Here's a puzzle. You will probably find this out easily :)
A family lives in a round cabin. The kid's mom and dad go outside. When they come back, their son is dead. The butcher said he was cutting meat. The maid said she was dusting the house. The butler claimed he was cleaning the corners. Who killed the child?
The murderer was
the father
because
an average family can’t afford household staff, let alone a three-person staff for a three-person family. This family must be rich. But rich families generally don’t live in cabins. A rich family with a three-person household staff certainly wouldn’t live in a one-room cabin. So we can conclude that
The son was scheming to assassinate his father and take over the criminal enterprise. So Dad killed his son in pre-emptive self-defense. He put a slow-acting poison into the young man’s breakfast, and then went for a walk to establish an alibi while the poison took effect.
- The family is in hiding. They are probably criminals; e.g., the father is probably a drug kingpin, or some other sort of gangster.
(Hmmm. Is “gangster” a politically incorrect term these days? Would “mobster” be better? or worse?)
- The cabin probably has multiple rooms. For example, a four-room round cabin might look something like this:
So there are at least four, and maybe twelve, corners for the butler to clean.
Of course, nowadays,
it could just as well have been the mom.
Butler,
Because
The house is cornerless. So the butler is lying ...
