The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Sherman Oliver Holmes, a mysterious crime solver and great-great-grandson of Sherlock Holmes. Can you solve the crime?
Sergeant Wilson found the letter and envelope torn up and crammed into the bottom of a wastebasket. Reassembling it while wearing plastic gloves proved difficult.
"It's from Henry Liggit's lawyer," he finally said, looking up from the jigsaw-like puzzle. "It outlines Mr. Liggit's proposed new will, disinheriting his three nephews and leaving everything to charity."
Sherman stood behind the sergeant, peering over his shoulder. "What do you think?" Wilson asked him.
"Hmm. It doesn't take a Sherman Holmes," said Sherman Holmes, "to suspect that Mr. Liggit's suicide wasn't really a suicide."
"My thoughts exactly," the officer agreed.
Sherman and the sergeant were in Henry Liggit's library, just yards from where the millionaire lay slumped in his chair with a gun in his hand and a hole in his head.
"Our first job, my dear Wilson, will be determining which devoted nephew opened Liggit's mail and discovered the threat to his inheritance." With that, Sherman led the way into the front hall where the nervous nephews stood waiting.
All three nephews lived in the Liggit house; all three had been at home at the time of the shot. None, or so they swore, had the least idea Uncle Henry had been about to cut them out of his will.
"Uncle Henry had been depressed," said Nigel, the eldest, in mournful tones. He was sipping a martini and Sherman suspected it wasn't his first of the day. "I spent all afternoon at home. About three P.M. I walked into the front hall. I was checking the mail on that side table when I heard the gunshot."
Sherman observed a few pieces of mail on the table. "When did the mail arrive, my good fellows?"
Gerald, the youngest nephew, raised his hand. "When I got home around 2:30, the mail was already on the hall floor. I walked right across it before noticing. I picked it up and put it on the hall table."
Gerald nodded. "Yes, but there was nothing for me. I went straight out to the garden and sat by the pool. I, too, heard the gunshot. Around three, as Nigel said."
"I looked through the mail," volunteered the middle nephew, Thomas. "I'd just got home from a trip. I put my bags down in the hall, sorted through, and found a letter for me. I put it in my pocket, then went up to my room."
"What time was this?"
"Ten minutes to three, or thereabouts. I was unpacking when I heard the shot."
"Is the letter still in your pocket?"
With some hesitation, Thomas reached into his jacket and produced the unopened envelope. Sherman noticed a faint shoe print, a water ring, and a curious return address. "It's from a bill collector," Thomas confessed. "I've got a cash flow problem."
"Can anyone verify your arrival at the house at 2:50?"
"I can," said Gerald. "You can see the driveway from poolside. Thomas's car pulled in about ten minutes before poor Uncle killed himself."
"Yes," said Sherman. "We'll talk about suicide in a minute. Did any of you notice a letter addressed to your uncle from his lawyer?"
The nephews all shook their heads.
"Then that settles it," said Sherman. "One of you is lying. One of you knew about your uncle's plans to change his will and killed him before he could do it."
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Nigel.
"Join the club," laughed Sergeant Wilson. "I don't know what he's talking about half the time, either. But he's usually right."
WHO KILLED HENRY LIGGIT?
WHAT PROOF DOES SHERMAN HAVE?
Show Answer
The whodunit above was provided by American mystery fiction author Hy Conrad.
In addition to his work in mystery and crime puzzles, Hy was also one of the original writers for the groundbreaking TV series Monk.
Currently, Hy is working on mystery novel series "Abel Adventures" as well as the Monk series of novels, starting with Mr. Monk Helps Himself (published by Penguin, order from Amazon here)
Check out Hy's official website and Facebook page - and stay tuned for more whodunits puzzlers on Neatorama from the master of whodunit mysteries himself!
Comments (0)
It's long been observed that flying a large airliner is more like sitting at the controls of a big automated bus--do even the trained pilots have a chance of landing the thing by hand? That has not been clearly demonstrated.
A Cessna 172 is a sweet and easy thing to land. It's generous and forgiving, it's aerodynamics make it a small and stable thing to fly and to land.
I've wondered why Airlines don't allow pilot training that involves landing a jet in an emergency by manual controls. Too expensive? Too dangerous to airline assets?
It's very rare to hear of a commercial jetliner landing in an emergency done by the pilot manually, and successfully.
We all know that Airliner crashes are usually extremely fatal. WHY?
That leads us, the public, to reasonably believe a rescue landing can't be done.
So are the physics of landing a big plane impossible to teach or do, or is it simply training decisions made my corporations that prevent pilots from knowing how to handle that situation? Cheaper to pay the body insurance than train the pilots? I apologize, not trying to be rude, but that is my concern.
We all know, in most dire situations, the commercial jet and all it's passengers will be lost. That doesn't make me feel too good about Commercial Airliners, anywhere.
I've always wondered if Airlines could train pilots with disposable jets, teach them to deal with dire situations. Let them crash as many planes as they need to learn how to handle a disaster with survival of the most lives.
It'd be an expensive training, but it could save so many lives in an emergency.
Sincerely,
T. Benson
The answer is yes, but the jets are virtual. That is the purpose of simulator training.
In the simulator they create all sorts of dire emergencies for the pilots. It can be harrowing. A pilot I once worked with described how he was shaken for hours after he "survived" a simulator session in which, after routine testing in which he had done particularly well, they threw the works at him. After an unusually high number of rare simultaneous failures and problems, he ended up averting a virtual crash by flying the simulated plane between airport buildings. It left him as distressed as he would have been if it had happened in an actual aircraft.
That's your disposable jet right there.
Anyway, my understanding of this is that the above "how to" isn't quite right:
You have to hope that the settings programmed into the autopilot will intercept the glidepath for landing.
When you get the signal that you have intercepted the landing beacon, hitting the "Auto-land" button should take care of direction, descent, flaps etc. It is even set up to hit the brakes and thrust reverser once the wheels hit tarmac.
Also, my understanding is that pilots routinely land "by hand". I wonder if above commenters are confusing the "fly-by-wire" control interface with auto-pilot and auto-land?
I've driven a Pontiac Vibe that did not have any physical cable or hydraulic connection between the "go" pedal and the actual gubbins that control fuel-air mixture in to the cylinders. I did not get any sense that the car was driving for me.
Likewise, some aircraft controls are electronic sensors in the joystick controlling motors rather than power-assisted hydraulics or systems of cables, guides, and pulleys. The movement of the controls still controls the flying of the aircraft.
Second, the article makes it sound much more difficult than it actually is. Putting the landing gear down involves nothing more than moving a lever. Same with putting the flaps down. Disconnecting the autopilot is simply a matter of pushing one bright red button right on the yoke. Thrust reversers would probably not be nessecary as in an emergency situation ATC would send you to the longest runway in the area (which in a jet can be a pretty big area). Airports such as DFW and JFK have runways nearly 2 1/2 miles long. As far as using the brakes is concerned, it is not difficult at all; just push on the top of the pedals the same amount on each side. The hardest part would probably be steering the plane to keep it straight once on the ground.
Jets are extremely durable and capable of taking a very hard landing. I feel that with a qualified air traffic controller as well as a qualified pilot on the radio a novice would have a much better chance than 1% of landing the plane.
This of course leaves out a few important facts. First, nearly any large commercial flight will have a qualified pilot somewhere in back who is either dead heading, commuting, or traveling for pleasure. Secondly, as a previous poster commented the cockpit door is always locked from the inside during flight and is supposedly impenetrable so if both the pilots became incapcitated inside the cockpit then there would be nothing that could be done.
One other bit of food for though: the first time that I actually saw the plane that I was trained on was when I showed up to fly it at DFW with passengers on board. All the training up to that point was done in a full motion simulator which I think is a testament to the quality of training that takes place at an airline.