Three Minute Mysteries, or How Come?

Inspired by the GQ discussion here

When their car runs out of gas, a man leaves his wife alone while he hikes back to the nearest filling station. When he returns with the gas, his wife is dead and a stranger is in the car. Incredibly, when the police arrive, they do not arrest or even interrogate the stranger.

What happened?

Note: I have misgivings as to whether these will work well over a message board as opposed to live action, so to speak. Still, it’s worth a try. You may pose only yes or no questions in an effort to uncover what’s going on.

Is the stranger human?

The surgeon is the patient’s mother.
No… wait…
Nevermind.


Voted Best Sport
And narrowly averted the despised moniker Smiley Master

Forward deployed until 18AUG00

Coldfire asks: Is the stranger human?
YES.

Is the stranger responsible for the wife’s death?

Did the woman die of natural causes?

[completely off-topic: I act in a once-a-month completely improved murder mystery at a local inn. It was this past weekend. I can’t believe after spending 48 hours with housewives who think they are Jessica Lansbury, I am posting in this thread. ::sigh::]

Coldfire asks: Is the stranger human?
YES.

TomH asks: Is the stranger responsible for the wife’s death?
YES

SwimmingRiddles asks: Did the woman die of natural causes?
NO

Is the stranger a child?

IS THE STRANGER A BABY?

I knew it all along!! Coldfire did it!! Book him Dan-O, Murder One…
J’accuse


…send lawyers, guns, and money…

       Warren Zevon

Yet another reason to hate/love Coldfire…he’s so deducive. (is that a word? It is now.)

BING BING BING BING!

Give the cigar to Coldfire! (Who is pretty darn deductive, yes. :slight_smile: )

smoking cigar

Woohoo!! That was cool. Next mystery please?


Coldfire
Voted Poster Most Likely To Post Drunk


"You know how complex women are"

  • Neil Peart, Rush (1993)

Ask And Ye Shall Rceive, Coldfire.

I’m going to experiment with keeping this in one thread for a while, rather than opening a new thread for each of the different stories.

Three hikers discover a cabin in the mountains. The sole occupant, a writer, is dead. Oddly enough, it quickly becomes apparent that if he had only stopped writing before the thunderstorm, he probably would have survived.

How come?

By the way, I’m glad your murder mystery is completely improved. I couldn’t stand it before. :smiley:

  • Rick

Was the writer killed by electrocution?

Dammit Coldfire!

I had the solution to that after reading the OP. Unfortunately, by the time I read teh op you’d had it solved for an hour. Serves me right for doing my homework before reading MPSIMS.

–John


'Twis brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Coldfire asks: Was the writer killed by electrocution?
NO

was fire involved?

Did the writer die of starvation?