MiniChuchan is very close to the truth. But, due to the lack of popularity, I shall close this case for now with the truth to this mystery and let any willing individual take on hosting another mystery in continuing this little game of sleuth.
According to Sager Paten, a resident of his apartment building was behaving strangely night after night and he wanted it investigated. So, he commissioned the detective club of his school. However, the apartment building had been completely burned down in a fire.
In his diary, which escaped unburnt, Sager had assigned the nicknames “red guy,” “white guy” and “yellow guy” to the three residents. He wrote that the one behaving suspiciously was the yellow guy. And it seems like the one who set fire to the apartment building was also the yellow guy.
Doyle: Yeah, this is what’s written in the diary. “The weather has been bad this morning. I’ll have to get up early or I’ll miss school, but I bet the red guy can sleep in late.” That must mean that the red guy does something every morning, but since it was raining that morning, it wasn’t necessary to do that something. What do you think it could have been?
Mitch: Maybe taking out the laundry to dry?
Jack: PE would be canceled in the rain!
Alane: Adults don’t have PE.
Harley: Watering. Watering the flowers.
Alane: Ah, that’s right!
Doyle: Yeah. So, the “red guy” is the one who gives the plants at the apartment building water every day. Therefore, it’s Mr. Aster.
Inspector Aaron: But, kid, why is this young fellow called “red guy?”
Doyle: Remember, didn’t you find a lot of mini-cars outside Sager’s room? Sager definitely loves cars. If you think about cars and “red,” what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?
Jack/Alane/Mitch: Ah! A fire engine!
Inspector: I see, young Paten watched this young fellow sprinkling water from a hose, like a human fire engine. That’s why he gave him the nickname, “red guy.”
Mitch: If that’s the case, then “white guy” also refers to the color of a car, doesn’t it?
Jack: But there are a whole bunch of white cars.
Harley: An ambulance. The body of the vehicle is mostly white, so it would be perceived as a color of such by a child.
Jack/Mitch/Alane: That’s it!
Mitch: But, what does that mean? The “ambulance?”
Doyle: What does an ambulance do for you?
Jack: It transports injured people.
Alane: They give your medical care inside the vehicle.
Mitch: Ah, that’s it! Plasters! The white guy is the one who gets injured a lot and therefore always carries plasters. That must be Mr. Banner, right?
Inspector: Oh, yeah, the diary also says, “When I got back from school, I fell down in the entryway. I’m glad the white guy was just coming out.”
Ryan: Yeah, his knee was bleeding. I gave the boy one of the plasters I was carrying. That sort of thing has happened several times earlier, but… a dark-skinned guy like me is the “white guy,” eh?
Inspector: Then we’re left with the yellow guy.
Jack: Cabs are yellow.
Alane: But there are some white and green ones, too.
Inspector: What about construction vehicles…?
Doyle: Exactly. In short, it’s the person who has dirt under his fingernails. Mr Mckane, that means you are the yellow guy.
Gant: Wh-What are you saying? This dirt under my nails is from running around in the mountains playing a survival game.
Doyle: If I remember, you said that your clothes were ruined because they got stained by paint from a paint gun.
Gant: Uh, yeah.
Doyle: Where do you play those games normally?
Gant: Uh, well, since I don’t like to travel much, I would travel to the mountain near this building where a survival game station could be found located at.
Doyle: The Bloodhound Rifles?
Gant: Yeah…
Doyle: Don’tcha know? What they use for survival game are… air-soft guns that shoot BBs. Paint guns are used in a different game called “paint ball.”
Inspector: Ho.
Gant: shudders Th-Those are mostly the same thing, aren’t they?
Doyle: But paint guns use a water-soluble ink that comes out clean when you wash it.
Inspector: Ho, ho!
Gant: Ah, well…
Doyle: Moreover, Mr. Mckane, you said that your favorite color was the “navy green” used in camouflage clothing. But I think what’s usually used in camouflage clothes is a green called “olive drab.”
Inspector: Mr. Mckane, have you really played that whatever-it-was ball?
Gant: T-The thing is, I’m still just a beginner.
Doyle: Well, shouldn’t we just check around where the garden was in the apartment building?
Gant: shudders
Doyle: According to what Sager wrote, the yellow guy was doing something suspicious night after night. And if we add that Mr. Mckane is deceiving us by telling lies about the dirt in his fingernails… we might conclude that Mr. Mckane was digging in the garden at night to avoid being seen. He must have been burying something. Something important he didn’t want anyone else to see.
Gant: gasps
Doyle: And most likely that was… money you earned as a day trader, correct?
Gant: mutters
Inspector: What about it?!
Gant: sighs Two attache cases… With money I earned as a day trader, there’s roughly two million dollars.
Inspector: That much?! Why would you bury it in the garden?
Gant: So I wouldn’t have to pay the taxes. But last night, when I got back from the movies, the landlord questioned me insistently. I got irritated and pushed him away, but the landlord fell down the stairs. He wasn’t moving anymore, and I got real scared. And then, I figured, if I burned it all, just about everything would just be reset, and…
Inspector: grabs Gant by collar “Reset?!” Don’t you get it?! What you did was completely different from turning off the power because you lost a game! You turned the decades of memories created in this apartment into ash in a single night. You’re not allowed to just reset this! Your game of life isn’t over yet! You better be prepared to make up for this in full, including to young Sager and his father who you got mixed up in this.
Officer Armstrong: Inspector, I just got word from the hospital! They said the landlord’s operation was successful, and that Sager has regained consciousness.
Inspector: smiles Oh, is that so?
Jack/Alane/Mitch: Thank goodness! chuckles among each other
Inspector: Well, now you can rebuild this apartment building with the pile of cash you saved from that money game.
Gant: Yes…
And that’s it. The mystery is solved and this case is closed. Anyone else wanting to continue this game by hosting the next mystery, feel free to post here.