7
$\begingroup$

This is Part 6 of the Murder of the President brainteaser/riddle series. If you have not already, check out the answers for

Each part will give you a clue and you must solve it. This part will have several clues. Use all knowledge you have of cryptography, ciphers, past puzzles, etc. You should also use Google. This case is meant to take place in the present day, so all politicians, celebrities, places, etc. are who they are now. Please post your answers in spoiler tags.

Here's the riddle:

You get to the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia at 4:31 a.m. You immediately get a key for room 109 and you head to the room. You open the door and look around. You check in the bathroom and see a horrible sight. Two unconscious men are hanging upside down. One has blonde hair and the other has black hair. You check their pulses and feel that they are both still alive. On the mirror you see a sticky note.

It reads:

One of us is Foul

The other one Is puRe

But to decode some silly meSsages

You must firsT find the towel

Pcihre +1

You look around and find a towel hanging above the toilet. You take it down and open it up. Two notes fall out.

The first one says:

Blam! The president is dead

Lost was he in the head

Over the years I hated him

Now my life is very dim

Dzwgwosdvk is coded name

Even though you must decode it one time more

The other one says:

Blam! The president is dead

Lost was he in the head

Always thinking must you be

Catching me will be tricky

Klbmsvwvm is what you must decode, using the hint that you were first told

Which man do you arrest? Why?

Good Luck

Hint #1

Look for the different letters in the riddle

Hint #2

The first cipher was 7

Hint #3

The new cipher is Romans 8 (or -6), but there is a second encryption

Hint #4

The second decoding you must use is an anagram

Note: This is the final part. Hope you all enjoyed the series

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
3
  • 6
    $\begingroup$ First you cut them both down and call an ambulance. Then arrest them both and have them questioned separately, telling each that I figured out the clues and know everything about them, and it will go easier if they just make a confession. $\endgroup$
    – PopularIsn'tRight
    Commented Dec 16, 2014 at 5:41
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Pcihre -> cipher $\endgroup$
    – Sathish
    Commented Dec 22, 2014 at 11:19
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ This was a very nice series - thanks for the joy of puzzle solving! $\endgroup$
    – el jefe
    Commented Dec 31, 2014 at 5:51

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
5
$\begingroup$

I would arrest the

blonde man

because running

Dzwgwosdvk

through a Caesar cipher +8 reveals that his coded name is

Lheoewalds

which is an anagram of

presidential assassin "Lee H. Oswald"

while for the other guy,

his coded name is "Stjuadedu", which is an anagram of "Just A Dude"

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
1
  • $\begingroup$ Finally! You got it right! Congratulations! $\endgroup$
    – michaelpri
    Commented Dec 31, 2014 at 5:50
4
$\begingroup$

Here's the progress I made so far:

Blam! could be a reference to this: Blam!

'Blam!' is the tenth track on the CD. There's another track called 'CD Is Dead' which has a length of 2:26. That's a time mentioned in Part 5. It is the 5th track.

Klbmsvwvm decodes with cipher +1 to CDTEKNONE

CDTEKNONE decodes with 'CD is Dead' to 'istejmnme'. This could be an anagram for 'Jim sent me'. This note's 2nd and 3rd line rhyme with 'me'. Other note's 2nd and 3rd line rhyme with 'Jim'.

(The passphrase for Dzwgwosdvk could be 'CD Is Dead', which gives Bwootksath.

This could be an anagram for: 'two ask both', which is the sane thing to do as Bachrach44 mentioned, because we don't really know if the notes are telling the truth - even if we do decode them).

Update: edited to add clues.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
3
  • $\begingroup$ And there's a tag 'anagrams' too ... I think this is it! +1. $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Commented Dec 24, 2014 at 19:14
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ The blam! is irrelevant $\endgroup$
    – michaelpri
    Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 16:24
  • $\begingroup$ That means that the only relevant part of this answer is "Klbmsvwvm decodes with cipher +1 to CDTEKNONE" $\endgroup$
    – twasbrillig
    Commented Dec 26, 2014 at 1:27
3
+50
$\begingroup$

Here's the progress I've made so far; maybe someone else can add to it.

The riddle contains five capital letters not at the start of lines; these spell out the word FIRST. Also 'Pcihre' is an anagram of cipher (thanks @Sathish).

Reading the first letter of each line of the two notes shows us which one refers to which man (they spell out BLONDE and BLACK).

I've tried deciphering Dzwgwosdvk and Klbmsvwvm using Vigenere ciphers with all sorts of different keys (Pcihre, Qdjisf, FIRST, EWR Southwest A ["the hint that you were first told"], etc.). I'm also tried all Caesar shifts, even though I thought that'd probably be too easy. So far, no joy.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
2
  • $\begingroup$ I'm thinking more in the line of a caesar shift 20 (First cipher was 19 + 1 = 20, or -7 +1 =-6 which equates to the same thing) And then maybe shifting the letters to form a word? Because of the Pcihre hint. $\endgroup$
    – Lyrion
    Commented Dec 23, 2014 at 15:05
  • $\begingroup$ You are correct about the cipher anagram and the BLONDE and BLACK signaling each man. Good luck with the rest. $\endgroup$
    – michaelpri
    Commented Dec 23, 2014 at 18:09

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.