Inspector Amar was out for a drive on a lonely country road. He saw the police car and the sign for the labyrinth maze at almost the same moment. “A labyrinth puzzle plus a crime,” he chuckled, stepping on the brakes. “How lovely.” He switched on his turn signal and pulled off into the parking lot.
The roadside attraction, “Sultan’s Maze,” consisted of a ticket booth, a small, shabby office and the maze itself, a seven-foot-high square of ill-kept hedges. Curious motorists were lured into paying three dollars apiece to get lost in the confusing pathways inside the hedges.
Inspector Amar bypassed the empty ticket booth and wandered up a gravel path and into the maze itself. Two right turns brought him to a dead end – a dead end complete with a corpse. A highway patrolman was standing over the corpse of a casually dressed man, a knife struck between his ribs. Three men and a woman were facing the officer.
“My husband Danial and I came into the maze and split up just for fun,” Alena, the wife of the victim, said between sobs. “After several minutes of wandering, I wound up outside at another entrance. I was going to try again. I called Danial to see how he was doing. That’s when I heard it – some scuffling – like a flight. Then Danial screamed.”
“I heard the scream, too,” said the tallest man. “I was on a bench at the center of the maze. I didn’t hear any scuffling, probably because the fountain there drowned it out. I’m Hamdi. I hurried out of the maze and found Alena. The two of us went back in and discovered the body together.”
“I’m Hanafi, the owner,” said a short, disheveled man. “These people were the only three customers in there. After taking Danial and Alena’s money at the ticket booth, I went into the office. Shahrulnizam, my electrician, was rewiring the system. I switched off the main fuse box for him. Then I walked around picking up trash. Shahrulnizam was still working when I heard a man’s scream.”
Shahrulnizam, the electrician, was the last to speak. “What Mr. Hanafi said is true. I was in a crawl space under the office the whole time, doing the wiring. I didn’t see anything or hear anyone until the scream.”
The officer bent down to examine the body. “No wallet. Maybe it was a botched robbery. But we’ll have to wait for the experts.”
“I’m an expert,” came a voice from behind. They turned around to find a short, owlish man. The officer did not recognize Inspector Amar due to him in civilian attire. Showing everyone his police badge, he said, “Inspector Amar, at your service. The solution is elementary, if you’d care to listen.”
WHO KILLED DANIAL?
HOW DID INSPECTOR AMAR DEDUCE THE TRUTH?
The audience of five squirmed in the narrow corner of the hedge until they were all facing the police officer. “Two of your stories agree on one point. The electricity was turned off – from shortly after Danial and Alena’s arrival until after the murder. Since the fountain in the center of the maze works by electricity, it couldn’t have been running at the time of the murder, as Hamdi testified. Of course, Hamdi didn’t know the fountain was off, because he was somewhere else at the time – robbing and killing Danial, I presume.”
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