A famous novelist was found dead at his writing desk, a suicide note typed on his vintage manual typewriter. Detective Sterling read the note: 'I can no longer bear the silence of this empty house.' Sterling looked at the mechanical typewriter, pressed the '1' key, and immediately arrested the victim's roommate for murder. Why?
Old manual typewriters don't have a '1' key; typists used the lowercase letter 'l'.
Vintage manual typewriters intentionally omitted the number '1' and the exclamation point to save space, requiring typists to use the lowercase letter 'l' and a period with an apostrophe. A note containing a typed '1' proved it was written on a modern computer keyboard, exposing a forged suicide note.
About this riddle
Detective riddles are tiny mysteries. Look for the detail in the story that does not fit; it is usually the clue that solves the case.
Difficulty: Hard. More like this: Detective riddles with answers or try Truth & Lie Island for a different kind of puzzle.
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