I : IV

"Let me begin. First of all, I did unlock the box, 20 years ago."

The owner began to tell how he had unearthed the boxes that was buried at the basement of the mansion.

Seeing how unique the design of the boxes were, he asked his grandfather that was still alive at the time.

The grandfather told the owner that the box was passed to him by his friends. Along with the boxes, a written instruction in a very old letter was given to my grandfather. It was an instruction on the rule to unlock the box.

His grandfather's friend also leave a message,

~~The box provide hint to the location of the real treasure. If you can decode what are the meaning of those stuff packed inside the boxes, it was said that the treasure will instantly be revealed.~~

It seems as the grandfather failed to unlock them, he had it kept buried at the basement of the mansion for 10 years and has entirely forgot its existence until after the owner himself found it.

"That being said, I did unlock them without disobeying the rule written on the note."

"After having unlocked them, what I saw the inside of the boxes back then was just strange and when I told my grandfather about it, even he didn't have no ideas as to what was it about."

As the owner finished talking about the past, once again, he thrust the challenge back to all of this european detectives to solve them.

"See for yourselves, decode what was the meaning behind them and....."

"You will be granted a treasure."

As the atmosphere swelling up the inside of the mansion, one of the crowd voiced out his opinion.

"But don't you think the whole thing about solving the code and securing the treasure was just a made up lie by your grandfather's friend?"

Mr. Lion : "If that were the case, I don't think there was a need for the friend to go so far as to create this complex build up boxes, you know? Even more so when this boxes aged no less than 30 years."

Mr. Watson: "That is true. It will be nonsensical to invent this kind of boxes 30 years back with no actual purposes in behind."

All 6 of the world renowned detective agreed that the promise about the treasure wasn't a lie. I realized that one of the detectives, Rudolph's father, only sit quietly at the corner and continued to watched the reaction of the crowd. But then again, who cares.

Mr. Dexter : "Well then, Mr. Owner? What's the delay? Go ahead and unlock them."

By heeding to Mr. Smith's direction, the owner inserted each key to each box respectively. And what luck, one of the key hit the right box.

And yet, the box stayed shut off. It seems all of the key need to be rightly inserted to all of the box before the box can be opened. And there was this 'click' sound, indicating that one of the two box with the wrong key inserted was unusable.

So by exchanging both of the keys inserted to the wrong box to its corresponding box, only a key left unable to be turned a complete 360 degree around. But at this second attempt, the 'click' sound wasn't heard.

At the final attempt, the only key left was simply inserted back once again to its box. As the third keys completed its turn around, the 'click' sound was heard once again.

All of a sudden, a melody of song was played from the mechanism inside while the box slowly opened, one by one, from the far right to the middle, and to the left.

The melody ended as all of the box opened completely.

I took a glance to see the inside of all three boxes and found that the boxes were stuffed with a bunch of toys. There are exactly 11 toys being stuffed inside.

01. The Apple
02. The Bridge
03. The Doll
04. The Orange
05. The Rain
06. The Sky
07. The Umbrella
08. The Trumpet
09. The Tree
10. The Cane
11. The Light

What enticed me was not only the toys stuffed inside, but also the peculiar song played as the box slowly opened in front of all of the gathering.

The owner, knowing there was nothing more to tell,

Mr. Owner : "Solve it."

The crowd got surprised and impulsively yelled, "What the heck?"

Adam Holmes who silently watched the crowd, for the first time in the entire course of event, spoke,

Adam Holmes : "Was the riddle meant to ascertain the location of the treasure box?"

Mr. Owner : "Yes it does."

Adam Holmes : "Interesting."

Honestly, even I was taken aback by how the course of the story goes. I was speechless. I wanted to ask a question but I didn't know what was it.

The crowd began to discuss with each other on how to solve them. Seeing how frantic the crowd was, the owner spoke.

Mr. Owner : "For the night, please, help yourselves over the feast I have prepared. By tomorrow breakfast, I expect all of you to hand over your reasoning on a sheet of paper."

Just when the owner was about to leave the stage, he recalled on another thing to say.

Mr. Owner : "On another note, since this mansion cannot accommodate a single room for each of you 48 detectives, except for Mr. Clinton and Mr. Holmes, I have sorted out two person for a single room. Please check with the butler, Mr. Derry Koin, with whom your partner might be. While at it, Mr. Derry Koin will also give you your room key."

It seems my grandfather was quite reserved in the world of detectives. Over the dinner that was held at the dining hall of the mansion, there was not many who approached 'Mr. Benedict Kenny' to have a chat. Yet I have felt this kind of cold stare for a while now, guess someone realized it? Except for Mr. Abell Ferrell who noticed this disguise of mine, the crowd didn't take his word very seriously.

I met Mr. Derry Koin who was waiting for the guest to retrieve their room key at the gathering hall straight after having dinner to obtain my room key. From the guest list, Mr. Derry Koin told me that I will be using the room with a representative from Spain, an old man in his fifty.

I looked to the vienna regulator style pendulum wall clock in the middle of the hall and found that it only passed a little after 9.30 in the evening. As it was still early, I've got to wander around this huge mansion for a bit before going to sleep.