Futility Closet - 062-Marconi Catches a Murderer

Episode Date: June 21, 2015

The discovery of the gruesome remains of a human body buried in a doctor's cellar shocked London in 1910. In this week's podcast we'll recount the dramatic use of the recently invented wireless telegraph in capturing the main suspect in the crime. We'll also hear a letter that Winston Churchill wrote to Winston Churchill and puzzle over why a sober man is denied a second beer. Sources for our feature on the telegraphic nabbing of Edwardian uxoricide Hawley Harvey Crippen: Erik Larson, Thunderstruck, 2006. Associated Press, "Wireless Flashes Crippen and Girl Aboard Montrose," Los Angeles Herald, July 29, 1910. "Captain Sure Suspects are Pair Police Seek," Los Angeles Herald, July 29, 1910. Proceedings of Crippen's 1910 trial at Old Bailey Online. "Crippen Mystery Remains Despite DNA Claim," BBC News, Oct. 18, 2007 (accessed June 16, 2015). Mark Townsend, "Appeal Judges Asked to Clear Notorious Murderer Dr. Crippen," Guardian, June 6, 2009 (accessed June 16, 2015). Here's Winston Churchill's June 1899 letter to American author Winston Churchill: Mr. Winston Churchill presents his compliments to Mr. Winston Churchill, and begs to draw his attention to a matter which concerns them both. He has learnt from the Press notices that Mr. Winston Churchill proposes to bring out another novel, entitled Richard Carvel, which is certain to have a considerable sale both in England and America. Mr. Winston Churchill is also the author of a novel now being published in serial form in Macmillan’s Magazine, and for which he anticipates some sale both in England and America. He also proposes to publish on the 1st of October another military chronicle on the Soudan War. He has no doubt that Mr. Winston Churchill will recognise from this letter — if indeed by no other means — that there is grave danger of his works being mistaken for those of Mr. Winston Churchill. He feels sure that Mr. Winston Churchill desires this as little as he does himself. In future to avoid mistakes as far as possible, Mr. Winston Churchill has decided to sign all published articles, stories, or other works, ‘Winston Spencer Churchill,’ and not ‘Winston Churchill’ as formerly. He trusts that this arrangement will commend itself to Mr. Winston Churchill, and he ventures to suggest, with a view to preventing further confusion which may arise out of this extraordinary coincidence, that both Mr. Winston Churchill and Mr. Winston Churchill should insert a short note in their respective publications explaining to the public which are the works of Mr. Winston Churchill and which those of Mr. Winston Churchill. The text of this note might form a subject for future discussion if Mr. Winston Churchill agrees with Mr. Winston Churchill’s proposition. He takes this occasion of complimenting Mr. Winston Churchill upon the style and success of his works, which are always brought to his notice whether in magazine or book form, and he trusts that Mr. Winston Churchill has derived equal pleasure from any work of his that may have attracted his attention. From Richard M. Langworth, The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill, 2009. This week's lateral thinking puzzle appeared originally on NPR's Car Talk, contributed there by listener George Parks. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Please take our five-minute survey to help us find advertisers to support the show. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [e-mail]. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Futility Closet, a celebration of the quirky and the curious, the thought-provoking and the simply amusing. This is the audio companion to the website that catalogs more than 8,000 curiosities in history, language, mathematics, literature, philosophy, and art. You can find us online at futilitycloset.com. Thanks for joining us. Welcome to episode 62. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. The discovery of the gruesome remains of a human body buried in a doctor's cellar shocked London in 1910. In today's show, we'll recount the dramatic use of the recently invented wireless telegraph in capturing the main suspect in the crime. We'll also hear a

letter that Winston Churchill wrote to Winston Churchill and puzzle over why a sober man is denied a second beer. Our podcast is supported partly by advertising, and you can help us out by taking a quick five-minute survey so we can try to find advertisers to help support the show. If you haven't yet, please go to podsurvey.com slash futility to take the survey. It takes less than five minutes and it's completely anonymous. When you're finished, you can enter for a chance to win a $100 Amazon gift card. Long-time listeners may have taken our survey last year, but this is a new version to give advertisers the most up-to-date understanding of our audience and to help us find the most appropriate ads for our show. So please go to podsurvey.com, that's P-O-D-S-U-R-V-E-Y

dot com slash futility to take our survey and help out the show. We'll also put the link in our show notes. Thanks so much for helping to support Futility Closet. Pauline Crippen was, by all accounts, a very mild-mannered American doctor. He was a homeopath and an eye and ear doctor around the turn of the 20th century. He started to practice in New York, where he married his second wife, whose name was Cora, in 1894. And Cora was a bit of a handful. She was, or wanted to be, a music hall singer,

and was only somewhat successful at that. She was openly unfaithful to him over and over again. She was very abusive to him and she had a ravenous appetite for clothing and for jewelry. But Holly seemed to bear all this patiently and they seemed to get along relatively well. In 1897, they moved to England where unfortunately his medical credentials weren't enough to permit him to practice. so he started working as a distributor of patent medicines. And Cora was still in North London now, being openly unfaithful to him with a string of lovers, and Crippen apparently fell in love with a typist he began working with around 1903.

Her name was Ethel Lenev. So this was all going along as well as it could when the Crippens held a party at their home on January 31st, 1910, and Cora disappeared. Or, properly speaking, she didn't seem to disappear. She suddenly went to America, at least according to what Crippens said. In February 1910, he left a note for Ethel, the typist, that said, B.E. has gone to America. at the note for Ethel, the typist, that said, B.E. has gone to America. Cora's stage name was Belle Elmore. That's who he meant. They knew that Belle had been with a man named Bruce Miller, had a relationship with him at that time. And so if in fact she had gone to America with him, then under British law, Crippen could apply for a divorce and he'd probably get it. So from

Ethel's point of view, this might be a good thing. They could finally be together. The problem is that Crippen had a lot of trouble explaining why she'd gone there and exactly what the details were. Because Bell's friends began to ask, why did she have to leave so abruptly? He explained that she'd gone to America, but that he hadn't seen her go and that he didn't expect that she'd come back. And some of her acquaintances started to receive notes with explanations,

but they were all written in Crippen's handwriting, he said. She'd had to leave in such a hurry that he'd had to prepare these notes for her. And then some weeks later, he sent a telegram to some friends that said that Belle had died suddenly in California of pneumonia. Even there, he wasn't able to give many details, even about his own wife's death. He said that she'd sailed to America aboard a ship of French registry, but he couldn't remember the name. And when people began investigating this later, they found that there wasn't a ship that answered his description. He said he didn't know who cared for Belle when

she was sick and that she had no grave, that she'd been cremated, even though she expressed no wish for that that anyone knew of. He didn't know where she died, except that it had no grave, that she'd been cremated, even though she expressed no wish for that that anyone knew of. He didn't know where she died, except that it was in California, or where she was cremated, and he had no certificate. So basically he has this story that she'd gone to America and died mysteriously, but had literally nothing to back this up. No proof. To make this all look even worse than it already does,

Ethel moved in with him at his North London home and began to sleep in his bed and began openly wearing Cora's clothes and jewelry. Two of Belle's friends thought that was so scandalous that they mentioned it to Inspector Walter Dew, who was a detective at Scotland Yard who'd taken part in the investigation of Jack the Ripper. Dew did some investigating and suggested they talk directly to Crippen about all this.

He went to Crippen's house and found Ethel, who was living there at the time, and she took him to see Crippen at work. Okay. She left him with another man, and they had agreed that just sort of to keep the scandal quiet, that he would just put about this story that she had died. Okay. That really stunned Ethel, the typist, to find out that Belle was still alive. Oh, she didn't know this story. Okay. But, you know, they could still be together. It's possible this is still just exactly what Crippen says it is. It's just a misunderstanding, and it could all be fine. The detectives asked for permission to search Crippen's house, which he gave. They searched it and they found nothing. So finally, the inspector told Crippen that he'd have to talk

to Bell, to this wife who had apparently fled the country, just to clear up the matter. Crippen agreed to that and he himself suggested placing ads in American newspapers to try to track her down. Together, they drafted an ad, and Crippen agreed to place it. Now, at this point, if it came to this, the police were prepared to just drop the whole thing. It seemed like he was so forthcoming and seemed so innocent that they would have been willing to drop the whole matter, even if they hadn't found Bell, but Crippen didn't know that, and he fled. He started this by asking an assistant to buy clothes for a boy, and then he called Ethel to his office and said he'd have to dress her as a boy and cut her hair.

This is one—her whole character, I don't understand her whole side of this. She was ultimately accused of being an accomplice after the fact and acquitted even of that. No one seems to attach much guilt to her. But if I told you we have to go to Brussels overnight and you have to be dressed as a boy and I'm going to cut your hair, and if anyone asks, your name is John Robinson Jr. And I wouldn't question. Your first thought wouldn't be, this is a great adventure, isn't this fun? I mean, you'd think you'd have one or two questions for me. Yeah, was she very young, do you know?

She was 20 years younger than him. She was 17. Oh, well, that's pretty young. That's, but still. My notes here say, Ethel says she feels lighthearted and excited at the adventure. Shouldn't she wonder whether Crippen is a murderer? Why are they fleeing? They just said, we have to go to Brussels, come with me.

Anyway, dressed her as a boy and took her with him to the continent. They toured Brussels. Apparently, Crippen showed no anxiety outwardly. But meanwhile, back in London, Inspector Dew set out on Monday to talk again to Crippen and learned that he'd last been seen on Saturday

with a suitcase, which is starting to look very bad indeed. He was convinced there must be some evidence of house, and they searched it over and over. Finally, on the fourth search, concentrating on the cellar, they took up the brick floor and found the remains of a human body buried there, which was horrifying. It wasn't just a human body. It had been so badly mutilated that it was almost impossible to identify. The skin had been removed.

There was nothing to confirm the sex. The hands and feet, the teeth, the head. There were no bones whatsoever. It was just a mass of flesh. The largest mass was just a continuous string of organs. Du wrote, someone had simply carved the flesh off the bones and laid it there. So. What happened to the bones?

Well, no one ever found the missing body parts. Which is one of the real puzzles here that, I mean, assuming whoever it was, someone killed someone and buried the body there, but they apparently had an effective way of getting rid of the whole skeleton. But then why not get rid of the flesh, too? Yeah. And no one knows the answer to that question. Very weird. So the detectives now want to find Crippen, and they don't know where he is at this point,

so they talk to some ships that would be departing soon from London. One of them was a Canadian Pacific liner called the Montrose. It wasn't taking passengers at London, but it would be at Antwerp, which is its next destination. So they said to the crew, look out for a man traveling with a woman who might be disguised as a boy, which is all they knew at that point. As it happens, that's exactly who they needed to talk to because Crippen and Ethel went to Antwerp and got on board that ship bound for Canada with Lenev disguised as a boy. The cover story is now that they're the Robinsons' father and son, and they're returning to America. Unluckily for them, the Montrose was one of the very first ships with a Marconi set, a wireless telegraph. So if this whole thing wasn't dramatic

enough, it's about to get a lot more so. The captain had been put on his guard by the warning and began to suspect that these two were the ones who were fleeing. And just before the ship steamed beyond the transmitter's range, he had his telegraphist send a telegram to the British authorities. The telegram reads like this. Have strong suspicions that Crippen, London cellar murderer, and accomplice are amongst saloon passengers. Mustache taken off, growing beard.

Accomplice dressed as boy, voice, manner and build undoubtedly a girl. Both traveling as Mr. and Master Robinson. So now Chief Inspector Dew of Scotland Yard decides that what he'll do is get on board an even faster steamer and try to cross the Atlantic and pass them, get to Canada before they do so he can intercept them and arrest him in Canada. This would be very close even if everything went perfectly. The Montrose would take 11 days to reach Quebec, but it had a three days head start. The Laurentic, which is the steamer that Dew was aboard, would only take seven.

So if you work all that out, it means that even if everything goes perfectly, the inspector would only beat Crippen by a day. Right, and that's if there's no delays or... No bad weather, nothing, yeah. No mechanical problems. What's amazing about this is not just the bare fact that the wireless telegraph was involved, but that it falls in this interesting little window in technological history where, and it's hard to describe this, it was really fascinating to research, what happened was Crippen was never made aware that anyone was onto him.

There are these invisible radio waves flying back and forth over his head, but he's not aware of any of that. He thought he was getting away with it under this false identity. Right. head, but he's not aware of any of that. He thought he was getting away with it under this false identity. But newspapers around the world picked up on the story and were reporting it effectively in real time as these ships chased each other across the Atlantic. And nowadays, nobody would be that oblivious. Right. Some people compare this to the O.J. Simpson chase, you know, where there were some moments in that whole drama where it was unfolding and the world was watching it, but the participants were aware they were being watched.

This is unique in that people, the whole world was watching it, but the main actors weren't really aware of that. Dew himself was traveling under an assumed identity. He went as a man named Dewhurst, and he and the Cripkins were racing each other across the Atlantic while newspapers around the world carried the story. So it has this odd quality of almost like fiction, you know, that millions of people can follow a story without interfering with it.

Yeah. It's just a peculiar and was terribly exciting at the time. There were millions of readers who were following the whole story. A few excerpts from newspaper accounts. The Los Angeles Herald on July 29th wrote, Their fellow passengers know nothing of the suspicion that attaches to the couple. The two suspects are not under arrest. They are also ignorant of the wireless messages of inquiry and conjectures

that are flashing over their heads from police headquarters thousands of miles away. J.B. Priestley wrote, The people who have a sure instinct in these matters knew they had seats in a gallery 500 miles long for a new, exciting, entirely original drama, Trapped by Wireless. There were Crippen and his mistress, arriving with a smile at the captain's table, holding hands on the boat deck, entirely unaware of the fact that Inspector Dew was on his way to arrest them. While they were looking at the menu, several million readers were seeing their names again in the largest type. And the London Times wrote, There was something intensely thrilling, almost weird, in the thought of these two passengers traveling across the Atlantic in the belief that their identity and their whereabouts were unknown, while both were being flashed with certainty to all quarters of the civilized world.

From the moment of their departure, the two have been encased in waves of wireless telegraphy as securely as if they had been within the four walls of a prison. Happily for Dew, he accomplished his plan. On July 27th, his ship quietly overtook Crippins. They were never within visual contact, but he did get past them, and he wired back that he would board them at a place called Father Point. He said, please keep any information until I arrive there strictly confidential. So there's this, someone I'm sure has made a movie about this. They certainly ought to. Crippen's ship entered the St. Lawrence River

and the captain told him that he'd like to introduce him to the pilot. The pilot came aboard and took his hand and said, then with the other hand removed his cap and said good morning dr crippen and crippen recognized him as the scotland yard detective who had interviewed him back in wouldn't that be a shock like the last person you expect to see astonishment confusion and then understanding and all he said was good morning mr do uh do said you'll be arrested for the murder and mutilation of your wife, Cora Crippen, in London

on or about February last. And Crippen held out his wrists for the handcuffs. He and Ethelenev were arrested on July 31st, 1910 and they were returned to England.

Dew said later, the inspector, during my long career as a detective, I have experienced many big moments, but at no other time have I felt such a sense

of triumph and achievement. Even he felt badly for Crippen. Oddly, for such a horrible murderer, a lot of people feel badly for Crippen. He just seemed like this mild-mannered man who'd just been pushed too far. Dew said Crippen had been caught on the threshold of freedom only 12 hours more, and he would have been safely at Quebec. They still had to try him on this very difficult evidence of just some anonymous human body or the remains of one.

Right. They couldn't even say for sure it was his wife. They couldn't even say it was female. Oh, wow. They tried Crippen and Ethel separately at the London Assizes. They basically got away with somewhat circumstantial evidence. got away with somewhat circumstantial evidence. They found a piece of the skin that had what the pathologist says was an abdominal scar that was consistent with Cora's medical history, which isn't much to go on.

That's a little tenuous, yeah. Also, they found large quantities of the poison called hyacinth that was found in the remains, and Crippen had bought that drug before the murder from a local chemist, and there's a record of that. Also, they found a piece of a man's pajama top in the hole with the remains that seemed to match a pair of pajama bottoms that Cora had given Crippen the preceding year, 1909. Just these little things started adding up. And they found a curler in the hole that bore a

strand of bleached blonde hair, and it was known that Cora was dyeing her hair for her stage career. Why would he have put a curler and a piece of pajamas in? Or is it just they thought they somehow ended up in there? Like, the whole thing doesn't—right, like, where were the bones? It's really hard to know what happened. Why keep the flesh and a piece of pajamas and a curler? Okay. I guess he never confessed and explained everything.

He insisted on his innocence all the way to the gallows. Oh, did he? The jury found him guilty only after 27 minutes of deliberations and he was hanged on November 23, 1910. Ethel, as I said, was charged only with being an accessory after the fact and she was acquitted even of that. And she left for the United States on the morning of his hanging. At his request, her photo was placed in his coffin. So he's officially the murderer of his wife on the records now. There are some people who question whether he really did it. For one thing, there's this, as you say, there's this whole puzzle about what what happened if whoever killed whoever and buried the

remains in the cellar did a very assiduous job even the tiny bones of the hand and feet had been removed from this body uh crippling himself was quite a small man he was five foot four and weighed 142 pounds cora was larger than him oh wow um if even if he managed to get rid of every bone in this body how did he dispose of the blood in the viscera? There's just a lot of questions. Yeah, good question. And as I say, he went to the gallows. It wasn't his wife who was under the bricks.

I mean, that's... Crippen's argument at the trial was that they had moved into the house only in 1905 and that possibly the body had already been there when they bought the house. The problem is someone from the pajama company testified that they only started making these pajamas in 1908, so they were already in the house. And it's hard to get around that. So then it's even weirder that the piece of pajamas was in there,

unless somebody was trying to incriminate him. We will probably never know. In October 2007, some researchers at the Michigan State University got a hold of some DNA from one of the old slides from the records of the trial and concluded that they were male. In other words, that the body couldn't have been Cora. But that's controversial. Ugh. Because it's very old DNA evidence.

So no one knows. It's conceivable that he was just, that Crippen really was innocent. Although that raises questions. To me, the main thing is not how did he kill her, but why did he flee? If he was really innocent, why dress up your girlfriend as a boy and insist that she take him in? Well, yeah, and then there's this whole weird thing about claiming she was in America and claiming

she was dead and no, she's not really dead. I mean, yeah. If she really was alive, then he would just need to find a way to get in touch with her. To show that, which even he'd propose to just run an ad in a California newspaper and track her down. That should have been easy to do. So it does look pretty bad.

But there are these just open questions. The whole case was obviously a huge sensation at the time. And even throughout the 20th century, it fascinated some people. Alfred Hitchcock investigated deeply and used some of the elements in some of his movies. And there's notably Rear Window where Jimmy Stewart discusses how you would go about cutting up and disposing of a human body. And interestingly, Raymond Chandler thought the whole thing, just as you did, doesn't make any sense.

He wrote in 1948 in a letter to a friend, I cannot see why a man who would go to the enormous labor of deboning and desexing and deheading an entire corpse would not take the rather slight extra labor of disposing of the flesh in the same way, rather than bury it at all. Crippen didn't seem to panic at all. He did many things which required a very cool head. For a man with a cool head and some ability to think, he also

did many things which simply did not make sense. As I say, no one ever found the missing body parts, and if you're able, if you have some means, somewhere to dispose of a whole human skeleton why not just dispose of the rest of it yeah that and the curler in the pajamas like i'm really stuck on that like that makes no sense unless it was some weird you know psychopathic wanting to keep a weird record or memento or he was just under i just that's the funny thing is

it seems like he must have been under great time pressure because he was also working a full time job while he was doing all this yeah you're right and he did such whoever did this

did such an assiduous job that it's odd they would overlook just a couple small details the thing about the pajamas is really interesting because then that dates it because you're right

because otherwise you'd be like well the previous occupants of the house but if we know it can't be the previous occupants of the house then it's kind of hard to believe somebody else managed to get into his house pry up the bricks of his cellar put all this stuff there get all the bricks put back down without him having any idea anything was going on yeah so it

seems very likely from all the evidence that he's guilty but somehow if you read the accounts of it and i'll put some links in the show notes, apparently he was a very kindly, kind-hearted is the word, his acquaintance. None of the people who actually knew him could believe that he could be guilty of this. He just seemed like a really genuinely nice guy. So even though apparently he did a monstrous deed, even Dew felt somewhat sorry for him. Raymond Chandler wrote in another letter, You can't help liking this guy somehow. He was one murderer who died like a gentleman. This podcast is supported by our amazing patrons.

Greg and I spend many hours a week researching and creating each episode, and we need your help to keep making the show. So if you enjoy Futility Closet and want to help keep it going, then check out our Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash futilitycloset. You can pledge any amount that you choose, and if you pledge at least a dollar an episode, you get access to the podcast activity feed, where you can get a peek behind the scenes of the show,

listen to outtakes and extralateral thinking puzzles, and find out more about Sasha, the show mascot. I just like this. This is a letter sent by the 24-year-old Winston Churchill to an American author, coincidentally also named Winston Churchill, in June of 1899. Mr. Winston Churchill presents his compliments to Mr. Winston Churchill and begs to draw his attention to a matter which concerned them both. He is learned from the press notices that Mr. Winston Churchill proposes to bring out another novel, entitled Richard Carvel, which is certain to have a considerable sale both in England and America.

Mr. Winston Churchill is also the author of a novel, now being published in serial form in Macmillan's magazine, and for which he anticipates some sale both in England and America. He also proposes to publish on the 1st of October another military chronicle on the Sudan War. He has no doubt that Mr. Winston Churchill will recognize from this letter, if indeed by no other means, that there is a grave danger of his works being mistaken for those of Mr. Winston Churchill. He feels sure that Mr. Winston Churchill desires this as little as

he does himself. In future, to avoid mistakes as far as possible, Mr. Winston Churchill has decided to sign all published articles, stories, or other works Winston Spencer Churchill and not Winston Churchill as formerly. He trusts that this arrangement will commend itself to Mr. Winston Churchill, and he ventures to suggest, with a view to preventing further confusion, which may arise out of this extraordinary coincidence, that both Mr. Winston Churchill and Mr. Winston Churchill should insert a short note in their respective publications explaining to the public which are the works of Mr. Winston Churchill and which are those of Mr. Winston Churchill. The text of this note might form a subject for future discussion if Mr. Winston Churchill agrees

with Mr. Winston Churchill's proposition. He takes this occasion of complimenting Mr. Winston Churchill upon the style and success of his works, which are always brought to his notice, whether in magazine or book form, and he trusts that Mr. Winston Churchill has derived equal pleasure from any work of his that may have attracted his attention. Some time later, the American Winston Churchill responded to this and agreed with his plan. He wrote, Mr. Winston Churchill is extremely grateful to Mr. Winston Churchill for bringing forward a subject which has given Mr. Winston Churchill much anxiety. All right, it's my turn to be solving a lateral thinking puzzle.

Greg's going to present me with some odd-sounding situation, and I'm going to have to figure out what's going on, asking only yes or no questions. I'm taking this one from the NPR program Car Talk. It ran back in 2010 there and was sent in to them originally by a man named George Parks. He writes, My son sat patiently in his seat and waited for service. After a while, an attractive-looking young lady came over and asked if he would like something to drink.

He replied that he'd like a beer. He was youthful in feature and appearance, so she asked him to produce an ID. The woman checks his ID and, with no problem, serves him his beer. Four hours later, he's in the same chair and asks the same server for another beer. To his surprise, the server again asks for his ID. Not a surprise, she forgot who he was. He produces the same ID. The server tells him that, unfortunately, she cannot serve him alcohol at this time, as it would be illegal for her to do so. What's going on here? Does this have something to do with the day of the week and you can't serve alcohol in some places on Sundays?

No. Good guess. That would have been really impressive. I was like, wow, I solved it. I was like, no, that's got to be it. I mean, it's always now. It's after midnight and it's Sunday morning because that is a law in some states. Okay.

Does this matter where it takes place? Because different states have different laws about things and stuff. Yes. Okay. So it's like some place with some specific set of laws that I need to work out. No. No. Okay. He's in the same seat. He didn't move. Correct. Okay. Because there's also like he shifted to over the state line and he's now in Utah and they don't serve alcohol. Because there's also like he shifted to over the state line and he's now in Utah and they don't serve alcohol. Okay. Is this in the United States? You're really hot tonight.

Is this in the United States? No. It's not in the United States. Okay. Oh. Does it have to do with like his age and in some countries you can only drink up to a certain time of the day? No. Okay.

Coming up with so many good answers. I know. You're really good. Okay. He's not in the United States. Is he in Europe? No. Is he in Canada? No. Okay. Coming up with so many good answers. I know. You're really good. Okay. He's not in the United States. Is he in Europe? No. Is he in Canada? No.

Is he in Latin America somewhere? No. Oh, my gosh. Do I need to figure out what country he's in? Is he in the Middle East? Is he in Africa? Is he on the moon? No and no and no.

Okay. Okay. Oh, well, okay. Is he on a continent? No is he on oh that's it the whole ship is moving he's on a ship and they've crossed it's into something else he's on a ship of a ship on the water no uh he's on an airplane yes yes and is that it that they've they're now in a different place with different laws? Not quite.

Not quite. Okay, so he's on an airplane. That's why he hasn't moved his seat, but the airplane has moved. Do I need to know where the airplane is at this moment? Yes. Oh, is it that? No, she wouldn't have asked to see his ID if it's because after a certain point on an airplane, they can't serve you because they're going in for a landing,

but then she wouldn't have asked to see his ID, so that wouldn't make sense. That's right. So I need to know where the airplane is now. Do I need to know where the airplane is now? Now meaning? When he can't be served the drink. Yes. Okay.

Do I need to know, when you say I need to know where the airplane is when he can't be served the drink, do I need to understand what country's territory or area he's in whether on the ground or their airspace uh i'll say no to that hmm does it matter they've oh it's not like you said it has nothing to do with it that it's sunday so it's not like they've crossed a date line and it's now sunday and they can't be served alcohol is that it that's very close I should just give it to you. Is it that he's crossed a date line? Yes, that's it. Okay.

George's son was returning from a study trip in China. He was flying from China to America, and when he got on the plane, it was his 21st birthday. Four hours later, when the plane had crossed the international date line, George's son lost the date. He was only 20. Oh, no, you should have made me figure that out. I didn't quite have that. I was stuck on the Sunday thing. You said Dateline, and I figured it would just be pointless to drag it on.

That's very clever, though. Yes, but I should have figured out the rest of it. You're really like, I mean, it's so hard to come up anymore with ones that will even the Sunday you did. Well, I didn't get it. It's like I came up with 15 wrong answers. Yay for me. Really good ones, though.

Well, if anyone else has a puzzle that they would like to send in for us to use. Please. Yeah, please. You can send them to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. That's another episode for us. If you're looking for more Futility Closet, you can check out our books on Amazon. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Or visit the website at futilitycloset.com, where you can sample over 8,000 frenic entertainments. Thank you. and to help keep us going. You can find more information at patreon.com slash futilitycloset.

You can also help us out by telling your friends about us or by clicking the donate button on the sidebar of the website. If you have five minutes, please take our survey at podsurvey.com slash futility to help us find advertisers to support the show. If you have any questions or comments about the show, you can reach us by email at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and produced by Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Thank you.