This doesn’t come along very often…it’s a real-life mystery. Your turn to sleuth, if you want it. 🙂
Here’s the situation. A friend is an avid puzzler–she always has one in progress on its own table.
Lately, something strange has been happening: when she wakes up in the morning, the puzzle looks different. Usually less completed, as if someone or something has undone what she has been working on. It’s not completely dismantled…but there are small changes that are visible to her: one of the sides or a patch in the middle.
She has moved the table from place to place, but it still keeps happening.
Who has means, motive, and opportunity?
Here are the questions we’ve asked, investigated, and ruled out:
- Is the puzzle too close to the window: could wind move the pieces?
- Is the air coming out of the heater capable of blowing pieces apart?
- Is the apartment subject to any kind of vibrations or thumps that could make the table jump?
- Have any of the visitors to the apartment seemed overly interested in puzzling?
- Does anyone else have a key to the apartment or are there previously unknown entry spots?
- Are there any animals nearby who could be interfering or playing with the pieces?
Our best current theory involves a puzzle-playing ghost!
To this day, we are baffled. Any ideas? Or… do you have any mysteries that need solving?
Chicks on the Case 
Maybe she walks in her sleep and undoes the puzzle pieces because the real puzzle is in her internal world, not the game on the table…
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My first thought is a cat. But if you’ve ruled out pets, I hate to say it, but maybe a rat or mouse? Some creature that finds puzzle board either tasty or good nesting material?
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Hi Mary: It does sound so cat-like! Though there aren’t any cats in the vicinity that we know of…hmmm. We are hoping not mice (eek) but that’s an interesting point about nesting material…if pieces go missing, that makes sense as a reason. Thank you!
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Like Mary Monin, my first suspect would be a cat. But if there aren’t pets, I’m stumped.
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Hi Liz! It’s definitely a stumper. 🙂
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Definitely a cat. And if there is no cat living there as a pet, then most definitely a ghost cat!
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Hahaha! Gosh, we thought ghost but not ghost cat! So smart, Leslie.
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Is there anyone else living in the house with our sleuth? Like, a significant other jealous of her time spent puzzling? Or playing a prank? Gaslight!
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Oh yeah, Lisa. There’s some evil intent going on.
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JC, that is so ominous. 😀
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Ooh, Lisa, that’s new. The Dial-M-for-Murder theory! I like it! But no one else lives there…as far as we know.
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It was me. I did it.
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HA! Mystery solved. I’ll let her know, Mark.
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GHOST CAT (or RAT). Yuck if it’s the latter critter.
Or are you a secret sleepwalking de-puzzler?!
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Hi Grace: I really do love the Ghost Cat (but not rat) theory!
And the second option is intriguing…but I’ve never slept there, so I can’t take credit.
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This is a stumper! I was going to say an animal, though I like the sleepwalking theory. Or maybe a puzzle-addicted landlord?
(My only current mystery is why my socks keep disappearing in the washer’s Bermuda Triangle…)
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Ooh, Jen, a puzzle-addicted landlord! May I use that in my next book? 😀
And oh, socks are the greatest mystery of all. Seriously, where do they go?
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Sock mystery solved: Socks are the larval form of wire coat hangers. A single sock pupates in the nice warm laundry room, emerges as a fully formed wire coat hanger, and migrates to the hall closet to live its best life with all of the other cheap wire coat hangers.
The remaining sock is left at the bottom of the washing machine, bereft and soggy, doomed to seek its solemate unto The End of Days (or until the next time you go all Marie Kondo on your living space). Nature can be cruel.
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An evil neighbor is sneaking in at night and messing with the puzzle to drive her mad. It will turn out that the evil neighbor is a former world-champion puzzle builder who was banned from competition for life after getting caught cheating. The neighbor now despises everything to do with puzzles.
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Hi JC: YES! This is a whole plot! Now I can see now how you are such a prolific writer…
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I think it’s a closet puzzler: someone who professes disdain at the hobby, then can’t resist attempting to place a few puzzle pieces themselves.
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El! Love this concept. 🙂
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The person is sleepy and their arm moved the pieces when they did not notice. This includes accidentally knocking the pieces on the floor.
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Such a logical explanation, Deborah! She HAS found pieces on the floor…thank you.
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How about getting one of those tiny cameras and pointing it at the puzzle. A ghost cat probably wouldn’t show up though.
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Thank you, Sybil! That sounds like a winning strategy!
And you’re right, maybe the ghost cat wouldn’t show up. Ooh, but what if we saw pieces moving around by themselves? That would be so cool.
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That would be very cool to see pieces moving around by themselves.
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I almost replied to this early yesterday but got interrupted… then by the time I came back everybody had already suggested “ghost cat” as the culprit — and that was my answer! Clearly we have reached a consensus and we can now call this case closed.
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Ha ha ha! *bangs gavel* Thank you, Marla!
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