eight, the rightmost column is the one's, and the one after that is the 'eights'. In this case, 31 means 3 groups of eight plus 1 group of ones. In our decimal system, Dani, equilavent to twenty four plus one".

 

"So?" Dani said again.

 

"Write it down, Dani, using the standard abbreviations. Decimal becomes 'Dec', Octal is 'Oct', okay?" Kevin was clearly losing patience. They were short on time.

 

Dani picked up the pen and did a quick scribble on her clipboard. Suddenly she squeaked, and dropped the pen.

 

"Oh no. It can't be! He.. Scott... he" she said.

 

From the paper, the equilavence relation glared up at her.

 

"OCT 31 = DEC 25" it tolled.

 

"Scott means to turn Halloween into CHRISTMAS!" Dani gasped.

 

"That's why we need to find him, before he-" Kevin began, when he was cut off by the sound of laughter from the TV in the lounge corner. But not warm sitcom laughter... dark, menacing laughter..

 

"What happen?" Dani asked.

 

"Someone set us up!" Kevin said.

 

"We get signal!" Dani said, pointing to the TV.

 

"It's you!!" Kevin said, gasping at the screen.

 

"How are you gentlemen!! All your base eight are belong to us" Scott said from the screen. "You are on the way to destruction" he added.

 

"What you say!!" Kevin said.

 

"You have no chance to survive, make your time. HA HA HA" Scott answered.

 

Then everyone realized the author was screwing around. Sorry.

 

Okay, let's do this properly.

 

You know what you doing for great justice.

(Click to go to the real ending).