Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for November 25, 2017

Whodunnit?

And remember to show your work~!! ;)

Happy Saturday!

Good morning, Vista Bill and all you armchair detectives !

Bedtime soon !

Five “Story Panels” left to wrap this up …

My guess: Midge.

The clues I picked up on:

1. There are only two coats on the coat rack, and only one of them, the inner coat (that is the coat from the person who came earlier) has a puddle below it.

2. Piston Puss implies he was the last person to arrive (“I joined the others”) and mentions taking off his coat indoors, so the outer coat, the dry one, must be his.

3. Both Ms. Clampett and Midge Gregory deny coming in with their coats.

4. Assuming they’re both telling the truth, the inner coat, the damp one, must belong to Notgo Meszadams.

5. Jarvis says he was shoveling snow outside the house and there are puddles beneath his snow boots and shovel.

Therefore the killer is…Notgo Meszadams, who snuck in before Jarvis began shoveling, killed H. K. Krispies, and snuck out to join the others after Jarvis finished, which is why his clothing is the only one’s besides Jarvis to leave behind a puddle.

It had to be either Notgo or Piston

It was Ms Clampett…

If we’re to decide based only on what’s been shown, the only motive belongs to Ms. Clampett. For there to be some other motive without it’s having been shown, would be cheating on the part of the author.

It turns out the guy was shot and the killer is…. The one with the gun!!

Happy weekend my friends.

I believe Piston Puss would be the red herring. It’s too obvious. A (former?) con there? Although the trophy wife is a bit too obvious as well. I’m going to have to go with Notgo as well.

Mrs. Clampett and Midge Gregory conspired to kill him.

I’m pointing my finger at the soon-to-be ex wife. She stands to gain the most with his death (follow the money), and claims to have left her coat in the car, but the second coat on the rack looks like a woman’s fur coat – expensive so it’s hers. She’s lying about leaving it in the car because she came in early while the butler was shoveling, hung her coat up, and killed her husband.

No hint how Midge got there, but she is dry and shoes are clean. In fact everyone is dry and clean and only 1 person had a wet coat. Come on down Piston.

No one benefits from HK’s death except Clampett. Every one else’s wishes of hitting the jackpot is lost if he is dead. That’s pretty strong; but not hard evidence. If Tracy wants hard evidence, he needs to start by determining the cause of death, and build from there. If he was shot, then we need a gun to turn up, and so on.

It was the ex-wife. On the 22nd the bust of Krispies is prominently displayed looking accusingly at her.

Cause of HK’s death

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTlCZYG9TqI

This may be the first time in history people are being asked to solve a murder without knowing anything about the crime itself. My money’s on Midge, if only because she didn’t want to see HK"s money go to anyone else, & the one drawing of her in high heels seems to indicate she hadn’t been outside, giving her time, I guess, to commit the murder.

I believe Ray Toler raised an important point above, albeit as a kind of throw-away remark. In yesterday’s strip, we saw the wet boots and shovel presumed to have been used by Jarvis while shovelling the snow. There was no coat in that scene, and Jarvis is crispy-dry (yeah, bad pun) on duty. It would seem that the one wet coat seen earlier must have been his. Only one other coat appears. Midge Gregory and Ms. Clampett-Krispies both explicitly state they arrived in the mansion without coats. So only Piston Puss or Notgo Meszadams could have had a coat. The other three must all have arrived after the snow had let up and the walk had been shovelled.

Now if only the mystery were about the coats and not about the alleged murder of H.K. Krispies. We still have NO CLUE as to how he died….

Without reading any of the other comments:

We know from Saturday’s strip (via Jarvis) that the victim did not go outside: hence, all water tracked into the house must have come from one of the suspects. In Friday’s strip, we see Jarvis show Tracy the snow shovel and boots — both of which are still significantly wet from being outside. There was, the inference can be made, significant wet on the ground at some point in the morning. In Wednesday’s strip, the widow indicates that she left her coat in her car — note we also don’t see her shoes. Yet in Tuesday’s strip, not only do we see two coats, we also see an umbrella and a pool of water under at least one of the coats. Inference: the two coats belong to Piston Puss and Meszadams. (Note also the relative size of the hats and coats.) Note that the throwaway panel in Sunday’s strip shows very messy conditions outside, and the first panel shows snow, indicating Jarvis is likely telling the truth about the shoveling.

We see in Thursday’s strip, however, that the young lady, Midge Gregory, is dry-shod. She alleges she does not have a coat, and presumably, if she does not have a coat, she does not have a car, either. Inference: she has been in the house a substantial amount of time.

I accuse Midge of the crime.

After all time, H.K. Krispes corpse is still slumped over his desk, and is starting to reek.

Maybe there was a height-challenged person behind the potted plant shown on Friday! LOL

Midge is too finely dressed and her shoes aren’t made for snow. I’m not buying her story.

I’m sticking with the hunch guess I made on Sunday. That the little girl/woman (since identified as Midge) is the murderess.

I hate to say it but Midge is the one for me. The shoes give her away.!

Mike Curtis is doing a good job of playing us like a pinball machine – and doing a very good job at that! Something tells me he is chuckling while he reads these posts all week.

Either that or they all did it, shades of Dane Christie.

With only hours to go, I’m flip-flopping a bit, as the puddle beneath the coat is the decisive clue, hence Tracy’s question as to whether or not Krispies went outside prior to his demise.

I’d initially thought the coat that didn’t belong to Piston Puss was a woman’s coat, but there are two men’s hats as well, and the actual look of the coat itself could go either way.

Whoever murdered H.K. Krispies had to go out into the snowy morning, wait awhile, then come back in again, presumably having left their coat behind, right?

In other words …

https://www.tvfanatic.com/quotes/so-its-just-as-i-suspected-all-along-the-crime-is-unsolvable/

“Minit Mysteries! Last chance to solve the case before Tracy!"

Actually, he’s already solved the case before us…about a couple of months ago…LOL!

Midge. Her shoes were dry. Her clothes were dry and a bit too nice for someone in poverty. If she had no coat then likely no car nor money for a cab so she should have been as wet as the dripping coat on the rack. Widow drove and left coat in the car. As wife she may have still had access to the garage so would not have had to walk outside hence low cut dress and no coat. Piston likely drove a car from the dealership and hung his coat up. Eccentric Notgo probably wore the fur coat and walked on the lovely winter morning thereby having the wet coat which dripped on the floor. Midge likely arrived the night before.

Perhaps she is a mistress or perhaps Krispies’ hidden daughter by a previous marriage who realized she could gain the inheritance and frame the gold-digging trophy wife.

Piston would not have gotten his pay if he killed Krispies. Notgo would not have gotten an investor if he killed Krispies.