CLUES 'O'
Imperial Software, 1985
=======================
Solution by Exemptus - September 2023
Overview and general hints:
---------------------------
You are a famous French policeman (nationality is relevant) investigating the
death of Major Fawcett at his country home. We will have to unravel the case.
This is a simple BASIC adventure with a limited vocabulary and scope of agency,
but it has its interesting points. The idea is to explore the house, question
its residents, and gather clues pointing in the direction of the truth. At any
point in time we can use the command GUESS and the game will ask us three
questions: crime weapon, killer, and motive. Provided we answer correctly *and*
have a number of evidence objects in our inventory *and* have questioned all
relevant persons enough, we can win the game. So it is not exactly the game's
protagonist who does the work, but the player who must deduce things, since
the game does not offer any explanation nor interpretation of the facts until
the very end: the player has to put the pieces together. And, in addition to
this, the story is not straightforward.
The game is easy if you have a vocabulary list, which can be built by trial and
error, since there are no eccentric verbs, though some may not be that evident.
ENTER and EXIT allow going places, and GO THROUGH is used once (in a natural
way). MOVE is used as synonym for PULL, and KNOCK is important to discover
secret passages: there are several of these. You can QUESTION characters, who
normally don't wander around, but some actions will make some of them move. PICK
is used once in a very specific sense and not as a synonym for GET, which is
unusual, but guessable in context.
The idea is to explore the house, look for objects, question the characters we
come across, and re-explore more thoroughly once we know (or suspect) there are
hidden places. The evidence found is not too difficult to put together. There is
only one puzzle that requires a leap of meta-logic, and is played for laughs,
but the game takes the player on rails as a norm.
Walkthrough:
------------
[We start at the entrance of the house; there is a sign here.]
READ SIGN ["Chez Fawcett"]
N [Hallway]
E
EXAMINE FIREPLACE [We find a paper]
GET PAPER
READ PAPER [It is half burnt: "arewe..cr....w..."]
[This does not tell us much, although the first ford is surely "Farewell".]
E [Kitchen; there is a knife here]
GET KNIFE
EXAMINE KNIFE [Stained with dark blood]
S [The butler is here]
EXAMINE BUTLER [He is very smart]
QUESTION BUTLER
[Says Mrs Fawcett has been behaving strangely since the Major died. This is to
be expected, we may guess. Or does he mean anything else?]
N
OPEN CELLAR DOOR
N [It is dark and damp; Mrs Fawcett is here]
QUESTION MRS FAWCETT [She says "The knife!" and leaves]
[Odd. Has she recognised the knife we have? Is she all right? The knife is
probably a murder weapon, that much we can tell, but is Mrs Fawcett maybe a bit
unhinged? Perhaps this is what the butler meant.]
S [We see Mrs Fawcett is now in the kitchen]
QUESTION MRS FAWCETT ["The poor Major, I hope you find the killer quickly"]
[She leaves again. In fact she has returned to the cellar. A bit odd, since
there is nothing there. At least that we know about. We can try giving her the
knife and checking her reaction.]
N
GIVE KNIFE TO MRS FAWCETT [Says "Thankyou" and leaves]
[Maybe that wasn't that good an idea. The woman looks definitely a bit deranged,
but maybe she's affected by the tragedy. In any case now we have to look for the
knife again.]
S
OPEN BLUE DOOR [The east way is now open]
E [Herb garden]
E [Compost heap and shed, the gardener is here]
QUESTION GARDENER ["The Major was very preoccupied of late"]
ENTER SHED [There is a spade here]
GET SPADE
[A spade always suggests the possibility to dig, of course. And gardens are an
excellent place to.]
EXIT SHED
DIG [The gardener is not amused: the leaves and hides the spade]
[That didn't go well. Gardeners don't take it kindly to strangers digging on a
compost heap. It was, though, necessary to do this, because the compost heap has
something hidden within, and we cannot get it while the gardener is here. So we
will have to find the spade again, as well as the knife. For the moment there is
nothing else to do this side of the house.]
W
W
W
W
W [Study; the phone is ringing]
ANSWER PHONE [Wrong number]
N [Library; Mrs Fawcett is here now]
QUESTION MRS FAWCETT [Says "Poor Georgie" and breaks down in tears]
[Probably the Major's given name. There seems to be nothing else here.]
S
W [Conservatory; the only other exit is a french door to the west]
OPEN FRENCH DOOR ["Door" c'est Anglais, n'est ce pas?]
[This is a bit of humorous meta-puzzle. The door is openable, but since it is a
*French* door, we have to use the right name as suggested by the game.]
OPEN PORTE [La porte est ouvert]
W [Paved terrace]
W [Flower garden; Miss Fawcett is here]
[Miss Fawcett is the young daughter of the Major. Let's question her.]
QUESTION MISS FAWCETT [Says they can't find John, and she is very upset]
[John? John who? Was not George the name of Major Fawcett, going by Mrs
Fawcett's earlier remark? There is some confusion here, but we can't get
anything else from the girl right now. Maybe if...]
PICK FLOWER [Good thing the gardener is not around]
GIVE FLOWER TO MISS FAWCETT ["John is my brother, and was my father"]
[What she means is that both her father and brother are named John. So she
must have meant that her brother is missing, as the Major is known to be dead.
But, in this case, who is the "Georgie" Mrs Fawcett mentioned? Time to check the
upstairs rooms.]
E
E
E
E
N [Stairway, there's a painting here]
EXAMINE PAINTING [Old Lord Fawcett]
MOVE PAINTING [Best practice to poke and prod everything - look, a keyhole]
[A keyhole is on the wall behind the painting. We don't have a key, but let's
make a note of this for later.]
U [The gardener is here, so the spade must not be far]
N [Master bedroom, with an open window; there is a bottle here]
GET BOTTLE
EXAMINE BOTTLE [The Major's iron tablets]
DROP BOTTLE [We won't need them]
E [Bathroom, nothing here]
W
GO THROUGH WINDOW [A balcony - aha, the spade is here!]
GET SPADE
[Now we can get back to the compost heap again and dig there, but we'll finish
exploring upstairs first.]
GO THOUGH WINDOW [Back in]
S
W
N [Guest bedroom, empty]
N [Guest bathroom, again empty]
S
S
W
N [Small bedroom]
W [Small bathroom; smells like ammonia and there is a torch here]
GET TORCH
[Two ideas immediately come to mind. One, the cellar was dark in the description
and now we have a torch; maybe it would be a good idea to go back there and see
if we missed anything. Two, it looks like someone has been recently cleaning
here. Blood maybe? But the knife was crusted with it, so - what? Something is
still missing in this story.]
E
KNOCK WALL [A passage appears to the north]
[There is no good reason to do this, except trial and error. But, again, it is
good practice to check walls in all rooms.]
N [Secret playroom; the Major's body is here]
EXAMINE MASTER [He is dead]
[You don't say. But why is the body here? And what sense does it make having a
secret playroom in the first place?]
S
S
W [The nursery, which is empty]
[The screen picture is a clue: the nursery is clearly abandoned and hasn't been
used in ages. Again, this is suggestive given the "Georgie" comment before. Was
Mrs Fawcett referring to another son maybe? But in that case the daughter would
have mentioned him. In any case, we have explored the upstairs floor completely
now. Time to revisit some locations.]
E
E
E
S
D
E
E
E
E [Compost heap again]
DIG [We find a gun]
GET GUN
[A gun? What of the knife then? Examining the gun reveals nothing. This is more
confusing by the minute. Unless we are dealing with two murders, instead of one:
remember that John Fawcett, the son, is missing.]
DROP SPADE [We are done with it]
W
W
N [Cellar]
LIGHT TORCH
LOOK
[Oho. With the torch we can see a trail of dark blood spots across the floor.
But where do they go? There's no other exit, unless...]
KNOCK WALL [A door opens to the north]
TURN OFF TORCH
DROP TORCH
N [Hidden passage]
E [A crypt; there is a shirt here]
GET SHIRT
EXAMINE SHIRT [Stained with dark blood, with a label inside]
READ LABEL ["Mjr. J. Fawcett"]
[So this is a shirt worn by the Major and stained with the same dark blood as
the knife. However, the Major's body is upstairs, far from here, and there is no
trail of blood anywhere else. Hence the blood is not his - he must have been
killed with the gun. This suggests that the Major actually killed *someone else*
before he was himself killed, possibly the missing son. The picture is a bit
clearer now. But there is still a piece missing - who is Georgie?]
W
S
S
W
W
W
N [Library]
[It says nothing in the description, but we may assume a library ought to have
books in it.]
EXAMINE BOOKS [A note falls from one]
GET NOTE
READ NOTE ["Guest list: John, Mum, Mr Rumpole, Me, Jeeves, Percy"]
[This is significant. We can guess that the list was written my Miss Fawcett,
since it lists "John" and "Mum", and there are no other siblings. Jeeves is
likely to be the butler and Percy the gardener. But who is Mr Rumpole? And
there's no mention of Georgie either, unless that's Mr Rumpole himself. More
questions without answers. There is one more secret to explore though.]
MOVE SHELVES [MOVE BOOKCASE also works; another secret passage opens]
W
W [The missing key is here]
GET KEY
[Now we can finally find what's behind the stairway wall.]
E
E
S
E
N
UNLOCK WALL [An opening appears to the east]
E [Hidden cupboard with a skeleton]
DROP KEY
EXAMINE SKELETON [It is a child's and it has a medallion]
GET MEDALLION
EXAMINE MEDALLION [It is inscribed "J. Fawcett Jnr."]
[So. This is John, the son, dead as a child, long ago - but his sister expressed
herself as if he was alive (remember, she said "Jon *is* my brother and *was* my
father"). Clearly someone else has been impersonating John Jr. until recently.
We start to see things clearly now. If you noticed, we have explored the whole
house and the knife taken by Mrs Fawcett hasn't shown up yet, which might
mean...]
KNOCK WALL [Another secret hiding place!]
N [The knife and a scroll are here]
DROP NOTE
GET KNIFE
GET SCROLL [It's an adoption paper for George Foggarty]
[So this is the famous Georgie: he was an adopted child but was impersonating
John Jr, who had died as a child, and his sister didn't know about it. Clearly
Mrs Fawcett did know, since she mentioned Georgie, so what if we assume that
Major Fawcett did *not* know his son had died and had been replaced? That
explains his preoccupation. The plot is now quite clear. We only need to find
out about Mr Rumpole. Here the idea needs to come to mind, since it isn't
obvious: to call him on the phone.]
S
W
D
W
CALL RUMPOLE [It turns out to be the family solicitor, and he's on his way]
E
S [Porch, where Rumpole has just arrived at]
QUESTION SOLICITOR [He says it's best to talk in the study]
N
W
QUESTION SOLICITOR [Produces a parchment]
DROP SCROLL
GET PARCHMENT
READ PARCHMENT [The Major's will, who left all to daughter, butler and gardener]
QUESTION SOLICITOR [Says the will was changed recently]
[So this is it. The Major found out that his son John wasn't but an adopted
ersatz surrogate (George) and his true son had died as a baby. He killed George,
drew up a new will disinheriting his wife, and Mrs Fawcett helped him make the
evidence disappear (hence the extremely clean bathroom), except for the knife.
Racked by guilt, the Major took his own life afterwards (leaving a farewell
note), which pushed his wife over the edge of sanity. Time to wrap up.]
GUESS [Murder weapon?]
GUN [Murderer?]
MAJOR FAWCETT [Motive?]
GUILT
[Well done, the case is solved. End of game.]
