'Entwickler and the Mince Pie Murder'
A Panzerfäuste Gamebook by Luke Passingham
Paragraph 29
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29.
With a flourish, you present your case.
The number four rubber ball was concealed within the panda: adult red pandas are four to five feet in length. What else is four to five feet in length? The case that enclosed the solid gold, diamond dusted mince pie that only two days ago went missing from the Pie logistics centre. Timm had worked there and knew about the Pie: he wanted to tip off his old comrade Felix Navidad that the theft was a success, but without alerting ‘Silent’ Dwight that it was he that was involved.
The snowman found on ‘Ginger’ Breadd had a number on the back - the number 12. The Snowman ‘Walking in the Air’ 12 inch record was released in 1987 - add those numbers together to get 25, which is the cell block Vic Timm and ‘Ginger Breadd’ were incarcerated in together. Timm and Bread therefore must clearly have worked together to steal the golden pie. 25 is also the number of bear pens in the Panzer Bear enclosure. We can guess Timm, or Breadd, entered the pie logistics HQ hidden inside a consignment of luxury mincemeat, and we can probably assume they, or the golden pie, left via that same consignment - which would have taken them to the temporary pie assembly line there.
Finally, Timm was found with a lump of stollen that was thirteen days out of date. Thirteen is an unlucky number, so this likely is a clue to whatever caused his death as death is generally the unluckiest thing that can happen to you. The stollen was found where we are manufacturing mince pies, but what’s in stollen but not mince pies? Marzipan. The word marzipan has eight letters in it as does the word murderer - it seems obvious therefore that the murderers name also has eight letters in it.
Therefore, to your brilliant mind, it seems obvious: Timm, and his accomplice ‘Ginger’ Breadd, worked together to steal the pie. They hid it in the luxury mincemeat bound for the pie assembly line. Timm returned there tonight, where he met with the third member of the gang who, after sharing some stollen, bashed his head in, probably with a giant mince pie spoon or something like that, that bit isn’t important, and made off with the loot.
“That’s the biggest collection of totally bonkers mental leaps I’ve ever heard” Oberst Hauptling says doubtfully. “Where is this all leading?”
You nod your assent. In truth, you expected Hauptling to say that… because who has eight letters in his name, would have known both Breadd and Timm, was seen in the Mince Pie factory after dark, and also is eating some stollen right now?