Deadline walkthrough

In Deadline you can use wait commands of fixed length (wait 30 minutes) or that state a target time (wait until 10:40). You may wish to do this when you're waiting a while for a certain event to occur, because the plain wait command only passes 3 minutes. You can also wait for [character name] (e.g. wait for George) to keep waiting until someone arrives in your location, whenever that may be. It takes about 20-30 game minutes for Duffy to analyze something at the lab. (Wow, he must have a teleporter.)

This walkthrough is not the fastest possible path through the game. I've deliberately suggested some actions that are not necessary to win so as to "see the sights" and give a better picture of why the solution is what it is.

Cast of Characters

Marshall Robner: The unfortunate victim
George Robner: Marshall Robner's son
Leslie Robner: Marshall Robner's wife
Mrs. Rourke: the Robners' housekeeper
Mr. Baxter: Marshall Robner's business partner
Steven: Sometime lover of Mrs. Robner
Ms. Dunbar: Mr. Robner's secretary
Mr. McNabb: Gardener extraordinaire
Sergeant Duffy: Your trusty analytical pal on the force

Solving the Murder

First, check out the murder scene. Go north to the Front Path. Open the door and go north into to the Foyer. Go north, east, up the stairs twice to Top of Stairs, west four times to End of Hallway, and north to the Library. Examine the oak door, the crumpled papers, the teacup (notice the scene of Greek myth), the bottle of Ebullion, the carpet, and the mud on the carpet. Get the cup and saucer, pad, calendar, and pencil. Rub the pencil on the pad. (Baxter has something to do with "Focus".) Drop the pencil. Examine the calendar. Turn to July 8 and read the calendar. (Mr. Robner completed his will.) Analyze the cup.

Open the window and go north onto the Library Balcony. Examine the railing. Notice the area of scraped-off paint. (Something must have rubbed against the railing there.) Go south twice back to the hallway, east four times, and south twice to Dunbar's Bathroom. Open the cabinet and examine the LoBlo. Notice that the label says the drug comes from "Kingston, Ont." (Ontario, Canada).

Go north twice, down twice, and west twice into the Living Room. If Duffy hasn't yet reappeared with the teacup, wait; he should come in one or two more turns. (Tea and Mr. Robner's fingerprints: nothing unexpected there.) Drop the cup and analyze the saucer.

Wait for the phone to ring at or shortly after 9 AM. Answer the phone. Wait 6 times, then pick up the phone again. (It doesn't ring; the point is to listen in on a conversation between Mrs. Robner and an unknown man. Suspicious, eh?) While you were dealing with the phone, Duffy will have reappeared with the lab results on the saucer. (Tea and sugar: not unusual in themselves, but remember that the cup had only tea, and the saucer has some extra fingerprints as well -- Ms. Dunbar's. Maybe this cup and saucer aren't as matched a set as they seem just by examining them visually!) Drop the saucer.

Go east and south to the Foyer. If there is not an envelope here, wait here until the mailman delivers one between 9:30-10:00 AM. Get the envelope and read it. Open it. Read the letter. (What might this Steven and Mrs. Robner be up to?) Drop the envelope.

Go north three times to the Kitchen. Count the cups and the saucers. (Notice there is a missing teacup: you had one each of cup and saucer from the Library, but here there are seven saucers but only six teacups. So what do you think happened to the seventh teacup?)

Go south three times to the Foyer and open the front door. Go south, east twice, and southeast to the Shed. Examine the ladder. ("Caked with dirt and dried mud". Might this have been used to climb up to the Library Balcony from the Rose Garden?)

Go northwest, west, south, and west onto the Front Path. Wait here until the newspaper is delivered at about 11:00-11:30 AM. Get the newspaper and read it. Did you notice that the newspaper is "in two sections"? Read second section. (Makes Baxter seem a bit shady, doesn't it?) Drop the newspaper.

Now we need to find the gardener, McNabb. Following him through the weird room connections of the areas west, south, and east of the house can be a pain, but try, if you spot him in the distance. First, go east from Front Path to East of Front Door. If he's not there, go northeast and north twice to the Orchard Path. From there, also try west to Garden Path or northwest to North Lawn. When you catch him described as "quite worked up" and talking aloud to himself (before 12:00 PM), type McNabb, hello and then What is wrong. Ask McNabb to show you the holes. Follow McNabb to Among the Roses. Examine the holes. Examine the ground. If you don't immediately cut your finger and find a porcelain fragment (you may instead "run across some tiny pieces of a hard, shiny substance"), dig soil until you do. (There's a 30% chance per turn that you will find the porcelain.) Examine the fragment. Clean it. (It resembles the teacup.) Analyze the fragment.

Go north, southwest, east, southeast, east, north twice, and west to the Living Room. Wait for the will to be read at 12 noon. Meanwhile, Duffy will return with your analyzed porcelain fragment. Notice that besides tea and sugar -- which matches the saucer from the Library, but not the cup that was there -- it has a trace of something that is "not a common medication" and also not Ebullion. Remember that LoBlo came from Canada? Analyze fragment for LoBlo.

After the will reading, show the calendar to George. Follow George to his room -- east twice, up twice, west three times, south. (Notice that George seems rather annoyed by this behavior!) Go north, west, and north twice to the Library Balcony. Save the game here as the next sequence requires accurate timing.

Wait, answering Y when prompted if you want to keep waiting, and wait again. Watch George go behind the bookshelf in the Library ("George walks purposefully toward the bookshelves...") and answer N when prompted this time. Now wait 10 minutes, again answering Y when prompted if you want to keep waiting. Go south. Examine the bookshelf and press the button. Get the will and read it. (Strange that George doesn't resist you taking it right out of his hands, and if you hang around for a few moves he simply wanders off uneventfully, especially given that if you catch him opening the safe, he bolts, and his whole purpose here seems to be to destroy the document. Well, anyway...) Examine the safe. Get the papers and read them. Read the lab report.

Go west, south, east four times, down twice, and west twice to the Living Room. Ask Baxter about Focus. (This was mentioned on the rubbing on the notepad as well as in the documents you just took.) Show the papers to Baxter. Ask Dunbar about LoBlo. Show the lab report to Dunbar and to Baxter. Accuse Dunbar. (Curious reaction.)

Go east to North of Foyer. Wait for Dunbar. Wait. Follow Dunbar south twice to the Front Path. Get the ticket stub that Dunbar drops. Read it. Show the ticket stub to Dunbar.

Go east twice to East Lawn and then southeast into the Shed. Wait for Baxter, about 1:30-1:40 PM (Dunbar will arrive while you are waiting). When both Dunbar and Baxter are present, show the ticket to Baxter. Arrest Baxter and Dunbar.

For Your Amusement:
Smell the white powdery substance in the bowl on the tray in the Library.
Turn the calendar to July 0.
Jump from the Library Balcony. (save first)
Smell, taste, and eat the various drugs (LoBlo and Dum-Kof in Dunbar's Bathroom, Ebullion in the Library, Sneezo and Allergone in Master Bathroom...)
Examine the cornerstone at East of Front Door. (Cornerstone, geddit?)
At West Lawn, East Lawn, or North Lawn, swim in the lake.
Examine the lake.
Read the book in the Living Room. Read the ending. (save first)
Have the ladder analyzed after noon: from the start of the game, go northeast then southeast to the Shed. Wait until 11:55 AM and then analyze the ladder. Duffy will take it to the lab. Go northwest twice to the Orchard Path. Wait here for Mr. McNabb -- who will mysteriously have and drop the ladder that should be at the lab. (Hmm...) Keep waiting. After the requisite 20 minutes or so, Duffy will return -- with the ladder you just saw McNabb have! (According to one commenter on The Digital Antiquarian, the game stops you from sending the ladder to be analyzed after a certain time of day, because of McNabb's "needing" to have it in his possession. I couldn't trigger that behavior.)
Try to carry the ladder into the house.
Try the following in any of the bathrooms: take a shower, flush the toilet, look in the toilet, look in the mirror (except in Mrs. Rourke's bathroom).
Count and the silverware and the glassware in the Kitchen cabinet.
Break the china in the Kitchen (try several times).
Eat the food in the Pantry.
Eat a meal in the Dining Room (such as eat breakfast).
Around 10 AM, when George enters the Dining Room to eat breakfast, eat herring.
In the Orchard, eat a grape, the fruit, and the berries.
In George's Bedroom, open the liquor cabinet and drink the Scotch or bourbon twice.
Surprise Baxter in the master bedroom or on the master bedroom balcony when he comes to murder Ms. Dunbar. (Go to the balcony directly after the meeting; for the bedroom, go there and then alternate north and south. ca. 2:09 PM.)
Follow, accuse, and arrest an inanimate object.
Confront an inanimate object with another one, e.g. confront ladder with cup. (The more sensible use of this command is for people, e.g. confront Baxter with papers.)
Wait until a time in the past. (e.g., if it is 3:00 PM, wait until 2:45)
Try the following commands: follow Mr. Robner; find Duffy; arrest Duffy; score; sigh.
Try the following on any of the characters, including yourself: kiss, squeeze, molest, or turn on; kill (try several times); shoot (if your version of the game knows this word).

Extras

For further entertainment, you may be interested in:
Lists of bugs in Deadline: Nathan Simpson, Graeme Cree, XyzzyNews
Posts about this game at The Digital Antiquarian, The Adventure Gamer, and SPAG
Source code

Last updated: 4/02/2023