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Which Alice?

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Solutions to the Puzzles<br />

ANOTHER CASE There are eight possible cases for what A,<br />

B, C could have said. There are two possibilities for what A said,<br />

and with each of these two possibilities there are two possibilities for<br />

B; thus there are four possibilities for what A, B said. (These<br />

possibilities are [1] A, B both claimed to be guilty; [2] A said he was<br />

guilty; B said he was innocent; [3] A said he was innocent; B said he<br />

was guilty; [4] A, B both claimed to be innocent.) Now, with each of<br />

these four possibilities for A and B, there are two possibilities for<br />

what C said, so there are eight possibilities altogether for what A, B,<br />

C said.<br />

With each of these eight possible cases for what the defendants<br />

said, there are three possibilities for which of the three defendants<br />

was actually guilty. Therefore, there are twenty-four possibilities for<br />

the whole business (the whole business being what each defendant<br />

said together with which one was actually guilty). If we knew which<br />

of these twenty-four possibilities held, we would of course know<br />

which one lied and which ones told the truth. We will now make a<br />

systematic table for each of these twenty-four possibilities. This<br />

table will be used not only for this puzzle but for a later one as well.<br />

Explanations immediately follow the table.<br />

The L's and T's indicate who was lying and who was telling the<br />

truth (L stands for lying and T for truth-telling). For example, in Case<br />

5B (which we find in Group 5 under the B column) we see that A<br />

was lying, B was lying, and C was telling the truth. (Case 5B means,<br />

of course, the case in which A said he was guilty, B said he was<br />

innocent, and C said A was innocent, and B was actually guilty.)<br />

More examples: In Case 8C, all three were lying; in Case 3B, all<br />

three were telling the truth; in Case 4C, A was telling the truth and<br />

B, C were both lying.<br />

Now, the Jabberwocky, after being told what each defendant said,<br />

and also that there was at least one true statement and at least one<br />

false statement, knew who was guilty. What could the Jabberwocky<br />

have been told to have enabled him to know? Suppose he were told<br />

that A claimed innocence, B claimed innocence, and C claimed A<br />

was innocent (this takes us within the three possibilities of Case 1).<br />

The Jabberwocky could then have ruled out that C was guilty<br />

177

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