Brain Teasers
Safe Crackers
"I don't know how to tell you this, but, um, the safe has been robbed. The diamonds are gone."
"What!?" The police chief shouted. "You mean the safe that you've been guarding carefully?"
"That's the one."
"But we checked every single space in the building in which a human being could possibly hide, it was totally empty. And we had the entire building completely surrounded, and had every possible entrance monitored. So surely we know who did it right? Please tell me we finally caught this guy!"
"Not exactly. By which I mean, no. But we do have it narrowed down to three suspects this time. We tracked the entrance and exit of every person throughout the day, mostly customers of the bank on the first floor, not realizing we had closed it down for the day. Only three people were in the building at the time the safe was robbed. All of them entered separately on foot."
"Wait, how do you know when the safe was robbed?" the chief asked.
"Well, you know that one car we told you about that was already sitting empty in the parking garage under the building the night before? The one that mysteriously wasn't registered to anyone? Well, all of a sudden it came screaming out of the garage. We probably should have had it towed the night before, huh? Anyway, we all took off after it, but when we finally caught up to it, it was on the side of the road with no one in it. But the felt bag that held the diamonds was under one of the seats."
"It didn't still have the diamonds in it by any chance, did it?"
"Um, no chief. We all just stood there for a minute, when it suddenly occurred to us that every single one of us left our posts to chase the mystery car, so we all raced back to the building only to find that it was empty. So we're not sure which, if any, of the three suspects was still there when the car took off."
"Wow. All that training has really paid off."
"Thanks, chief. So anyway, it's not entirely clear who was involved. But we do know that there are only those three possible suspects. We tracked each one of them down, but none of them had the diamonds on them. They're each in an interrogation room now - Chris Barns, Evan Garrison, and Jimmy Jones. All three of them have at least minor criminal records, and all three are known to be pretty good with a safe."
"Great. So it could be all of them, or any one of them. What else do we know about them?" the chief asked.
"Well, Chris swore he was going straight several years ago, and he hasn't been suspected of anything since. Although, he has sworn he was going straight several times throughout his criminal career. Evan is known to be a pretty smooth thief, but it's also well known that he's superstitious and refuses to do any job unless his mentor Chris is involved. And then there's Jimmy. He's the best safe-cracker in the business, an absolute legend. People say that, being blind, he has super hearing, so he can hear every movement in the mechanisms of a safe with absolute clarity and precision. He definitely would have been able to get to the diamonds the fastest. But again, either of the other two would also have been able to crack that safe. I don't even know where to start!"
The chief thought for a moment and said, "Well if everything you've said is true, then I know one of these guys who is definitely guilty. Let's question him and see if we can get him to spill whether either of the other two were involved."
Who is guilty, and how does the chief know?
"What!?" The police chief shouted. "You mean the safe that you've been guarding carefully?"
"That's the one."
"But we checked every single space in the building in which a human being could possibly hide, it was totally empty. And we had the entire building completely surrounded, and had every possible entrance monitored. So surely we know who did it right? Please tell me we finally caught this guy!"
"Not exactly. By which I mean, no. But we do have it narrowed down to three suspects this time. We tracked the entrance and exit of every person throughout the day, mostly customers of the bank on the first floor, not realizing we had closed it down for the day. Only three people were in the building at the time the safe was robbed. All of them entered separately on foot."
"Wait, how do you know when the safe was robbed?" the chief asked.
"Well, you know that one car we told you about that was already sitting empty in the parking garage under the building the night before? The one that mysteriously wasn't registered to anyone? Well, all of a sudden it came screaming out of the garage. We probably should have had it towed the night before, huh? Anyway, we all took off after it, but when we finally caught up to it, it was on the side of the road with no one in it. But the felt bag that held the diamonds was under one of the seats."
"It didn't still have the diamonds in it by any chance, did it?"
"Um, no chief. We all just stood there for a minute, when it suddenly occurred to us that every single one of us left our posts to chase the mystery car, so we all raced back to the building only to find that it was empty. So we're not sure which, if any, of the three suspects was still there when the car took off."
"Wow. All that training has really paid off."
"Thanks, chief. So anyway, it's not entirely clear who was involved. But we do know that there are only those three possible suspects. We tracked each one of them down, but none of them had the diamonds on them. They're each in an interrogation room now - Chris Barns, Evan Garrison, and Jimmy Jones. All three of them have at least minor criminal records, and all three are known to be pretty good with a safe."
"Great. So it could be all of them, or any one of them. What else do we know about them?" the chief asked.
"Well, Chris swore he was going straight several years ago, and he hasn't been suspected of anything since. Although, he has sworn he was going straight several times throughout his criminal career. Evan is known to be a pretty smooth thief, but it's also well known that he's superstitious and refuses to do any job unless his mentor Chris is involved. And then there's Jimmy. He's the best safe-cracker in the business, an absolute legend. People say that, being blind, he has super hearing, so he can hear every movement in the mechanisms of a safe with absolute clarity and precision. He definitely would have been able to get to the diamonds the fastest. But again, either of the other two would also have been able to crack that safe. I don't even know where to start!"
The chief thought for a moment and said, "Well if everything you've said is true, then I know one of these guys who is definitely guilty. Let's question him and see if we can get him to spill whether either of the other two were involved."
Who is guilty, and how does the chief know?
Answer
Chris is guilty.At least one of the three of them did it. If it was Evan, then Chris is guilty too, since Evan won't work without Chris. If it was Jimmy, then he had to be working with someone else, because he can't drive, being blind. If he was working with Chris, then Chris is guilty, if he was working with Evan, then Chris must have been involved too since Evan won't work without him, so all three would be guilty. If neither Evan nor Jimmy were involved, then Chris would be the only one who could've done it. So no matter what, Chris is guilty.
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Comments
Great teaser!
Cool teaser!
Very good!
I don't get how the bag got into the car...
Great logic though, fun to solve.
Great logic though, fun to solve.
That was fun!
That was cool but I got it pretty quick!
Good Show Old Boy!
i have an alternate answer. the safe had not yet been robbed when the car was speeding away. it was a decoy car, controlled electronically, used to draw out all the guards, leaving the thief/thieves plenty of time to crack the safe (very Ocean's Eleven-esque). chris would still be the right answer though, due to the same logic of the original answer.
I was thinking that too, Tarheel, but then I realized it says that the bag the diamonds had been in inside the safe was found in the car. So the car was definitely used as a getaway after the safe was robbed.
The robbers wouldn't have bet everything on the cops being so stupid as to all leave and chase the car, without a single one staying behind. It just turned out that they were that stupid.
Plus, if the safe hadn't been robbed yet when the car took off, then it would technically be possible (if unlikely) that the car was totally unrelated to the crime, leaving it possible for the blind guy to have done it alone.
The robbers wouldn't have bet everything on the cops being so stupid as to all leave and chase the car, without a single one staying behind. It just turned out that they were that stupid.
Plus, if the safe hadn't been robbed yet when the car took off, then it would technically be possible (if unlikely) that the car was totally unrelated to the crime, leaving it possible for the blind guy to have done it alone.
@YourNameHere It could be a identical looking, but separate felt bag. But Chris would still have to be guilty, as the blind guy wouldn't be able to see the car.
Good one! I thought it was the police officer (person talking to the chief) because he suspected Jimmy, who was blind and would have needed an accomplice to drive the car, even though the car was empty when they last checked.
I understand your logic and what you are driving at with the answer. However, there is a flaw in the logic because there had to be a 4th suspect, the accomplice driving the car. Otherwise how would the diamond bag got into the car when the 3 men were still in the building? If the idea is that everyone left the building i.e. the culprits were in the getaway car, then the robbery must have happened while the guards were on duty at their posts? If I've missed something please let me know, but I think there's a lot of conflicting information in this story. Jimmy did it I think, he's blind so the accomplice took him to the first floor, he cracked the safe and the 4th guy drove the car away while jimmy found the exit.
I am highly amused by the characters in these stories. The idiot deputy who has NO idea when obvious sarcasm at his lack of skill is being mentioned by his boss .... ah, classic.
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