FILE No.22Unsolved
A pastry shop’s stock does not add up. The manager suspects someone diverted goods and rewrote the total in the purchase ledger to hide it.
The supplier only handles the box types listed in the catalog in the scene diagram. Boxes cannot be opened to adjust the count.
The four buyers’ ledgers record these totals:
Checking against the delivery slips shows that exactly one person has written a total that cannot be made from the boxes.
Whose ledger has been rewritten? Look closely at the scene diagram and the evidence.
If you get stuck, open the hints one at a time, in order.
In the scene diagram, compare the contents of the 6-piece and 9-piece boxes.
Subtract the number of 20-piece boxes on the delivery slip from each total.
Can the remainder be made from 6- and 9-piece boxes?
Whose ledger has been rewritten? Look closely at the scene diagram and the evidence.
Choose the answer closest to the truth.
Suzuki (43)
The answer is: Suzuki.
In the scene diagram, the 6-piece box is 2 small bags of 3 and the 9-piece box is 3 small bags of 3, so both are made of "bags of 3." Whatever you make from 6- and 9-piece boxes alone is always a multiple of 3.
Subtract the 20-piece boxes on the delivery slips from each total. Kitamura: 38 − 20 = 18. Nakanishi: 41 − 20 = 21. Hashimoto: 46 − 40 = 6. All are multiples of 3 (18 = 9 + 9, 21 = 9 + 6 + 6, 6 = 6).
But Suzuki: 43 − 20 = 23, which is not a multiple of 3. It cannot be made from 6- and 9-piece boxes, so only Suzuki’s ledger has been rewritten, to cover what was diverted.
Every total looks plausible on its own. People pass them without reading what is inside the boxes.
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