Manor Hints: The Final Hints

DO NOT PROCEED unless you have read ALL of the other clues and found alibis for as many of the suspects as possible. The following hints will gradually reveal who the killer was!…

It seems that all of the suspects have alibis!… 

Wait a second!… If the door was wedged shut from the inside, how on earth could someone have committed the murder as well as fled the scene without trapping themselves inside of the room? 

Read the Modernist Monthly and pay attention to the layout of the house. You can also use the Merivale manor guide and the photograph of the house to help.

The last page of the Merivale guide shows a drawing of the back of the house, and it shows how the edge of the balcony on the third floor meets with the roof of floor 2 (also confirmed by the test shot taken by the photographer).

Furthermore, in the modernist monthly, Matthew Lodge responds to the question “and you couldn’t see anyone else on the balcony?” by saying, “You’d only be able to see if someone was up there if they were leaning over the front edge because the side edges of the balcony were adjoined to the roof of the second floor.

If nobody was seen on the balcony, where could the perpetrator have escaped given that no one was in the study when the Chief barged the door down…

The suspect could have made their way across the flat roof! What could be used to assist the suspect in getting down from the roof?

There are various mentions of downspouts! Which suspect was seen wrestling the downspout? Use that information to help you create an escape route for the murderer.

Clarence III is the murderer! 

In the Merivale manor guide, it states: Before you enter, be sure to take a moment to appreciate the stunning green patina that adorns the copper downspouts that run past the bedroom balconies…this expense later proved useful when in his formative years, Clarence II used them to escape the house whenever he’d been grounded – as did both his son and grandson after him.  

Furthermore, in an email attachment (in the letter from Tewkesbury to Frances), he mentions that “The thing he remembers clearest upon returning from his errand, was seeing Clarence III standing on the balustrade wrestling with the downspout.

Head over to www.cryptickillers.com/manor-killer and enter “Clarence III” to read the summary of how he did it.