A. 鉛管　B. 小刀　C. 燭台　D. 縄　E. レンチ　F. 連発拳銃

Now that we have all gathered again in the Accusing Parlor, it is time for me to produce a startling series of revelations that will, with any luck, lead to a veritable storm of fainting and monocle dropping.

I aim my first J’accuse! at A Fan, for attempting to distract people from the matter at hand with unrelated information.  I do not recall mentioning a game called “Clue,” or even one called “Cluedo,” and I certainly did not reference any viridian clergymen.  I must also accuse him of being a less-than-stellar plumber, as he seems to think that the best tool to use is B, the knife.  Still, he’s probably better than the maintenance people in my building, who have chosen to address the problem of my leaky sink by wielding the twin guns of apathy and indifference.

Dragon is a little bit further along the road to master plumberdom, but she still has a long way to go, for while she seems to have correctly identified that the wrench and the pipe are key items to be concerned with, she cannot tell the difference between them.  She spotted E as the non-kanji outsider in this week’s lineup, but she called it the lead pipe when it is clearly the wrench.  Or, to humor A Fan, we can also refer to it as the スパナ (supana).  Dragon raises a good point, however: why would a language develop characters specifically designed to represent a lead pipe?  I mean, it’s not like pipes were made out of lead for centuries, nor is it even remotely true that lead’s atomic symbol Pb derives from the Latin word plumbum, also the source of the word “plumber.”  I mean, maybe if you had two characters, one that meant “lead” and another that meant “pipe,” but . . . oh wait, there they are.  They’re at A.  A is the lead pipe.

Finally, we accuse Shirley of actually being right about something.  Her “weapon of choice,” the revolver, is indeed found at F.  Her other shots were a little bit more off the mark, but hey, that’s why a revolver has six chambers.  We already know that A is not the candlestick, which is in fact found at C.  And while she correctly spotted that E is not written in kanji, it is katakana rather than hiragana.  To compare, the same sequence of sounds (renchi) would look like this in hiragana: れんち.  But if you wrote it in hiragana, it wouldn’t mean wrench.  Funny how that works.

But, unfortunately for you all, the crime was actually committed with D, the rope, by 紅さん in the 廊下.  Better luck next time.

Now that A Fan has insisted on introducing the theme of board games, I see no reason not to stick with it.  This week’s challenge concerns transportation: what is the best means by which to travel around a board?  Riding a horse is a popular traditional choice, but why not strike fear into your opponents cruising around on a Howitzer?  If money is a concern, you can always go with the beat-up old shoe or the thimble, and if you want to travel in style, don’t forget your top hat or your iron (to keep your tux wrinkle-free).  Note that this challenge features not one but two non-kanji entries!  That’s right: the title of this game is growing more meaningless by the week!

A. アイロン　B. 靴　C. 乗馬者　D. シルクハット　E. 指貫　F. 榴弾砲