Here's my guess: Thunder startled Dr. Xavier and he choked on his steak. He accidentally cut himself while struggling unsuccessfully to clear his airway.

Nice theory, I have never heard that one before.

He had a heart failure due to the thunder startling him, while he was eating his steak, he was holding his knife and somehow cut himself when he was startled.

I have also never heard that one before, but I like it. However, there are a few flaws in your theory, the text said that he had laceration WOUNDS not just one wound. Also, why would the window be broken and why would there be glass on the floor?

My guess is that the wind from the storm knocked down a tree branch and the tree branch broke off and smashed the window. The window was right next to Mr Xavier. As he was eating his dinner, the tree branch crashed and he got startled and accidentally stabbed himself. Then, his hand started twitching and he kept stabbing himself. He was dead the next morning.

Intriguing case anthonyhtyper. Well done! As for my investigative conclusion for the murder, I can not define. What I can say though is the 3 responses preceding mine are very creative and probably very viable possibilities. Just knew about this site today. So yes I'm new and hope to have a great time with you guys :).

Well, welcome to the website, thank you for the compliment, yes, I have been getting some great answers. I hope that you can think of a response to the case soon because I would like to hear from everyone.

Warm welcome appreciated. I somewhat feel the details supplied are not sufficient for a conclusive statement.

Notwithstanding, my presumption lies in that the servants connived against Mr Xavier.

I think the chef poisoned Mr Xavier. Upon seeing the the glass on the carpet, I would suspect that, one of the servants broke through the window. The servants stabbed Mr Xavier just as a pretext that he had been attacked rather than poisoned.

Hence, this implies that the servants are answerable for the murder of Mr Xavier.

Being paranoid is a decoy to make us suspect a servant, but I don't think it means anything.

While "technically" the red juice from a steak isn't blood, it's generally called blood (or a bloody steak). Who says the blood was Xavier's? If he cut into a medium-rare (red) steak, there would have been "steak blood" on the knife. The only wounds from his body then were probably glass from the window, which was smashed during the storm.

I ain't see anything posted about a busted window!!!

He could have started eating his steak, but then a man, jealous of Xavier's immense wealth and power (because when you have wealth, you get power), could have broken into the window or let in by the servants and killed him with a knife. There could have been a slight fight, causing the tipped over chair. Or maybe a servant killed him because they, also like the man, were jealous and tired of being frazzled over the idea of getting fired so quickly.

He ate one bite from his steak, one of his servants was mad that he/she got dismissed a few days ago so he jumped through the window with the knife, and you know what happened after that....

My theory-- maybe Mr. Xavier was eating that time when the storm came so he was startled at the beginning of thunderstorm and maybe the strong wind broke the window glass and to his panic he went under his table along with his food and other utensils and while under the table the servant see a chance to take him out without dirtying their own hands. they maybe use the chair to push or anything to put Mr. Xavier body straight to his knife resulting in laceration and could indicate that no one stab him because in an investigation in could result in harming your own self. thank you...

A wild animal - likely a wolf or bear, startled by the storm, jumped through his window and attacked him because of his wildly startled reaction to said animal. It then took a bite out of the steak, and left once the storm settled.

It also seems likely the man, being wealthy and reclusive (and it not being given that he's alone when he's eating), is one of the eccentric types that keeps an exotic/dangerous pet (e.g., lion, tiger). So it could be that the second steak and potato are for his pet, and his pet was startled by the storm, he was startled by the storm, chaos ensued, and he was killed by the pet which later jumped out the window (or simply knocked over his glass).

I think that maybe one of his servants was mad at Mr. Xavier for mistreating hims so he poisoned the food. Then the second he ate it he died from poison.

The premise of the mystery is that, indeed, Mr. Xavier was murdered and didn't commit suicide or fall to some freak accident. Assuming that there were no servants present in the room, we cannot make any suppositions about their guilt without interviewing them. A man who is reclusive and easily startled would likely stay far away from windows, especially with a storm out, so it's unlikely that the glass on the carpet comes from a breaking-and-entering attempt through a window. Furthermore we make no observation about a broken window, just glass on floor - could be from a drinking glass, could be a fallen chandelier - the point is there is no definite conclusion to be drawn from the information given about the origins of the broken glass save what's possible through inductive logic. Given the open-endedness of the question, we can suppose anything we want, but if there's a definite conclusion to be made, it has to remain within the established facts. Laceration wounds are not usually as deep as stabbing wounds depending on location, and the amount of blood under the table isn't specified to be either on the knife or coming out of the deceased. Therefore, we cannot dismiss the possibility that the blood is from the steak, nor that it is the victim's. This does not exempt the knife as the murder weapon, but without a better description of the wounds we can't know for sure what the cause of death was. A forensics test would be necessary (cow or human), yet another action that is not within the purview of the scenario. Bloody steak doesn't really have blood in it; it's myoglobin, not haemoglobin, so I'm going to reason that the blood is *actual* blood instead of having come from the steak. Therefore the knife was used to cut human flesh and cause bleeding, but whose? Mr. Xavier's, or his assailant's (again, assuming that this is a case of murder)? There's no way to know without more data.

The phrasing of the scene is ambiguous: is the corpse + knife + steak + chair + blood under the table, or just the knife with blood? A more specific description is necessary to be sure, but given how unlikely it would be to find all of these items stuffed under a dinner table, let's assume that only the knife is down there. What 2-bit criminal would knock someone off his chair, make mincemeat of him (slashing wounds, not stabbing wounds mind you) then toss the knife under the table afterwards? Slitting his throat from behind would make more sense if this was premeditated, which helps further rule out any diabolical plotting by an ex-domestic. Slashing wounds suggest desperation and panicked expediency, as well as a vertical not horizontal target (that would be stabbing), so let's conclude that both Mr. Xavier and his would-be-assailant were standing when the attack began. The former probably stood up in surprise, knocking over his chair (just 1 chair in the room, right?) and perhaps something glass and breakable simultaneously. What I'd like to know is what kind of knife is present. Is it a steak knife? A Bowie knife? This bit of information would be essential to deciding whether this was premeditated murder or a crime of passion. The wounds and general disarray of the scene suggests the latter, so I'm going with steak knife. During the ensuing struggle the assailant wrestled the knife away from Mr. Xavier and used it to kill him. If somebody's got a steak knife, why would the steak have an obvious *bite* in it instead of a cut? Does Mr. Xavier eat caveman style? Probably not. This may give credence to the wild animal theory, but then again we're assuming that Mr. Xavier was *murdered*, not mauled by some dangerous beast. So the bite in the steak was not made by Mr. Xavier, but by his murderer. What, did (s)he go into a bloody frenzy, kill the old man, then get the munchies? Seems odd for a crime of passion, but it's possible that the killer had a chance to calm down after doing the deed and realizing that no one had heard the death-struggle (noisy storm and all). If they just used a knife to fillet someone, they're probably not going to use it to eat steak with afterwards. This eventuality seems to confirm that the knife is the murder weapon, but it's a shaky explanation at best. This still gets us no closer to finding out who the murderer is. Someone with steak sauce on their hands, most likely.

What bothers me is the apparent absence of the other steak and the 2 potatoes. It suggests that Mr. Xavier was over half-way through his dinner when he was murdered, the killer was *really* hungry, or our murderer(s) were Mr. and Mrs. Potatohead. The latter of the three possibilities is my favorite and falls within the realm of possibility given the facts, but regretfully the likelihood of Mr. Xavier being killed by 2 baked, sentient root vegetables seems a little out there so I'll dismiss it for now. Hungry hungry killer fits given the bitten steak, but what crime-of-passion, rank amateur killer is going to eat an entire steak and/or 2 potatoes? So for now, let's go with the story that Mr. Xavier had been eating for a while before being confronted by his murderer. They had to have known he was alone, but Mr. Xavier is a recluse, right? The only people who'd known where he was and/or what he was doing are the help, but we'd need to interview them to go down that avenue of investigation. My killer potato theory is looking better all the time.

What I ultimately think is, this mystery is intentionally set up to be as ambiguous as possible while playing off of people's automatic assumptions about reclusive rich dudes getting bumped off. There are cliches galore, but not a scrap of definitive, damning evidence to be found. There are very few conclusions to be made, beyond the fact that Mr. Xavier was murdered and that he had been eating dinner when it happened. Without an autopsy there's no guarantee about the dinner part. A logical conclusion just isn't possible with the available evidence - only suppositions. Now you've made me spend way too long on this post, so I'm forced to draw an obvious conclusion.

The Potatoheads did it, and it was self-defense.

I think that Mr Xavier might have been eating dinner, which would explain the steak bitten into, and got
frightened and made the chair fall and ran into the table which made the glass fall. Then he tripped and the knife ran out of his hands and cut him so badly he died of blood loss. BUT the knife fell under the table. My theory is CREEPY! Xd

oh and also i think that the lightning cracked against the glass SO MUCH that it broke! (:O