Futility Closet - 095-A New Day at Charleston

Episode Date: February 29, 2016

In 1862, slave Robert Smalls was working as a pilot aboard a Confederate transport ship in Charleston, S.C., when he seized a unique chance to escape. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow his daring predawn journey, which rescued 17 people from slavery and changed the course of South Carolina history. We'll also reflect on justice for bears and puzzle over a hijacker's surprising request. 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. Sources for our feature on Robert Smalls: Andrew Billingsley, Yearning to Breathe Free: Robert Smalls of South Carolina and His Families, 2007. Kitt Haley Alexander, Robert Smalls: First Black Civil War Hero, 2001. Peggy Cooper Davis, “Introducing Robert Smalls,” Fordham Law Review 69:5 (April 2001), 1695. “Robert Smalls,” American National Biography Online, accessed Feb. 14, 2016. Henry Louis Gates Jr., “Which Slave Sailed Himself to Freedom?”, PBS.org (accessed Feb. 14, 2016). Micah White, “Black History Unsung Heroes: Robert Smalls,” biography.com, Feb 9, 2015. “Smalls, Robert,” History, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives (accessed Feb. 14, 2016). Blain Roberts and Ethan J. Kytle, “Robert Smalls's Great Escape,” New York Times, May 12, 2012. Avis Thomas-Lester, “Civil War Hero Robert Smalls Seized the Opportunity to Be Free,” Washington Post, March 2, 2012. Amy Geier Edgar, “Bill Would Honor Black Pioneer in Business, Politics,” Associated Press, March 26, 2004. Listener mail: Todd Wilkinson, "What Do You Do With a Bear That Kills a Person?", National Geographic, Aug. 20, 2015. Sarene Leeds, "'Downton Abbey' Recap: Season 6, Episode 5," Wall Street Journal, Jan. 31, 2016. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Rini Rikka. 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. 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]. 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 9,000 curiosities in history, language, mathematics, literature, philosophy, and art. You can find us online at futilitycloset.com. Thanks for joining us. Welcome to Episode 95. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. Robert Smalls was a slave working as a ship's pilot in Charleston, South Carolina, when one morning in 1862 he seized a rare chance at freedom.

In today's show, we'll tell how Smalls' bold actions saved 17 people from slavery and changed the course of South Carolina's history. We'll also reflect on justice for bears and puzzle over a hijacker's surprising request. This podcast depends on the support of our listeners to keep going. If you want to know that you are one of the reasons that we can keep making this show each week, check out our Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash futilitycloset or see the link in our show notes. And thanks so much to everyone who supports the show. This is the story of a man who seized an opportunity.

Robert Smalls was a slave who was born in Beaufort, South Carolina in 1839. He was a slave, but he had a relatively privileged existence, and that's because his father was white. His mother was a house servant who worked in the family of John McKee in Beaufort, but we don't know who his father was. It may have been John McKee himself or perhaps his son Henry or the plantation owner Patrick Smalls, but in any case, he was half white and so was given somewhat more privileges than the typical slave at the time. His mother actually worried about that. She thought that he wouldn't grasp the full horror of his situation, and she arranged actually for him to be sent into the field so he could work and watch slaves at the

whipping post. And if anything, that plan worked too well, because on witnessing these things, it made Robert defiant, and he actually frequently found himself in the Beaufort jail as a result. So his mother kept worrying about what was going to happen to him, and so fearing for his safety, she thought he might get too defiant, she asked McKee to allow her to send Robert to Charleston to be rented out to work there. Charleston's a city on the Atlantic coast of South Carolina. And that's what they did. They sent him out there and he held a series of jobs there. In 1856, he married another slave named Hannah Jones who worked as a hotel maid and they had two daughters. Their existence there was still relatively privileged they lived in an apartment by

themselves Hannah and Robert and their daughters they still had to send most of their income to their owners but that's still a much better life than most slaves had Robert was aware himself that there's no guarantee they'd be able to continue to live that way, that their owners could break up the family for any reason at any time or for no reason. That happened all the time. So he asked his owners if he could purchase his family, which sounds terrible to say. They said yes, but it would cost him $800. He had only $100. So he began to look for alternatives. He began in particular to look to the Union ships, which were sitting outside the harbor of Charleston. He knew that they had begun accepting what were called contrabands, basically runaway slaves from the South who went over to the Union lines. This was shortly after the U.S. Civil War had begun. And he told his wife to be ready.

The Union Navy had set up a blockade around much of the Atlantic and the Gulf Coast when the war started. That's why the Union ships were there. South Carolina was on the south side of the Civil War, but one of the first things the Union did was try to blockade the ports just to interfere with commerce and make life difficult for the south. So that's why there were about 10 Union ships outside the Charleston Harbor. Inside the harbor, the Confederates were defending Charleston and its coastal waters. There were a lot of island forts there, and it was just sort of a tense standoff for some time there. One of the main forts there was Fort Sumter, which was actually famously the site of the

first battle of the Civil War. The Confederates had taken it one year earlier. Smalls, as I said, held a series of jobs around Charleston, but he had been a skilled sailor since childhood. And in 1861, he'd begun working as a deckhand on the planter, which was a steamer that operated out of Charleston Harbor. By 1862, he was very good at this. He was only 23 years old, but he was already serving as the pilot of the ship. And the planter had been used before the war to transport cotton to ships various fortifications around the Charleston Harbor, laying torpedoes or explosives to ward off the Union ships and keeping the planter cleaned, fueled, and loaded with supplies. He was just very good at this job. He knew the locations of the Confederate armaments in the channels and on shore, and he knew where the mines were since he himself had laid them. One day, they had to do all of this, he and this crew of eight other slaves, in view of these ten Union ships outside the harbor.

And one day, one of his companions, one of the other slaves, made a joke that what they ought to do instead of doing all this work for the South was just pilot the ship out to the Union ships and give themselves over as one of my slaves. That'd be a lot better. He meant this as a joke, but it got them talking about it. And Robert quickly said, look, if you want to talk about this seriously, let's not mention it at all on the ship here. Come to my apartment and we'll talk about it privately.

And that's what they began to do. The plan was to become contrabands, to run across to the Union blockade ships, and they weren't sure when they were going to be able to do that. They met in a series of meetings at Robert's apartment, and he said basically, over time, hide the provisions you would need in the hold of the planter of the ship that they worked on, where the three Union officers on the ship wouldn't discover them, and we'll just wait and watch for our opportunity. And that opportunity eventually came. On May 12, 1862, the ship had been out for two weeks supplying various island points and finally returned to Charleston around nightfall and was moored at the Southern Wharf there. It was due to go out again the next morning, and so it was heavily armed. It had 200 rounds of ammunition,

a 32-pound pivot gun, a 24-pound howitzer, and four other guns. Now, because the ship had been gone for two weeks, everyone was tired, and the three white officers decided to go into town for the evening, which was flatly against Confederate naval policy,

which was that one- For them all to go together. Yeah. The normal rule was that at least one officer had to stay with the ship at all times. Normally, all three of them slept on the ship. But, and the captain, a man named Brolier, would have been subject to court-martial if anyone knew that they were doing this. They had done it in the past, and Robert had noticed them doing it.

So the three decided to go into town and when they left, the rest of them put their plan into effect. There were 10 union ships enforcing the blockade of Charleston and they hoped to just steam straight out to them. This was very dangerous because if they were caught and stopped doing it, they would all be killed. That was the penalty, death, and they knew that. For for this reason two of the slaves opted to stay behind they just didn't want to take that risk but the rest of them agreed to try it and in fact they agreed before they left that if they were caught they would set fire fire to the ship's boilers which would blow up the ship and kill all of them so it really was before they set out they

had agreed that it was either freedom or death yeah that they were facing they set out, they had agreed that it was either freedom or death that they were facing. They set out. So this is Smalls and the remaining crewmen set out at 2 a.m. He said a prayer to himself, oh, Lord, be with us on this fateful journey. They flew both the South Carolina and the Confederate flags. And Robert had memorized the signals for the ship's whistle so they could get clearance from the other Confederate ships in the harbor. They have to pass a series of checkpoints, Confederate ships and forts on the shore, and sound certain signals on the whistle that were agreed upon to reflect the fact that they were not anything suspicious and not any threat to the Confederate forces.

Also, with admirable foresight, I think, Robert put on the skipper's naval jacket, and he apparently wore a trademark straw hat, so he disguised himself as well as he could as the normal captain of the ship. And apparently, he looked very similar to the captain, just by chance. His skin was darker, but there was a common joke that they looked very similar, so he had that going for him. And it was dark. They set it at 2 a.m., so during this whole adventure, the sky was gradually glowing lighter, but it was a bit indistinct to see what was going on aboard this ship. They paused first at the West Atlantic wharf to pick up Small's wife and children who were waiting there, along with four other women, three men, and another child, basically the families of the other crewmen on the planner who are going to try to make this escape. But now all of them face death if this doesn't work. So they start steaming out of the harbor, and Robert in the wheelhouse gives the

correct signals as they go. They had to pass five forts in this way and a succession of ships, and Robert even thought to fold his arms. Apparently Captain Relyea had a certain characteristic way of folding his arms that was recognizable, and he would even do that. characteristic way of folding his arms that was recognizable and he would even do that so in the sort of gloaming or in the gathering light he would he would pass for relia and apparently this worked they got past all five ships and all the forts the last fort they had to pass was fort sumter and once they got past there he lowered the confederate standard and raised a bed sheet that his wife hannah had brought from the hotel where she worked. And then they turned and steamed directly for the nearest Union blockading vessel, which happened to be a ship called the Onward. It was only at this moment that the Confederates

realized that something was amiss and sounded an alarm. But this time, by this time, they'd passed out of the gun range of the rebels. So there was really nothing that the Confederates could do at this point. That's the good news. The bad news is that they're now steaming toward 10 armed union ships who have had no warning that any of this would happen all the union ships can see is that a confederate steamer is now headed directly toward them at high speed from a confederate port and they don't know what to make of any of this i guess they're hoping the bed sheet would be like a big white flag like like I surrender kind of thing. Yeah.

But the onward, this is still before the sun's come up, and the onward opened its gun ports. And here's an eyewitness account of what happened next. Just as number three port gun was being elevated, someone cried out, I see something that looks like a white flag. And true enough, there was something flying on the steamer that would have been white by application of soap and water. As she neared us, we looked in vain for the face of a white man. When they discovered that we would not fire on them, there was a rush of contrabands out on her deck, some dancing, some singing, whistling, jumping, and others stood looking towards Fort Sumter and muttering all sorts of maledictions against it and the heart of the South generally.

As the steamer came near and under the stern of the onward, one of the colored men stepped forward and, taking off his hat, shouted, Good morning, sir. I've brought you some of the old United States guns, sir. Some of the guns aboard the planter had been taken from Fort Sumter, so he was actually returning them to the north in doing all this. So they made it. The whole feat took less than four hours, and they got out just as the sun was coming up, because it would have been impossible to do any of this by daylight.

This whole exploit became a national sensation, as you can imagine. Robert was hailed as the first hero of the Civil War. And in addition to getting these new men to fight for the Union and the ship, the Union also got information on mine placement, the dispositions of rebel troops, and a codebook of Confederate flag signals. So it's quite a deal for the Union. It came out of nowhere. You can imagine there was an awful lot of hysterical defensive finger pointing on the Confederate side after all this happened. In fact, it rattled all the way up to Robert E. Lee, who was not happy, but there was really nothing to be done about it at that point. They just lost the ship and the men aboard it. I suppose something terrible must have happened to the officers because it was discovered how this had all come about, but I

don't know the details of that. If the South had won the Civil War and kept the institution of slavery, then I suppose Robert Smalls would have spent the rest of his life piloting a boat around Charleston Harbor. Instead, once he got his freedom, here's what he did with the rest of his life. He lobbied the Secretary of War to allow the Union to begin enlisting black soldiers, and Abraham Lincoln permitted this a few months later. In October 1862, he returned to the Planner, now on the Union side, to participate as a pilot in the blockade of Charleston. He was engaged in about 17 military actions.

He was promoted to the rank of captain himself and became one of the highest-paid black soldiers of the war, earning $150 a month. At the end of the war, he received a commission as a brigadier general in the South Carolina militia. He opened a school for black children in 1867. He published a newspaper starting in 1872. He served as a delegate to the 1868 South Carolina Constitutional Convention, taking a role in drafting South Carolina's state constitution. Served five years in the South Carolina House of Representatives, five years in the state Senate, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives with 80% of the vote and served five terms there, co-founded the Republican Party of South Carolina, and authored state legislation that provided for the state to

have the first free and compulsory public school system in the United States. Best of all, when they delivered the ship to the Union on the night of the escape, under the rules, since they're giving this valuable ship to the Union, they were entitled to prize money, to basically a cash reward for doing so. And they divided that among everyone who participated in the escape. But Robert, after the war, took his share and used it to buy his master's house in Beaufort, South Carolina, where he lived for the rest of his life and let his master's wife, who by then was elderly and had nowhere else to stay, let her live with them, which I will just say is

more than I think I would have managed to do myself. On April 14th, 1865, I'd mentioned that Fort Sumter was the site of the first battle of the Civil War. After the war was over, as sort of a symbolic ceremony on April 14th, 18 1865 which is four years to the day after the union flag had been taken down at the fort they had another ceremony to put it back up again to sort of symbolize the reunion of the nation and there was a huge celebration around that part of it was a water parade basically a big parade of ships from all over the southern command at charleston just participating in this whole celebration around Fort Sumter. The lead boat was the planter, which followed the same route that

it had taken in 1862. During the escape, it had carried 17 black passengers. This time it carried 3,000 people, described as blacks and whites, military and civilians, male and female. Here's an eyewitness description of that. Almost central interest, the planter, crowded almost to suffocation upon her three decks with General Saxton's freedmen, revealed her splashing paddles through the broken wheelhouse. Another such motley crew will seldom if ever be seen. Gray-haired old men whose wrinkles were lighted up with deep but quiet joy. Middle-aged men and women of every grade of color possible to southern civilization, the latter decorated with bandanas and turbans of flashy colors. Cumbly and buxom

girls attired in neat chintz, cadaverous and ragged beings holding about them their tattered garments. Boys and girls whose jubilation exhibited itself in the most astonishing display, huddled together like sheep in a pen, hanging over the gunnels, mounted on the posts, doubled up in furtive corners, peering through the gangways, darkening the wheelhouse, upon the top of which stood Robert Smalls, a prince among them, self-possessed, prompt, and proud, giving his orders to the helmsman in ringing tones of command. Robert Smalls died on February 22, 1915, in the same house where he'd been born a slave. He once said, My race needs no special defense for the past history of them in this country.

It proves them to be equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life. This episode is brought to you by our patrons and by Harry's. You've heard me talk about these guys before. For years, I used an electric shaver until Harry's had me try their German-engineered razor blades, and I'd forgotten what a close shave a good blade will give. Harry's is the only shaving company that has both amazing quality and low prices. They make German-engineered five-blade cartridges that offer a close, comfortable shave with no cuts or burn. And the quality is guaranteed. You get a full refund if you're not happy. Best of all, Harry's

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Maddie Beck sent us an email saying, greetings from Australia. Thank you for making your podcasts. I really, really enjoy them. I especially love the lateral thinking puzzles and I look forward to attempting to solve them each week. Maddie explained that she was writing to us because she found that while listening to the puzzles, she was sometimes confused by the answers to certain questions. She says, I realized it was questions such as, so she didn't go to the store or his occupation isn't important where the asker seeks confirmation that their previous assumption was negative. I soon realized I was a little confused because

of the different ways that Americans and Australians would answer these kinds of questions. In America, the answer to the question, so she didn't go to the store, if this was correct, would be yes. As in, yes, that is correct. But in Australia, we would answer that question no, as in, no, she didn't go to the store. Maybe it's just me, but I found this difference interesting and I hadn't noticed it until now. Thanks again and keep up the good work. Maybe it's just us. Is that an American thing? You know, reading this email and then you start to think, well, yeah, you could see it either way. Maybe we're answering them wrong or something.

I mean, really, maybe that's not even an American way to do it. Maybe it's just the way you and I happen to do it. Yeah. But I do try sometimes when doing the puzzles to say something more like correct or that's right or yes, she didn't go to the store. Because you're right. I mean, it's confusing enough when you're doing the puzzles,

but if you give an answer that could be ambiguous. Yeah, that's even worse. It confuses everything. But maybe it is a difference. We'll have to like sort of notice now how other people do it in America and see. Carl Magnuson wrote about a link between our podcast

and Downton Abbey, the popular TV show featuring the aristocratic Crawley family in early 20th century England. In season six, episode five, Neville Chamberlain, the future prime minister, visits the Crawleys. There's an article summarizing the episode on the Wall Street Journal blog,

and it notes that Chamberlain's brother-in-law, Horace Devere Cole, was a notorious prankster. And apparently in the show, one of the family members knows that Chamberlain was once an accomplice in one of Devere Cole's practical jokes, and that's how they were able to get him to Downton, by holding this information over him. The blog says, One word from her and his reputation would be in tatters. Hmm, perhaps this is why there is no official record of Chamberlain's involvement in any of Devere Cole's schemes. And Carl, who must have an amazingly good memory memory says that he was watching this episode and of course I remember hearing of Devere Cole

in episode 11 of Utility Closet so I thought that was very impressive we did indeed discuss Devere Cole in episode 11 and his orchestration of a very complicated prank that had Virginia Woolf and some of her friends passing themselves off as obsidian princes. Carl says that the discussion of Devere Cole occurs at 43 minutes and 25 seconds into the episode if anyone wants to try to check it out. Unfortunately, there's apparently no mention of Futility Closet on the show, but I guess that would be anachronistic.

Good for them, though. That's, that's a relatively obscure reference. And yet they still took the trouble to put it in there. I think that's great. And if anyone does learn that Chamberlain did indeed participate in any of Devere Cole's pranks, do let us know about that. That would be very interesting to discover. Carla Langendune wrote, I'm a relatively new listener and have been catching up by starting from the beginning of your podcast and enjoying them very much.

Last night, I listened to episode 31 about animals on trial and told my husband about it. He works for the National Park Service here in Canada, and he replied that it wasn't so strange. Similar scenarios happen today and frequently in his world. Here is an article that illustrates this. Thanks for your podcast and all the great food for thought. And Carla was referring to the story we did on how for centuries animals in Europe were given criminal trials before they were punished for misbehaving. But the story she sent actually reminded me more of episode 60, which was about the 1916 hanging of a circus elephant

that had killed someone. Carla likely hasn't gotten to that episode yet, if she's working her way up from the first episode, but presumably she will hear that one before she gets to this episode. Carla sent a link to a National Geographic article from August 20th, 2015, titled, What Do You Do With a Bear That Kills a Person? And that was the really difficult decision that Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Dan Wenk had to make about whether to put down a mother grizzly bear

after they discovered the remains of a man that she and her cubs had apparently mauled and then partially eaten. The man had been hiking off trail and wasn't carrying the recommended pepper spray to deter bears. So there was a lot of public feeling against the hiker and for the mother bear. Wenk was quoted as saying,

In my 40 years working for the National Park Service, I have never encountered anything like the emotional outpouring we received in response to the fate of this bear. And that struck me as being rather in contrast to the circus elephant story. In the 1916 case, it was mostly only the circus owner and the other circus workers who wanted to spare the elephant. And that was against, like, overwhelming public pressure. Yeah, it would have shut down the circus if they hadn't agreed to that. Yeah. Because the public were so out against the elephant.

Right. Even though in that case there were extenuating circumstances against the elephant. Yeah. In this case, you know, there were somewhat circumstances against the hiker. So to me, it was just interesting, the difference in the 100 years. Wenk agonized over the decision he had to make in this case, and he consulted with bear management specialists about it before making his decision. And some important background information to this case is that in 2011, decision. And some important background information to this case is that in 2011, a mother grizzly had killed a hiker and Wenk had made the decision then not to have the bear put down. But two months

later, another hiker was killed and DNA evidence linked the same grizzly to the attack. And at that time, Wenk came under enormous public criticism for his decision in that case, and he almost lost his job over it. So it's really not an enviable position that he was put in here. It seemed like almost no matter what you decide, somebody's going to be upset with you. It could go badly either way. It's an impossible decision to make. I mean, in hindsight, it's going to look one way or the other,

but you can't know that when you make the decision. Right, and in this most recent case, he did end up deciding to have the grizzly killed and her cubs sent to a zoo, which was, I think, a sad outcome, but understandable given the whole situation. Thanks so much to everyone who writes in to us. And if you have any questions or comments for us, please send them to podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's my turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. Greg is going to present me with an odd-sounding situation, and I have to try to figure out what's going on, asking only yes or no questions.

This one appeared originally on the NPR program Car Talk back in 2012. A lone hijacker commandeers a jetliner that's on its way from Boston to Los Angeles with a stopover in Chicago. He tells the pilot at gunpoint to land the plane at the Chicago airport and to tell the authorities that he wants three parachutes and a suitcase packed with a million dollars. The authorities give these to him and in return he releases half the hostages. The plane takes off again headed for Los Angeles. The hijacker puts on one parachute, ties another to the suitcase, opens the door and escapes. The plane takes off again, headed for Los Angeles. The hijacker puts on one parachute, ties another to the suitcase, opens the door, and escapes. The question is, why did he ask for a third parachute? Hmm. Did he use the third parachute in some way? No. He wanted to make the authorities think that there was another hijacker or that he'd be

taking a hostage with him? Yes. Oh, one of those? Do you want to guess which one? There's a bit more to it than that. Okay. Did this really happen? No, I don't think so. Oh, there's a bit more to it than that. Okay. Is it that he wanted to make the authorities think that there was another person with him? That there was going to be another person jumping out of the plane? Yes. Do I need to figure out specifically who that other person was supposed to be or what role they were supposed to be playing? Did he want them to think there was another hijacker? No. Did he want them to think he was going to have a hostage?

Yes. A specific person like the pilot? Not a specific person. But why did he want them to think? Because, oh, he didn't want them to give him defective parachutes. You're really good at this. Although that would be, I mean, could you imagine that the authorities would do that and like let him just plummet to the ground? You're really good at this.

Yes, just to spell this out. His idea was that if he'd only asked for two parachutes, the feds might think, well, he'll need one for himself and one for the suitcase with the money. And so they can put holes in the parachutes and rig them somehow, so he'll just plunge to his death. If he asks for three parachutes, then they might imagine that he wants one to bring a hostage with him, and they can't afford to rig the parachutes. Wow. My notes do say I don't think the feds would commit murder to foil a hijacker,

but arguably might have thought they would. That's true. That's true. Okay, since you got through that so quickly, I've got another one worked out. All right, let's try another one. This is from listener Rini Rikka. A banker was found dead in his office with a gun in his hand and a gunshot wound in his head. A tape recorder was on the table before him. The investigator pushed the play button and heard the voice of the banker in the recording saying that he couldn't just sit and wait for bankruptcy and wanted to end it all now.

And after that, there's a gunshot. The investigator said, well, it looks like there's been a murder. How did he know? Okay. Was the banker mute? No, he said it was in the banker's voice. Okay, does he believe that what he's hearing on the tape is actually the banker? Yes.

Okay. I have to wonder about a situation in which there's a murder committed and a tape recorder happens to be running, but I guess maybe that'll be covered somehow. Does he hear anything else on the tape other than what you described? Is there something else that's on the tape that you did not describe? No. Okay. So that implies there's no second voice. That's right. Or the sounds of a different person. Correct. Footsteps or anything.

Right. Okay. Does the gunshot match the gun in the banker's hand? Yes. Okay. Is it something on the tape that leads the detective to believe that the banker was murdered? No. No. No.

So like if the tape recorder hadn't been there. Oh, somebody hit stop on the tape recorder. The banker couldn't have shot himself and then hit stop, right? No, but you're close. Okay, so if the tape recorder had not been in the room, if the detective had found everything else in the room exactly the same, but there was no tape recorder, would he have understood so quickly that it was murder?

No. No, so it is something about the tape recorder. That's right. Okay, and it's not that somebody had hit stop, which the banker obviously couldn't have done after he was dead. Right. Was something else changed or moved on the tape recorder that would imply somebody had been alive in the room after the banker died?

Yes. Hmm. But it's not that they hit stop. You're very close. They rewound the tape. Yes. Oh, that's clever. The investigator pushed the play button and the recording played from the beginning.

Since a gunshot can be heard in the end of the recording, there must have been another person in the room, presumably the killer, to rewind it to the beginning. Well, thank you for sending in that puzzle. Yes, thanks for being here. And if anybody else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to use, you can send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. That wraps up another episode for us. If you're looking for more quirky curiosities, you can check out our books on Amazon or visit the website at futilitycloset.com, where you can sample more than 9,000 beguiling esoterica. At the website, you can see the show notes for the podcast and listen to previous episodes. Just click podcast in the sidebar.

If you'd like to support Futility Closet, please consider becoming a patron to help keep us going. You can find more information at patreon.com slash futility closet. 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 any questions or comments about the show, you can reach us by email at podcast at futility closet.com. Our music was written and produced by Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.