A Challenge for My Students

A Challenge for My Students (and other faculty should they so desire!)

My students are well aware by this time that I am a mystery buff. I love solving television mysteries and real life ones as well. The video below is from You Tube and it features a Miss Marple mystery. These are my favorite mysteries because you have all the clues you need to solve it by the time she arrives at the explanation. I haven’t solved all of the Miss Marple stories but certainly more than 2/3rds. This one beat me.

So, my challenge is, “Can you solve the mystery before our heroine explains the outcome?” You are, of course, on your honor not to cheat. So, don’t be going to one of those spoiler web sites or reading the novel before watching the program. You can do what I like to do in these cases which is to pause the film and think about the evidence at hand. Television watching appeals to the unconscious more than the conscious and if you just let it flow, the “little grey cells” (another Agatha Christie character) never get to operate at full power.

This exercise builds your power of reasoning and deduction known by the classic word, ratiocination.

If you solve it, make a comment and I will post the winners later.

James Pilant

P.S. I am going to give you a clue that I did not have. I did not figure out the murder because I could not conceive that the murderer(s) could be so evil. And I was revolted when I found out what had been done. jp

Agatha Christie’s Marple: S1E1 – The Body In The Library – YouTube