"Laura Bow 1: The Colonel's Bequest" - Part 2 Quiz

Answer: Pants

More Sierra cruelty probably designed to sell hint books. You are supposed to find a key hidden in a toy cannon in the Colonel's room. There's no in-game hint for that which is already frustrating. But then you are supposed to figure out what that key unlocks. That is not even remotely obvious. As if that wasn't bad enough, then you have to type in exactly the correct command to use it properly; you can't just type in things that mean the same thing as the intended command. Sometimes you even have to leave the room and come back for the elevator to be there. If you managed to figure all that out on your own, you are a genius.

Once you get into the attic, you can learn some interesting information about the colonel. In the game he just seems like a selfish jerk and a dishonest man. In the attic, you learn that the colonel was a war hero. The first time you go there, you see his army clothes. The second time you go to the attic, his cape, hat, and boots go missing. This is important information if you want the perfect score.

Answer: Weapons

Laura catches Lillian examining the colonel's rifle collection. Lillian says "Oh hi Laura, you startled me." Something tells me Lillian isn't the only one who is startled.

Answer: Ethel

Throughout the game you can see this a couple times. I like seeing this, because there is a theme song that plays whenever drunk Ethel is on the screen. Despite being drunk, Ethel is the first person besides Laura to notice that something is askew. The sober people do not catch on until later. You can tell them about the murders all you want, but no one will ever believe you.

Answer: Ethel

Poor Ethel! She had been living in misery since her husband died 12 years ago and now this happens.

Her body can be found in one of two places. You can find her in the rose garden or the barn.

Answer: Rolling pin

In another non-obvious Sierra puzzle, you are supposed to wander around the estate to the southwest portion of the estate, where there is not much but swampy water. You are supposed to find a rolling pin there. There is blood near the rolling pin, so you know that it was the blunt object used to kill Ethel.

There is also a boot print with the insignia of an eagle near the rolling pin, so you know that either the murderer was the colonel, or the murderer stole the colonel's clothes.

Answer: Jeeves

Fifi and Jeeves can be seen kissing in act 5 and Jeeves can be seen patting Fifi's bottom. They can be spied on exchanging word of love to each other. Laura can also spy on both of them individually in their respective rooms, half naked, getting ready for a date with each other. Unfortunately, the date ends badly for both of them.

Answer: Basement

When you feed a cracker to Polly the parrot in act 7, he says "Sleep tight my pretties... AWK!... in the basement... AWK!" That's probably the most useful piece of information you learn from Polly (most of the other information you learn from that parrot are red herrings). Throughout the game, if you've been snooping around properly and if you've met with Celie and her shack, you can find a secret passage to the basement in the hedge garden.

In the basement, you find all the dead bodies. next to the laundry chute. Laura is shocked to see this (who wouldn't be?). So, the reason the bodies kept disappearing is the killer kept dumping them down the laundry chute, which is why nobody believed Laura when she told them about the murders.

Answer: Doctor's bag

Dr. Wilbur C. Feels' bag had been missing since act two. Rudy is found searching for it in Laura's and Lillian's room.

He couldn't have been searching for the gun, because that would contradict other things that happen in act 8.

Answer: Lillian

The murderer in "The Colonel's Bequest" is none other than Laura Bow's best friend, Lillian, who invited her to this little party in the first place. Likely unknown to Laura, Lillian was always so crazy that they put her in an asylum. Lillian was like this because she never really had any parents. Her father committed suicide when she was eight, and then her mother descended into severe alcoholism. She had always turned to her uncle, the colonel, for some parental love. To Lillian, the colonel was like a father. Lillian felt that she receive the parental love from the colonel that she didn't receive from her birth parents. However, in recent years, as Lillian got older and became an adult, the colonel paid less and less attention to her. This made her even crazier. She decided that she was going to murder everybody who she thought had gotten between her and the colonel. In act five, Laura witnesses a conversation between Lillian and the colonel. Lillian cries to the colonel asking why he doesn't pay attention to her anymore. She tells him that she thought he cared about her more than everybody else and that he was like a father to her. The colonel tells Lillian the truth, albeit in a mean way. He says he was only trying to help her sister (Lillian's mother Ethel) raise her child. Lillian does not want to believe this and storms out of the room extremely upset. Of course, the colonel telling her that she was Ethel's "insecure, whiny kid" probably didn't help much, but I don't believe Lillian would have taken it very well even if the Colonel had used nicer words.

There are hints throughout the game that Lillian is the killer, but act 7 is when it becomes obvious. A couple things happen in act 7. First, our previous main suspect, Clarence, gets murdered. Secondly, we find Lillian's diary in which she angrily writes that everybody has come between her and the colonel and she says "Diary, you know they have to go." Thirdly, we find Lillian in a children's playhouse reading to dolls throughout the game. In act seven, there is a chalkboard in that house with seven tally marks on it, and there have been seven murders at that point. Coincidence?

In act 8, Lillian is dead, which makes Laura believe that maybe she wasn't the murderer after all. But then Laura notices that Lillian is wearing the colonel's clothes which were missing from the attic. Laura examines the bottom of the boots that Lillian is wearing and finds that they perfectly match the boot print found near the murder weapon that was used on Ethel (they have an eagle insignia). Laura then realizes that Lillian was indeed the killer, but then either there is more than one killer or somebody stopped her.

Answer: Rudy

After finding Lillian's body and the objects on or near her, Laura goes back into the house, where she hears scuffling in the attic. Using the skeleton key that she took from Lillian, Laura unlocks the attic door and witnesses a fight between Rudy and the Colonel. From her point of view, it is impossible to tell who the aggressor is, so she must make an educated guess. If you have been observant, you will know that Rudy is a violent man. He aggressively grabbed Fifi twice and he punched out Clarence. The colonel hasn't been seen attacking anyone. We also know that Rudy is deep in gambling debt and needs the colonel's money. The colonel has no motive for killing Rudy. Laura also notices a needle. She remembers that Rudy was searching for something in her room. She concludes that he must have been searching for the doctor's bag so he could stick the colonel with a needle. Granted the bag is found in the colonel's room, so one could see that as evidence against the colonel, but that would be wrong.

Laura should have the gun and a bullet that she took from Lillian's dead body. With that, she gets one choice. If she shoots Rudy, you get the good ending, where the Colonel tells you what happened. Rudy gets arrested (he survives the gunshot) and the colonel decides to bequeath all his money to Celie, his faithful servant and one of the few survivors. If you found the gems in the Crouton tomb, the colonel lets Laura keep all of them as a reward for saving his life.

If you shoot the colonel or let Rudy kill the colonel, he will tell you that the colonel lured everybody here so he could kill them all. If you have been snooping around properly, you know that is not true. So an innocent man will be blamed for crimes he didn't commit and unjustly killed.