The G.H.O.S.T. Hunters Fame and Fortune Contest has ended on December 31st, 2008.  An entry with the correct answer was not received during the submission process.  Below is the solution to the puzzle, “Who was the original owner of Majesty Manor?”

There are two parts to this puzzle.  The first is a coded message that must be found.

Clue #2 gives us the following:

“…the state of the rooms is what she needs to concentrate on.”

(note: If you would like to see the clues in their entirety, please visit the forums at www.aisle5games.com)

The key thing to pick up on is the “state of the rooms”.  If you look at the rooms mentioned, you will see three that have references to states. 

The garage has a license plate from Ohio with the sequence AH -1PE44

The Maids Quarters has a banner for the 1936 World’s Fair held in San Francisco, California with the sequence LGHQ

The garden shed has a crate with an Iowa Sugar Corn label and the sequence XL-XNYRQ

The end result is the following data:

Ohio = AH-1PE44

California = LGHQ

Iowa = XL-XNYRQ

Clue #3 is loaded with tips.  It tells us the following: They bring only letters but still they cannot be trusted.  This tells us we should drop the numbers out of the above sequences.

Ohio = AHPE

California = LGHQ

Iowa = XLXNYRQ

Now we have to find what order to put the sequence in.  Clue #3 tells us “We must do everything in our power to protect him from the birds”.  If you look in the dining room, you will see three plates with state birds on it. 

1^st Cardinal - State bird of Ohio

2^nd Eastern Goldfinch - State bird of Iowa

3^rd Valley Quail - State bird of California

So the correct order for the sequence is Ohio, Iowa, California, which gives us the coded message:

AHPEXLXNYRQLGHQ

So now we have the coded message, we need to find the key to decode it.  Clue #3 tells us, "Go to the young one's room, find the key” So we need to look at the nursery for the key.   Clue #1 tells us, “first place is not always the most important thing”  Also, in the Parlor, there is a trophy with a key on it and the inscription says “Last Place”.  So if we look in the nursery and study the mobile, we see that the three animals are a duck, bee and butterfly.  The last place letter of these animals spell “key” which tells us the mobile is the key.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Use the key to get the new alphabet sequence

MOBILEACDFGHJKNPQRSTUVWXYZ

Shift this sequence three spaces for the following:

XYZMOBILACDFGHJKNPQRSTUVW  and use this to decode the message by substituting it for the standard alphabet.

XYZMOBILEACDFGHJKNPQRSTUVW

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Thus, the coded message AHPEXLXNYRQLGHQ now becomes the name of the former manor owner:  JOSIAH  ARBUTHNOT