Riddles
Accused of stealing the farmer’s chickens, Jack is locked up in an empty room in the local jail. His cell has a dirt floor and is completely void of any accessories except for a shovel. There is a window overlooking the hills outside. Jack is determined to break out and prove his innocence, but the window is too high to reach.
How can he escape?
Note that digging a tunnel is not a feasible option because the ground beneath the dirt is rock hard. Jack doesn’t have the energy to dig through it as he is deprived of food and water.
Amy goes to her friend, Maria's house, on a wintry evening only to find her dead. When the police learn about the incident, they question Amy how she found out. Amy says that she knocked on the door and rang the bell repeatedly. Since the light was on in one of the rooms, Amy knew Maria must be home and decided to look through the window.
The windows were frozen, so she breathed on the iced glass, and that's when she noticed Maria’s body on the floor.
The police suspect Amy is the murderer. Are they correct? Or is it just one of those riddles with no definite answer?
Amy can’t possibly get a clear view of the room from outside. This is because it’s hard to unfreeze an iced glass by breathing as its opposite surface is usually icy too.
An elderly woman lived alone in her house by the suburbs. She rarely left the house and knew only a few people. One Friday morning, the mailman called out for the woman but didn’t receive a prompt answer as usual. Upon peeking in through the window, the mailman realized that the woman was murdered. The police investigated the house and found Tuesday’s newspaper by the dead body. Also, by the door outside, there were three unopened bottles of milk, one of which had gone bad.
The police arrested the killer the very next day. How did they figure out so quickly?
The mailman killed the old woman because the newspapers for Wednesday and Thursday weren’t found in or outside the house. This means he knew there would be no one to read them. (He tried to trick the police by reporting the crime himself
Marissa and Juliana went out for drinks together. They ordered the same drink. Juliana was really thirsty and finished five in the time it took Marissa to finish one. The drinks were poisoned, but only Marissa died. How?
The poison was in the ice. Since Marissa’s ice had time to melt, she was poisoned but Juliana wasn’t. Too easy
A man owned a casino and invited some friends. It was a dark stormy night, and they all placed their money on the table right before the lights went out. When the lights came back on, the money was gone. The owner put a rooster in an old rusty tea kettle. He told everyone to get in line and touch the kettle after he turned the lights off, and the rooster will crow when the robber touched it. After everyone touched it, the rooster didn't crow, so the man told everyone to hold out their hands. After examining all the hands, he pointed out who the robber was. How did he know who stole the money?
Because the tea kettle was rusty, whoever touched it would have rust on their hands. The robber didn't touch the kettle, therefore he was the only one whose hands weren't rusty.
A woman named Cathy goes to the police claiming that someone broke into her house and stole her diamond bracelet while she was at work. The policemen investigate the crime scene and notice that the bedroom window is broken. There are muddy footprints all across the bedroom floor. However, the room is otherwise neat and organized.
The following day, Cathy is arrested for fraud. Can you figure out why?
Cathy was convicted of fraud because the bedroom window was broken from the inside. If somebody had broken in from the outside, there would have been glass pieces on the bedroom floor. Also, the room was perfectly tidy, which means the so-called thief didn’t search for items and knew exactly where the bracelet was.
A Japanese ship was leaving the port and on its way to open sea. The captain went to go oil some parts of the ship and took his ring off so it wouldn’t get damaged. He left it on the table next to his bunk. When he returned, it was missing. He had suspected three crew members could be guilty and asked them what they had been doing for the ten minutes that he had been gone.
The cook said, “I was in the kitchen preparing tonight’s dinner.”
The engineer said, “I was working in the engine room making sure everything was running smoothly.”
The seaman said, “I was on the mast correcting the flag because someone had attached it upside down by mistake.”
The captain immediately knew who it was. How?
It was clearly the seaman. It was a Japanese ship and a Japanese flag is white with a single red dot in the middle. It can’t be hung upside down.
A serial killer kidnapped five different people and sat them down each with two pills in their hand and a glass of water. He told them each to take one pill but warned them that one was poisonous and the other was harmless. Whichever pill the victim didn’t take, the serial killer would take. Every victim somehow chose the poisonous pill and died. How did the serial killer get them all to take the poisonous pill?
Neither of the pills was poisonous. The poison was in the water that all the victims used to swallow their pill.
The science teacher at Jefferson High School is murdered on the first day of the academic year. The police narrow down the suspects to four members of the school – the gardener, the coach, the math teacher, and the principal. However, they all have alibis:
The police had no trouble in arresting the person guilty of the crime. Who do you think was the murderer?
A chemist was murdered in his own lab. The only evidence was a piece of paper that had the names of chemical substances written on it. The substances were nickel, carbon, oxygen, lanthanum, and sulfur. The chemist only had three people come by his lab on the day of the murder: fellow scientist Claire, his nephew Nicolas, his wife, and his friend Marc. The police arrested the murderer right away. How did they know who it was?
There was a very obvious clue on the piece of paper. If you combine the abbreviations of the chemical substances on the paper, you’ll get a name: Ni-C-O-La-S.