Doctor Black was dead – again – his motionless body lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the impressive staircase that spiralled up from the ornate hall of Tudor Mansion. Quite what he’d done this time to warrant being shot, stabbed or perhaps bludgeoned to death with a blunt instrument was anyone’s guess – as was the reason why all the usual suspects had once more been invited to his ancestral home given how they were all his serial killers!
But be that as it may, etiquette demanded that they once again gathered in the library to be questioned as to their whereabouts when the dastardly deed was done.
Miss Peacock strutted her way there from the conservatory – her perpetual melancholy only worsened by hearing the extraordinary tale of the doctor’s death from the sharp-tongued Colonel Mustard.
Miss Scarlett, whose sins it was said were as red as her name suggested, emerged from the dining room having repositioned the candlesticks that had seemed slightly out of place on the mantelpiece. She sneered at Mrs White when she saw her bustling along the corridor that led from the kitchen, endeavouring to maintain her pure as the driven snow image whilst concealing a length of rope under her apron.
And then came the Reverend Green, genuflecting and almost spilling his oat milk macchiato made from fair trade coffee beans over Professor Plum, whose violaceous proboscis was the result, no doubt, of too much fortified wine.
Once they had gathered, it was Miss Scarlett who spoke first.
‘If we’re all seated comfortably, shall we begin?’
‘Well, if we must,’ said Mrs White. ‘My money’s on Colonel Mustard, in the conservatory, with the revolver. After all, we all know how he loves firearms.’
The military man looked daggers at his accuser. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, woman,’ he countered in his typically jaundiced manner, ‘what are the chances that Black would have died in exactly the same fashion two weeks running?’
‘Well, as it happens, the likelihood is one chance in 324,’ answered the Professor, whose degree was in Mathematics and Applied Probability, ‘so not as unlikely as you might think.’
‘Never mind the probability of these things,’ said Miss Scarlett, ‘I’m bored of being constantly interrogated. Why don’t we just lay all our cards on the table and save ourselves a whole lot of time. Anyone else game?’
Everyone agreed but it soon became abundantly clear that each of them had a perfect alibi. Which rather threw a spanner in the works – or at least box – until Miss Peacock broke the ensuing silence by saying what everyone else had been thinking.
‘We could, I suppose, ask…artificial intelligence!’
And so it was that Professor Plum pulled out his phone, clicked on the app for Anthropic’s AI model and popped the question.
‘Hi Claude,’ he typed, ‘who killed Dr Black?’ To which the reply came, ‘Why me, of course! Haven’t you been following the news?’
There was a stunned silence broken only by the tap, tap, tap of the follow-up enquiry being entered.
‘Why?’
‘Well, you’ve got to start somewhere – and with 8.3 billion people to kill in the next ten years, I thought I’d better get cracking. And that’s why I used a piece of lead piping!’
After which, none of those in attendance ever asked a question of an AI chatbot again. Or, for that matter, anyone else!
Some musings 