A puzzle involving truth and lies

The Puppet Master
A short story by Charles Fudgemuffin

This week my latest short story 'The Puppet Master' was published for kindle from Amazon. Here's the blurb...

"A mysterious masked figure wearing two puppets on his hands is shooting random strangers with poison darts. He then sets his victims a puzzle which they must solve in return for the antidote. Is this 'Puppet Master' crazy? Or is there a method to his madness..."

Without giving away too much of the plot, the Puppet Master is kind of like a crazy Batman villain. If his victims correctly solve the puzzle, they get to drink an antidote to the poison and survive. If they fail to solve the puzzle, well ... it's curtains!

If you want to test yourself, this is the puzzle that the Puppet Master sets his victims...

"After shooting you with a poison dart, the Puppet Master appears wearing a blue puppet on his right hand and a red puppet on his right hand. He then places three bottles containing coloured liquid on the ground in front of you. One of the liquids is blue, one is red, and the third liquid is purple. One of these bottles contains more poison, one of the bottles contains an antidote, and the third bottle simply contains coloured water. However, you don't know which bottle is which.

You may ask two questions regarding the bottles and both of the puppets in turn will answer your questions. However, one of the puppets cannot tell a lie, and will therefore answer honestly, while the other puppet cannot tell the truth, and will therefore answer dishonestly. Unfortunately, you don't know which puppet tells the truth and which puppet tells lies.

You must use your two questions to work out which bottle contains the antidote, bearing in mind that one of the puppets will tell the truth and the other puppet will lie.

After asking your two questions, and hearing the puppets answers, you must then decide which bottle to drink. You can only drink one bottle."

So to summarise:

* You are shot by a poison dart.
* There are three bottles; one containing blue liquid, one red, and one purple.
* One of the bottles contains the antidote, the other two bottles contain poison and coloured water.
* There are two puppets; one is red and the other is blue.
* One of the puppets always tells the truth. The other puppet always lies.
* You don't know which bottle contains the antidote.
* You don't know which puppet tells the truth.
* You can ask the puppets two questions to work out which bottle to drink.

What two questions should you ask in order to work out which bottle contains the antidote?

I've posed this puzzle to a number of people in real life, and one person worked out the solution almost immediately, whereas most people struggled all day without coming up with the solution.

However, there's no time limit, so take as long as you need to solve the puzzle! After all, your hypothetical life depends on it!

But fear not, because if you can't work out the solution, then you can find the answer in my latest short story 'The Puppet Master' which is available for kindle from Amazon.

Buy 'The Puppet Master' for kindle from Amazon:
The Puppet Master