Case 9 of mystery game The Case of the Golden Idol is titled “The Interrupted Weekend at the Doctor’s Salon.” It focuses on what the members of the secret organization do in their daily lives, when not participating in strange masked rituals. It is also one of the trickier cases in the game, as it features a large number of new characters and involves keeping track of everybody’s alibi for the time of the murder. It is the case that is most like a traditional “whodunnit,” paying homage to classic detective stories. Luckily, this guide will help you find every clue, keep every alibi straight, solve every puzzle, and ultimately discover the solution to the mystery at the heart of Case 9 of The Case of the Golden Idol.
Clues
There are 36 clues to be found in this chapter. They are divided into four categories: names of people present, items present at the scene, verbs, and locations around Dr. Turner’s manor. The clues are:
Alistair Arthur Augustus Bell Billiam Blanchard Ergin Falkner Gideon Hill James Koch Leopold Podrick Ptoo Spade Turner Vallantine (people) boomerang button club seal sherry (items) chess-house field flowerbeds fountain library salon tea-house (locations) drugged frame killed planted provoked stole (verbs)
Puzzle Solutions
Because there are so many people present in the scene – a total of nine men – it is best to start by figuring out who is who. Alistair Koch and James Turner return from the previous chapter, Koch wearing a red military jacket and Turner wearing a light blue jacket. The other person who can be immediately identified is the man carrying the pike on the far right, as he is holding an item that bears his name: Constable Arthur Falkner.
Next, the dark-skinned man with a beard is holding many Lemurian artefacts, so he must be the visiting Lemurian prince: Ergin Ptoo. (Turner refers to him as Mr. Ptoo, and Falkner’s notes indicate that a man named Ergin had difficulty speaking the language.) For the rest of the people present, you should make use of Falkner’s notes about everyone’s movements. Keep in mind that Falkner refers to everybody by their first names only, so you will have to figure out their last names.
A person named “Gideon” claims to have spent time with Ergin Ptoo, and Ptoo backs this up and calls him “Mr. Bell.” The blue-haired man has a note in his pocket indicating that he wanted to meet the prince, making him Gideon Bell.
James Turner refers to the man with the eye patch as Leopold, and a note in Leopold’s pocket references Augustus. This must be the dead man, as the only other unidentified people are servants. To find their last names, check the newspaper sitting on the bench outside. It includes their last names next to caricatures of the two politicians – so the man with the eye patch is Leopold Blanchard, leader of the Loyalist party, and the dead man is Augustus Vallantine, leader of the Moderate party. This newspaper also reveals that Lazarus Herst is running for prime minister alongside these two men – revealing a possible motive to murder Vallantine.
The last two men to be identified are the servants. Falkner’s notes refer to the gardener as Billiam and the butler as Podrick, and the two men’s testimonies use the other’s last name. So the gardener is Billiam Spade and the butler is Podrick Hill.
With this information, you can fill out the statement in the upper right of the Thinking screen: “Augustus Vallantine is the victim. The boomerang is the murder weapon. The salon is where he was murdered. Body was found by Leopold Blanchard.” Blanchard admits in his testimony that he found the body, and the boomerang must be the murder weapon because it is covered in blood.
Next, identify where everyone was when the body was found. The alibis can be found in Falkner’s notes regarding each character.
The loyalist, Leopold Blanchard, admits to being in the salon.
Gideon Bell and Ergin Ptoo, the prince and the young man, were having tea in the tea-house.
James Turner and Alistair Koch, the doctor and the general, were playing chess in the chess-house.
Billiam Spade, the gardener, was working on the flower-beds.
Podrick Hill, the butler, had fainted in the library.
With this information, it seems that Leopold has to be the killer. However, things are much more complicated than they seem – in fact, not one but TWO crimes occurred at Turner’s house that day.
Examine Turner’s collection of Lemurian artefacts. One of the seals is missing. It can be found in Ptoo’s pocket – he must have stolen it. Given that one of the drugs mentioned on the poster in the salon comes from Lemuria and is said to cause “altered perception of time,” it can be concluded that Ptoo drugged Bell’s tea and used this to sneak into the salon and steal the seal. However, he only wanted his country’s important item back – he is not the one who killed Vallantine.
Remember that Koch and Turner are members of the masked secret society, and thus have a motive for the killing – eliminating a political rival of their ally Lazarus Herst. Koch is mentioned in Bell’s testimony to have left the chess-house, while Turner did not, making Koch the killer. But Turner is not innocent – he mentions that he drank sherry with Leopold in the morning, and Leopold immediately fell asleep. Leopold has pink-tinted eyes, consistent with the sleeping drug “black poppy,” so Turner drugged Leopold in order to steal his button and frame him for the murder.
Now, you can fill out this case’s scroll, which reads:
“Early in the morning, James Turner drugged Leopold Blanchard in the library and stole a button. Meanwhile, in the tea-house, Ergin Ptoo drugged Gideon Bell and stole a Lemurian seal from the salon. In the salon at around noon, Alistair Koch killed Augustus Vallantine and planted the button on him to frame Leopold Blanchard.”
This concludes Case 9 of The Case of the Golden Idol. Now that Lazarus Herst’s opponents are dealt with, he will certainly become prime minister. But what will the reign of his New Order party mean for the country? The next chapter will explore that! In the meantime, you can check out GameLuster’s other The Case of the Golden Idol guides to solve the mysteries and puzzles present in each chapter of this delightfully twist-filled game.
