THE WAPSHAW'S WHARF MYSTERY.
(
Money Puzzles)
There was a great commotion in Lower Thames Street on the morning of
January 12, 1887. When the early members of the staff arrived at
Wapshaw's Wharf they found that the safe had been broken open, a
considerable sum of money removed, and the offices left in great
disorder. The night watchman was nowhere to be found, but nobody who had
been acquainted with him for one moment suspected him to be guilty of
the robbery. In this belief the proprietors were confirmed when, later
in the day, they were informed that the poor fellow's body had been
picked up by the River Police. Certain marks of violence pointed to the
fact that he had been brutally attacked and thrown into the river. A
watch found in his pocket had stopped, as is invariably the case in such
circumstances, and this was a valuable clue to the time of the outrage.
But a very stupid officer (and we invariably find one or two stupid
individuals in the most intelligent bodies of men) had actually amused
himself by turning the hands round and round, trying to set the watch
going again. After he had been severely reprimanded for this serious
indiscretion, he was asked whether he could remember the time that was
indicated by the watch when found. He replied that he could not, but he
recollected that the hour hand and minute hand were exactly together,
one above the other, and the second hand had just passed the forty-ninth
second. More than this he could not remember.
What was the exact time at which the watchman's watch stopped? The watch
is, of course, assumed to have been an accurate one.
Answer:
There are eleven different times in twelve hours when the hour and
minute hands of a clock are exactly one above the other. If we divide 12
hours by 11 we get 1 hr. 5 min. 27+3/11 sec., and this is the time after
twelve o'clock when they are first together, and also the time that
elapses between one occasion of the hands being together and the next.
They are together for the second time at 2 hr. 10 min. 54+6/11 sec.
(twice the above time); next at 3 hr. 16 min. 21+9/11 sec.; next at 4
hr. 21 min. 49+1/11 sec. This last is the only occasion on which the two
hands are together with the second hand "just past the forty-ninth
second." This, then, is the time at which the watch must have stopped.
Guy Boothby, in the opening sentence of his _Across the World for a
Wife_, says, "It was a cold, dreary winter's afternoon, and by the time
the hands of the clock on my mantelpiece joined forces and stood at
twenty minutes past four, my chambers were well-nigh as dark as
midnight." It is evident that the author here made a slip, for, as we
have seen above, he is 1 min. 49+1/11 sec. out in his reckoning.
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