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Somewhere far, far away, in the Kingdom of Puzzling, disaster has struck: the king's been assassinated! Here's the crime scene report:

The king was discovered dead in his royal bathroom with a single bullet hole in his chest. The guards on duty at the time claim he entered the bathroom, alone, approximately 15 minutes before he was discovered. The bathroom has only one door, which was not opened until after the king was already dead. It has no windows, vents, or any other ways in or out. Additionally, the bathroom is reinforced with steel walls several feet thick. The room was fully cleared prior to and immediately following the assassination, meaning nothing was out of the ordinary. No weapon was found except for a single, rather small bullet.

Clearly, investigators are quite puzzled about what could have gone down. How was the king assassinated?

Attributions: I created this puzzle, but it was loosely based off of a scene in a book. The solution is not the same as what happened in the book.

Bonus question: What book was this puzzle based off of?

Edit: I'd like to point out that there is one small detail that leads to a single, definitive answer.

Each of the answers so far have been flawed in some way, and fail to include this.

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  • $\begingroup$ Probably too simple, but rot13(qbrf gur qbbe znlor unir n xrlubyr)? $\endgroup$
    – theozh
    Commented Oct 17, 2023 at 15:26
  • $\begingroup$ @theozh Unfortunately no, but that's a good idea! $\endgroup$
    – Blue Herring
    Commented Oct 17, 2023 at 15:32
  • $\begingroup$ what's the exact course of events? 1. clearing of bathroom 2. guard inspection 3. king's entrance 4. king'death 5. discovery of the body 6. clearing of bathroom or 1. and 2. inverted ? $\endgroup$
    – Alois Christen
    Commented Oct 18, 2023 at 6:25

6 Answers 6

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Given that there was a bullet hole in king's chest and the bullet was found(doesn't say they removed it from the king's chest, so I assume it was found separately), my guess would be:

The king just returned from war or hunt or whatever where he was shot in the chest. Of course, he was wearing armor, so it partially slowed the bullet and it only got stuck in the chest. Being a big and strong king, he decided not to go to a medic for "tis but a scratch". The bullet hit the vein or an artery and was sitting there and blocking the blood flow. When the king took it out, the vein/artery got unclogged and he bled to death.

The answer was inspired by this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLeVoV9829U

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  • $\begingroup$ I've seen this same mechanic in rot13(Gur Fvta bs Guerr sebz OOP Fureybpx)! $\endgroup$
    – DanDan面
    Commented Oct 18, 2023 at 8:55
  • $\begingroup$ That's a really good guess, but not quite the intended answer! $\endgroup$
    – Blue Herring
    Commented Oct 18, 2023 at 11:31
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Since we are assassinating kings with bullets, we may very well be somewhere in the late medieval times. If this is the case, then

the water toilet hasn't been invented yet,

which means the assassin can cross the moat, avoiding any alligators, and then make some noise next to the castle wall, so

the king would bend over the toilet hole to see what's going on underneath, allowing the assassin to shoot him in the chest.

This would work, because this is how a castle toilet operates:

enter image description here
(Image seems to be widely circulating the internet, so cannot give proper credit. Clicking will take you to a reddit post containing it.)

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  • $\begingroup$ Very creative answer, but not the solution. $\endgroup$
    – Blue Herring
    Commented Oct 17, 2023 at 21:00
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Here is a "use the loophole" solution.

The murderer killed the king and left through the door taking the weapon with him. Indeed, the door was opened only after the was already dead. Nobody said the door was locked in any way.

Another simple solution, not from me.

I read a book featuring various "locked room" stories. Sorry, I don't remember the title or author. At the end of the book, it explains what a police manual has to say about these situations. When a person is found shot inside a room, locked from inside, and no gun is found, the manual says that what probably happened is that the person was shot outside of the room, ran away, locked himself inside the room for protection but then bled to death.

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  • $\begingroup$ The first solution can explain how the assassin got out, but not how they got in - the king went in alone, and the door wasn't opened until after he was dead. The assassin can't be waiting in the bathroom before the king arrives, nor enter by the door while the king is still alive. $\endgroup$
    – Nuclear Hoagie
    Commented Oct 17, 2023 at 19:15
  • $\begingroup$ Ah, yes, I missed the detail about the guards on duty, supposedly they were standing in front of the door all the time. But they could be on duty but somewhere else, they could have left but don't admit it, they could be the ones who did it. $\endgroup$
    – Florian F
    Commented Oct 18, 2023 at 10:57
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The king was killed

through the pipes. Similar to how one can feed a plumbing snake or a borescope through a system of pipes, the assassin uses a nearby bathroom, and feeds a specially designed, remotely-operated weapon through the pipes until it emerges in the king's bathroom, at which point it is triggered and retracted. It's basically a borescope with a gun attached to the end.

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The assassin put the rather small magnetic bullet in the kings meal and used some kind of magnet when the king is in the bathroom, which is reinforced with steel walls several feet thick.

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    $\begingroup$ or maybe the bullet itself was magnetic? $\endgroup$
    – codingStarter
    Commented Oct 18, 2023 at 11:36
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I can hazard a guess, no guarantee it is correct.

The sink was used as a chamber for the bullet.

My first thought was that the shot was in the chest, and the assassin would need a location the King would be in a predictable location and a predictable trigger. This narrowed it down to Sink and Toilet for me. Toilet feels less likely to have a predictable alignment with the chest. The sink honestly seems a little low but I ain't an interior designer. So with the turning of the faucet as a trigger, we could have an event which will correlate highly with a body position (facing the sink). I don't know the shape of the faucet, but one could imagine many shapes that are not necessarily straight downwards. Assassin goes in stuffs gunpowder behind a bullet in the faucet, attaches some kind of sensor to an igniter in the faucet. It could even be a string of some kind that would burn up and not leave an obvious "weapon".

I ruled out things like a pump soap dispenser as that is more likely to be at a non lethal angle where as the faucet has a much more fixed angle. Also it could be bar soap for all we know.

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