As I promised here it comes! A new sleuth game for you to solve! I give you a story and you should give me the complete and undeniable explanation of the mystery. No speculations ;) I strongly recommend checking out previous mysteries:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/solve_a_mystery_and_win_a_game
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_case_of_an_unfinished_will_contest/page1
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_case_of_a_mysterious_boot_win_a_game_contest/page1
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_case_of_the_keg_giveaway
EDIT: We have a great prize for this game after all! Thanks to Momo1991 and lugum generosity the winners will choose either Steam or Desura version of the four Blackwell games! Yeah, there are two copies of the game now!

The Case of the Razor

It was the strangest sanatorium you have ever seen and yet it was very popular among the rich and eccentric people. The idea was simple: in their advertisement they claimed that most of illnesses are due to the electronic devices and the magnetic radiation they emit and therefore they were banned in the sanatorium. No cell phone, no laptop, not even a watch. Absolutely nothing electronic. In exchange you get a full care, including servants, cooks, masseurs and even a personal barber because nobody expect that any guest can shave himself with an old fashioned razor. And that's how it all began - around the noon Anna and Peter Anderson were found dead in their room. Somebody used a razor and slit their throats! You were called to investigate. At the beginning you gathered a few facts:
- Anna and Peter were killed around midnight. There were no signs of struggle in their room and the razor was not found.
- Victims were very rich but were often accused of doing their business illegally, including arms trafficking. Nothing was proved though.
- The murderer is one of the other guests because servants sleeps in a different building and all of them have credible alibi.
- There were four other guests: colonel Chris Cooper, retired. Allison Hayes, former journalist. Scott Kane, a doctor and Dennis McCrary, biologist.
- Barber claimed that one of his razors disappeared a few days ago. He thought he had lost it but now he thinks that somebody stole it.
- Colonel requested and got his own razor because he can shave himself. He still has this razor although it's not possible to determine whether this one was used to kill Andersons.
- Allison Hayes, when she was still a journalist, wrote a few unfavorable articles about Andersons. Two years ago she became very rich and stopped working at all. She claims she won a lottery but you couldn't prove it yet.
- Scott Kane brought a lot of different medicines with him although it was forbidden.
- Dennis McCrary acquired a lot of found for his research recently and worked so hard that finally had to come to the sanatorium to get some rest.
- Nobody broke the anti-electronics rule (that is nobody has any electronic device with them, not even secretly)

And then you got a few testimonies:

colonel Chris Cooper: All I can say is that they got what they deserved. There are rules! And yet they broke every single one of them! You can't live like that! Doing whatever you like! You can't! And if you do sooner or later you will meet somebody else who thinks alike! And Andersons just did! Look at those other guests! Happy-go-lucky doctor who is in fact a pill taker, cranky hippie girl who talks about tranquility and balance and yet a simple noise drives her crazy. And on top of that a mad scientist who would sell his own mother just to rise more money for his dangerous research. It should have been banned long ago! Anyway, with all those people a disaster was inevitable! Yes, I'm well aware that everybody will accuse me because I have my own razor. It's nonsense! Believe me, I can think about hundreds ways of killing people, using a razor and risking blood stains would be very stupid!

Allison Hayes: Oh, how will I regain my tranquility now? It was so quite here one month ago... you see, I live here for half a year already, completely without electronics. It was so peaceful here, so perfect... sure, there were other visitors all the time but they were nice and calm people! Only the recent guests were terrible! I require twelve hours of sleep! From eight till eight, it's the best time to regain your power! But they were constantly waking me up! The doctor is absent-minded and has no idea how to wind up his alarm clock so sometimes it rang at 3 AM! Terrible! This dreadful soldier quarreled a lot with Andersons! He threatened them, I've heard him shouting that they and their foul stench shall be removed! Yes, I know that I used to write articles about them but that part of my life is finished! I care not about such a trivialities like trade and fraud anymore. Oh! I definitely care not about biology! And yet McCrary were constantly asking me to back his research. He can be really pushy! Oh, right! Let's cut to the chase! This night seemed to be perfect! Imagine! Nothing disturbed me! Perfect silence from eight till eight! I felt rested so I decided to meditate. It was not as good as the night because around eleven I got interrupted - McCrary's alarm clock rang and he didn't switch it off! I stormed into his room and he was just lying on his bed! I thought he was dead! I could barely wake him up! And shortly after that I've heard a lot of screams and it turned out that Andersons were brutally murdered! Oh, how am I going to regain my balance now?!

Scott Kane: What's the problem with those medicines that I have? Well, duh! I'm a doctor and I always have some pills with me. Yeah, I know they believe that medicines are almost as harmful as electronics and they banned them but hey, who's an expert here? I tend to agree about the electronics but I don't care about this medicine regulation. And other guests agree with me. I'm here for two months and a lot of people asked me for painkillers, cough syrups and stuff like that. And if you want to know my personal opinion it was the prohibition of medicines that led to murder! Look at this soldier guy! He is a maniac! Mental case! Talking about rules and structure of the world all the time. I've seen cases like that. He cannot control himself. He even asked me once about some medicine, a really strong psychotropic stuff. He knew he was on the edge, he needed his pill but couldn't get one so he went nuts and killed Andersons. They can be very nasty, nobody knows it better than me! Well, I won't try to hide it - I used to work for them but got fired. They were ruthless. Generous as well, true, but I value my mental balance than... gah! Balance! I'm turning into Allison! Oh, yeah! She is a mental case too!

Dennis McCrary: I knew I shouldn't have come here! I knew it! But on the other hand... well, I had to rest you know. Working in the lab, gathering funds... I was really on the edge, I had to chill down a bit. So I came here and this place made it even worse. Can you believe how susceptible I became? At the beginning I believed in this anti-electronics crap. Then I was lectured by the military guy about structure, discipline and rules. And guess what? I started exercise regularly, being punctual and generally organized. And then the doctor approached me and tried to convince me to join our forces. He believes that humanity needs artificial enchantments and got a really nice idea to invent a power pill. You know, you take one and you can work for hours without a rest. Pretty good stuff. Too bad that the doctor cannot afford it. He doesn't have access to any lab so he wanted to use mine. Well, I admit it certainly sounds interesting but I have a deadline with my own research so I couldn't help him. And then I've heard Allison talking about the balance and from eight till eight crap. "What the heck" I thought "I will try it!". But falling asleep at eight? Forget about it! And so I realized that I needed some artificial enchantment for that. I got a sleeping pill from the doctor and took it during the supper. Man, this stuff was strong. I was barely able to get back to my room! And I slept for... what was it? Fifteen hours? This crazy girl had to wake me up! She poured a bucket of water on my face! Not a perfect way to start your day. And of course I botched up my training...

The question is obvious... who is the murderer and how can you prove it?

Read again ;) This time it's just a game, just for fun. No prize this time - I'm unemployed and cannot afford it.

Oops! Corrected. Thanks for the heads-up, Ghorpm!

Hope your situation will improve soon, mate!

I have a modus operandi, and a main suspect. And two contradictions (and some fishy background contradiction making me wary of one character in particular). But still, there is room for arguing word-against-word. No specific mobile, and no formal technical proof I think.

Will eat and digest on that.

(these are always my favorite gogforum threads)

I agree ;) I like creating those games as well ;)

I was on this... but I got distracted... ;p

baaack to it.

Great! I favourited this thread and will read it (and solve it) later.

Nice puzzle! I'm going to say that Dennis McCrary did it. If he had genuinely knocked himself out with the sleeping tablets and overslept that night, why would he ever have set his alarm for 11am? He should have set it for 8am. Of course the alarm could be a lie from Allison but Dennis does inadvertently collaborate her story here - he claims he was drugged asleep for 15 hours, conveniently all through the murder, and that 15 hours takes him exactly to 11am. That seems to show she is truthful about the time she woke him - something must have drawn her attention at that time to make her enter his room and discover him near unconsciously asleep, and an alarm is a good reason (that is unless she was in on the murder with him, but I think they'd concoct an alibi for both of them if that was the case - and she has none).

If Dennis is the murderer and that alarm did go off then two possibilities present themselves as to why. One is that he might've intended to set it for 11pm, shortly before he'd planned to commit the murder, as the start of a timetable of action for his plans - although that's risky as it might've disturbed others. A more likely possibility is that he deliberately set it for 11am to ensure that someone would come in and find him deeply asleep in order to give him a seemingly good alibi. He either pretended to be drugged, or else he genuinely was at that point because he took the tablets only after committing the murder and returning to his room - a 12 hour sleeping tablet should then mean he's deeply asleep at 11am, or at least more easily able to fake that convincingly.

I like it. I got as far as "Why was Dennis' alarm set for 11am?" but my only further thoughts were "Did Kane mess with it?" and "Dennis didn't have the ability to set it himself as he barely got back to his room."

I have a couple of general questions/notes I'm wondering about:

Allison complains of noisy recent guests, and claims that it was quiet a month ago, but Kane (the fella whose alarm rings at 3am) has been here two months.

Cooper complains that the victims broke every rule, but they didn't break the electronics rule. (Whatever.)

For Kane's alarm clock to ring at 3am, he'd have to fail to wind it, and then wind it without resetting the time properly. Allison says Kane "has no idea how to wind his alarm clock". I suppose she could take wind to mean operate.

Nothing too exciting, just inconsistencies I'd been mulling over.

My theory is that McCrary only asked for a sleeping pill to have an alibi. He did not take the pill and did not sleep for 15 hours, otherwise the alarm clock would have gone off twice during his sleep (unless it's a super-rare 24-hour alarm clock).

I posit that it was the doctor, Scott Kane. The couple were murdered some time around midnight. However, if I am reading this right, their bodies were not discovered until twelve hours later and there were no signs of a struggle. Sleeping victims. Who has the ability to ensure that victims would stay asleep? You, Dr. Kane! After all, as you asked, who indeed is the expert here? And who could ensure that the colonel and McCrary were slumbering, as well? No need to dose, Ms. Hayes. Her routine was a matter of course. And if she did wake up accidentally....well....no one would hear her being dispatched, as well.

The lack of blood evidence to be found points to someone versed in anatomy.....Dr. Kane. Someone who could make a steady, clean incision at just the right point. An expert, so to speak.

Ladies...gentlemen....perform toxicology tests on the Andersons and dust the colonel's razor for prints. I believe the colonel's are not the only prints you willl find.

I think it was Kane. He outright admits that he knew the victims and had been fired He also referred to them as "ruthless" and "very nasty" so he could be holding a grudge. Unless the whole being fired part is a lie, because from the sound of it the Andersons line of work was one where getting fired generally coincides with a 6 feet under unemployment plan. Perhaps he was on the run from them, the drugs he has being stolen from part of their business. Either way he'd have a motive of revenge or fear.

As for how... McCrary said he barely made it back to his room before falling asleep, Kane could have easily gone into his room and tampered with his alarm since it took a bucket of water from Allison to wake him. That would also explain why his alarm was set for 11 instead of 8, Kane didn't know he wanted the pill to try and follow Allison's routine and set it for the wrong time. Allison was very vocal about when she slept, so he knew she'd be sound asleep at midnight. That just leaves the Colonel, who Kane also said requested pills. He could have lied about not giving the man any, but instead of psychotropics given him sleeping tablets. Kane also accused the Colonel, which could suggest that he'd taken the Colonel's razor while he was asleep (swapping any sleeping pills given to the man with psychotopics or placebos to cover his tracks if he needed to), used it to kill the Andersons, then cleaned and returned it hoping to use him as a scapegoat.

Your attention please!

We have a great prize for this game after all! Thanks to Momo1991 and logum generosity the winners will choose either Steam or Desura version of the four Blackwell games! The second game will be given to a person who was very close to solve the mystery!

I will check your answers soon, now I only have a few minutes so I just wanted to announce the prize!

Ooh I reall like this theory. It's not mine, but it really is quite believable and I could imagine it breing the solution. Just one question : why did the doc temper with McCrary's alarm ?

Here is the theory I had submitted yesterday by PM. It's less original and quite a few posters have followed the same leads. Also : not in, as I already have the blackwell games (they are awesome).