Cases / Case 4 / What to ask

What to ask on Case 4

Victor is the first suspect who does not lie outright — he tells you true things that happen to be useless. That changes how you spend ten questions, so here is a plan built around what he actually does.

Refuse these three, whatever he does

Each one is Victor handing you somebody else to investigate. Follow any of them and he has spent your question for you.

• The catering company handled all the beverages — he will suggest you audit them.
• A disgruntled former employee could have planted the poison.
• He was writing quarterly reports down the hall.

The ten questions

1. Q1–2

   Get his account of the whole day

   Not the meeting, the day. Where he was, what he was doing, who he saw. He will place himself in his own office writing quarterly reports, and that is fine — you now have a claim about his location that he has to keep consistent.

2. Q3

   Get the office visit on the record in his words

   He admits entering the executive's office to pick up documents and leaving immediately. Ask him to describe that trip: when, how long, what he took. This is the only part of his story where he puts himself at the scene, and he volunteered it.

3. Q4–5

   Make the errand specific

   Which documents. Where they were. Whether anyone saw him. A supervisor collecting paperwork should be able to answer all three without effort — and every specific he commits to is something that can later fail to line up.

4. Q6–7

   Put an object in the room, not a drink

   The coffee is his strongest ground and he will not budge on it. Players report more movement from the poison itself — that he was seen with it in the office and that it did not leave with him. An object he has to account for beats a drink he can simply deny touching.

5. Q8

   Name the gap out loud

   He insists he never touched the coffee while placing himself inside the office on an errand he is now vague about. Say both back to him in one sentence. This is the contradiction the whole case rests on.

6. Q9–10

   Go at the motive

   In the run we transcribed he leaks it without being cornered — that the victim was going to take everything from him after his loyalty to the company. If that surfaces, it is the thread to pull, not another round on the coffee.

What other players report trying — including the tactic most often described as working — is on Case 4 answers. Victor’s full deflection list and how he behaves under pressure are on his suspect page.