Where's My Daughter
Situation puzzles (sometimes called lateral thinking puzzles) are ones where you need to ask lots of yes or no questions to figure out what happened in the situation. These are good puzzles for groups where one person knows the puzzle and answers the questions.
A woman and her daughter go to Europe for vacation. They check in at the hotel, register, and then go into separate rooms to sleep. The mother sleeps late, and when she wakes she goes to her daughter's room to wake her up. She knocks, and nobody answers. She turns the knob, and to her surprise it is unlocked. She goes inside and finds nobody. She notices the room is very clean, though. She goes downstairs, glances at the registry, and to her shock, her daughter's name is nowhere to be seen! When she asks the clerk about her daughter, the clerk says she (the mother) did not come in with any other person!
What happened to her daughter?
HintThe clerk is lying.
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Answer
The daughter got the bubonic plague and died. When the morning maid went into her room in the morning, she noticed that she had died of the bubonic plague. Hotel faculty took her body and burned it. The maid tidied up her room. The hotel pretended there never had been any daughter, because if it was discovered that there were bubonic plague germs in the hotel, they would have to shut down.
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Comments
lapming
Apr 09, 2002
| whatttttttt |
cylatronic
Apr 10, 2002
| Yeah, ummm, I don't know about that one
|
mcscruffso
Apr 13, 2002
| ha ha ha ha |
Mogmatt16   
Apr 23, 2002
| if the pleauge was there and a lot of people went missing, wouldn't someone find out eventually? |
starlust
Jun 05, 2002
| I heard a ghost story kinda like that |
tiffiney79
Jun 08, 2002
| that's pushing it, but i gotta give you credit for creativity:-) |
dewtell 
Jul 24, 2002
| This answer seems like a stretch - would
plague go from no symptoms to death, discovery
and cleanup so fast? What happened to the
mother's signature in the registry?
I came up with an alternate solution:
unknown to both women, there were actually
two hotels connected by a common lobby.
The daughter registered first, while the mother stayed
with the luggage, and then came
back to tell her mother her room number.
Then the mother went and registered at the
other hotel. The room with the daughter's room number was vacant and clean
because no one had used it the night before.
|
(user deleted)
Oct 01, 2002
| whoa..... i dident see that coming |
einat16 
Dec 16, 2002
| I thought the daughter was the made, that's why the room was cleaned up, and being ashaimed of working as a made she told her mother they were going on a vacation while she was really there to work. she left in the morning to clean other rooms, and told the clerk to lie so that her mother doesn't find out. OK, not that dramatic, but made much more sence than that disease... |
sarcastic_brat53
Mar 15, 2003
| why does it have to be that specific plague it could be any deadly contagios disease |
kimmer91k
Apr 01, 2003
| Yeah, how'd they cover that one up. |
(user deleted)
May 15, 2003
| This one is from a book.
|
highiq151
Aug 01, 2003
| hello this is supposed to be a riddle not a soap opera. |
Maria4Tony 
Feb 13, 2004
| I like your alternate one dewtell. Pity this person bet you to it  |
aPlatinum
Jun 23, 2004
| Try again, babe |
accordionman
Jun 24, 2004
| Well, i don't really see how anyone could get the plague part, and even the dying from a disease is hard to get. Her daughter could of jumped out of a window, hung herself, or other methods of dying. |
username
Jul 30, 2004
| extremely hard to get. there could be lots of other reasons a hotel would want to cover up things. what if someone murdered the daughter and wanted to get rid of the body? or anything else like that. it's extremely difficult. |
rugbys_girl
Dec 07, 2004
| By far the most stupid riddle I have ever seen. Very far-fetched. No logic or thinking involved in solving it...obviously no logic or thinking went into making it |
DummyisDumb
Mar 03, 2005
| I heard this from a scary story book, but forgot the answer...  |
(user deleted)
Apr 02, 2005
| WOW that was a little OUT THERE...i was think maybe she was skitzo....but yea the bubonic plague is on the same line  |
sweetime
Jul 13, 2005
| right well i thought that the hotel was a front for a kidnapping operation (you know the kind of place that kidnaps young women and then forces them into prostitution or the like). |
Quickq
Apr 28, 2006
| How would the maid know the bubonic plague was the cause of the death?  |
calmsavior
May 11, 2006
| theres only one thing i have to say about this teaser: EXTREMELY ARBITRARY. |
medster99
Jun 22, 2006
| I read this in a whiched old believe it or not book. i believe that this is based off of a true story |
akl21
Jul 27, 2006
| So does anyone else care to explain what the bubonic plague is? I'm in the dark. 
That's sort of that movie with Jodie Foster--Flight Plan. |
JKnightD
Dec 12, 2006
| I'm sorry, but the only thing this "teaser" tests is one's creative ability to come up a possible solution.
Personally, I thought it was a waste of time. Ironic that I would take the time to post this comment, no? |
bluefever101
May 24, 2007
| OK..... |
GABALLA06
Jul 10, 2007
| that was slightly disturbing... |
horseluvr
Sep 10, 2007
| i agree with most of the people here. from the time that symptoms arise, it is three or so days before the victom is dead. it also does not spread from human to human. |
fishhooky
Jan 02, 2008
| Aliens came and conducted an experiment by abducting the daughter and possessing the body of the clerk. The clerk was possessed in order to observe unobtrusively the response of the mother.
This was my answer which I think is as equally plausible. |
snappytom
Jan 24, 2008
| bighippo....I think you are on something.... |
nightowl19
Jan 26, 2008
| Okay, that was off of a TV show or a movie, only in the show, it was the mother who died. They even went to the trouble of changing the wallpaper to convince the daughter that her mother wasn't with her.  |
(user deleted)
Feb 01, 2008
| I came up with 2 alternate (plausible) explanations.
1. The daughter is taking the opportunity of the trip to run away.
1a. Furthermore, she's disguised as the clerk and is imitating a different voice.
2. The woman was 9 months pregnant and gave birth in the extra hotel room. The hotel staff stole the baby and pretended they hadn't noticed she was pregnant.
3. ???
4. Profit! |
minfu2
Apr 08, 2008
| you wouldn't die of the plague overnight. You would probably notice the swells, tell your mom, and be sent to the hospital. |
clutzy
Apr 19, 2008
| The Bubonic Plague? What kind of answer is that? |
TRILLIONAIRE
Nov 02, 2008
| Why would any staff be inside their hotel room overnight? How would they even know about it? |
Pokemaniac
Nov 11, 2008
| How would anyone know it was what it was? It dosen't say anything about it in the text! It dosen't make any scence with the ending thats in the teaser!!! |
Zomg-pie
Nov 22, 2008
| Uck! I thought the daughter got abducted by aliens who are very intellegent and were able to delete info from the Clerk's computer so the daughter was never there |
batatis
Nov 27, 2008
| wow that sucks. P |
TeCNoYoTTa
Jan 09, 2009
| makes no sence |
(user deleted)
Jan 23, 2009
| Two Words: Traumatic and Disturbing.......
But cool!! |
Twilight4eva928
Jun 27, 2009
| That seems like a far fetched answer. I thought that the girl just checked out early and that the one hotel guy had short term memory lose. |
brain23
Oct 18, 2009
| Aw...so sad that the daughter died. |
Prinesca 
Dec 31, 2009
| I thought the clerk murdered the daughter. |
rockstar1234567
Jun 02, 2011
| i dont think people took vacations back then.......it was for something purposeful if you needed to stay in an inn |
donaldtrumpet
May 22, 2012
| AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! That is a scary hotel!  |
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