Futility Closet - 236-The Last Lap

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 10,000 quirky curiosities from a mouse utopia to a phonetic mother goose. This is episode 236. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1908, a 22-year-old Italian baker's assistant arrived in London to take part in the Olympic marathon. He had no coach, he spoke no English, and he was not expected to challenge the elite runners at

Starting point is 00:00:38 the top of the field. In today's show, we'll follow Durando Pietri on the most celebrated race in Olympic history. We'll also ponder the Great Mole air mystery and puzzle over a welcome murder. The Modern Marathon was invented in 1896. The first modern Olympic Games were held that year in Athens, and the organizers wanted to commemorate a story from classical times. It was said that after a Greek victory in the town of Marathon, a messenger had run from the battlefield all the way to Athens, a distance of about 25 miles. Supposedly, he had just time to say, rejoice, we conquer, before he collapsed and died. That story might sound uninspiring, but when the 1896 organizers added a long-distance race from Marathon to Athens, it attracted the largest sports crowd to that point in history. Few athletes at that

Starting point is 00:01:30 time had ever run a race longer than five miles, and when Spyridon Louis finished the race in just under three hours, he established what one writer called the most audacious of races and assured the success of the modern Olympics. The new race was still slow to take hold, though. The 1900 Olympics in Paris and the 1904 Games in St. Louis were both overshadowed by the World's Fair, and while communities around the world were beginning to experiment with marathons of their own, these grueling distances were still very new. Even by the time of the 1908 Olympics in London, only 50 marathons had ever been run. The London Games got off to a bad start. Rome had been scheduled to host the Games that year, but an eruption of Vesuvius had forced a

Starting point is 00:02:11 last-minute change, and England had little time to prepare. But the organizers rose to the occasion. A special stadium was built in West London, 2,000 competitors arrived from 22 countries, and hundreds of reporters prepared to record the games in detail. In the marathon, the favorite was Tom Longboat of Canada, an Onondaga Indian who'd won the Boston Marathon in record time the previous year. The United States sent seven runners, including Johnny Hayes, who'd had three top-five finishes in the last three years. By comparison, Italy had sent only 12 competitors altogether for the track and field events, and had entered only two men in the marathon, Umberto Blasi and a slight 22-year-old named

Starting point is 00:02:50 Durando Pietri, whom the media easily overlooked. He stood 5'2 and spoke no English. He arrived quietly two days before the opening ceremony and was greeted by his elder brother, Ulpiano, who worked as a waiter in a local restaurant and could translate for him. The brothers had grown up in a poor family in Carpi, a small town in northern Italy. Durando had been born in 1885, so he'd been 10 years old when the first modern marathon had been run in Athens. To help the family make ends meet, he took a job as a baker's assistant. His poverty may have contributed to his short stature, but he also inherited a strong constitution, and he became a tenacious athlete, taking up first cycling and then running, following his brother. He had the heart of a great competitor and seemed to have a prodigious natural talent,

Starting point is 00:03:33 but his circumstances kept holding him back. After years of struggle, he emerged as the top distance runner in Italy, and he finished first in the Paris Marathon of 1905. But then he was conscripted for two years of compulsory military service. He managed to enter one marathon in 1906, but cramps forced him to drop out of it. When his military service ended, he threw himself into preparations for the Olympics and trained perhaps too hard. When he arrived in London, he had run two marathons in the past 45 days, the last on July 7th, which left him just 17 days to recover for this race.

Starting point is 00:04:06 He had no coach to supervise his training, and he would have to buy his own supplies. He was not listed among the favored runners. Every newspaper in England misspelled his name, and his only love, Teresa Dondi, was 900 miles away back in Carpi. But he was determined to win. He told his brother, Vincero or Moriro, I will win or I will die. The marathon was held on Friday, July 24th, the last full day of Olympic events. It would start at Windsor Castle, the symbolic seat of power of the British Empire, and wind 26 miles through West London to White City Stadium, where 80,000 people had arrived to watch the last one percent of the race, 385 yards from the stadium entrance to the finish line opposite the Royal Box.

Starting point is 00:04:47 That odd distance, 26 miles, 385 yards, has become the official distance for a modern marathon. That's where that comes from. Is that where it comes from? I didn't even know that. I guess once they'd sort of chosen that more or less arbitrarily, they needed to keep it consistent, you know, just to have a regular standard. Anyway, that's where that comes from.

Starting point is 00:05:05 Among the observers at the stadium was Arthur Conan Doyle, who had taken a break from writing Sherlock Holmes stories to cover the race for the Daily Mail. He wrote in his autobiography, I do not often do journalistic work, but I was tempted chiefly by the offer of an excellent seat. With the rest of the crowd, Doyle would have to sit for three hours in the July sun while the runners raced from the castle to the stadium. And the day turned out to be unusually, even dangerously, hot. The London Times wrote that there was hardly a breath of wind, ideal for a bathe or a game of cricket perhaps, but terrible for a feat of endurance of mind, stamina, muscle, and feet. At the castle, none of the runners had made any special preparations for the heat. Pietri was wearing a white shirt, bright red pantaloons,

Starting point is 00:05:44 and leather shoes. The organizers checked his heart, and he joined 54 other men from 16 nations on a gravel pathway just beyond the East Terrace. At 2.33, Princess Mary pressed an electric button, an organizer shouted, get ready, and at a gunshot, they were off. The roads were lined with tens of thousands of spectators. The pack began to separate as they crossed the Thames, the British runners in the lead and setting a strong pace. At the stadium, the runners' numbers were displayed on a leaderboard to show their positions. By mile 10, the strongest runners had begun to show themselves. Charles Hefferon of South Africa had taken third place, with the favorite Tom Longboat behind him.

Starting point is 00:06:20 But between the two was a surprise, Dorando Pietri, who had started at the back of the pack and had made his way up to fourth place. At the halfway point, the British runners began to fade under the blazing sun. Hefferon took the lead, with Britain's Fred Lord just behind and Pietri in third place. Soon Lord dropped out entirely, leaving Pietri in second place, and after 17 miles, Longboat himself, the favorite, dropped out of the race. As they neared the stadium, Pietri was still in second place, with Hefferon in the lead and Johnny Hayes now in third. When they reached mile 25, two cannons sounded to alert the crowd in the stadium that the runners were approaching, and with a tremendous effort, Pietri passed Hefferon to take the lead.

Starting point is 00:06:58 In the stadium, an announcer told the crowd, the leading runner, an Italian, is in sight. Pietri had trained for years for this moment, and the goal was now before him, but after three hours under the punishing sun, his legs began to buckle. He slowed down and doubled over. Attendants rushed to help him, but he pushed off again before the next runners could overtake him. Behind him, Johnny Hayes passed Charles Heffron and accelerated toward the stadium entrance. In the stadium, Arthur Conan Doyle was watching eagerly for the runner's entrance. He wrote, in the great curved bank of humanity is fixed upon the gap. What blazoning will show upon that dust-stained jersey, the red maple leaf, the blue and yellow, the stars and stripes, or the simple numbers of the Britons? Those figures on the board tell us nothing. It is the man who has a dash in him at the end who may head the field. He must be very near now, speeding down the street between the lines of shouting people. We can hear the growing murmur. Every eye is on the gap. And then,

Starting point is 00:08:03 at last, he came. The London Times wrote, At last he comes, a tired man, dazed, bewildered, hardly conscious, in red shorts and white vest, his hair white with dust, staggers on the track. It is Durando, the Italian. He looks about him, hardly knowing where he is. Pietri reeled as he emerged from the tunnel into the roar of 80,000 people. Pietri reeled as he emerged from the tunnel into the roar of 80,000 people. The New York Times wrote, It was evident at once to everyone that the man was practically delirious, his head so bent forward that the chin rested on his chest.

Starting point is 00:08:31 Pietri later said, As I entered the stadium, the pain in my legs and in my lungs became impossible to bear. It felt like a giant hand gripping my throat. With 26 miles behind him, Pietri now had to run only two-thirds of a lap, one-fifth of a mile, to reach the Royal Box and finish. The course ran clockwise around the track, but he was so exhausted that he headed mechanically to the right. Men shouted at him in a language he didn't understand and pointed to his left. He stumbled in that direction, stumbled onto the cinder track, staggered a few steps, and could go no farther. He felt his legs collapse under him. He heard the race officials running to him and his teammates calling out to him from the infield.

Starting point is 00:09:06 Doyle wrote, Is it possible that even at this last moment the prize may slip through his fingers? Every eye slides round to that dark archway. No second man has yet appeared. Great Britain had had four favored runners at the start of the race, but the English crowd was now roaring at the exhausted Italian to get to his feet before another runner could challenge him. Doyle wrote, I do not think that in all that great assembly any man would have wished victory to be torn at the last instant from this plucky little Italian. He has won it. He should have it. With

Starting point is 00:09:33 the crowd roaring in his ears, Pietri said later, I got up automatically and launched myself a few more paces. I no longer knew if I were heading towards my goal or away from it. He stumbled forward and Doyle wrote, thank God he is on his feet again, the little red legs going incoherently but drumming hard, driven by a supreme will within. But after only a few agonized steps, his legs collapsed again under him. Again, attendants surrounded him. Someone threw water in his face. A doctor rubbed his chest and shouted something at one of the organizers. They helped Pietri up and pushed him forward. Somewhere, a band was playing Conquering Hero. Doyle wrote,

Starting point is 00:10:20 Somehow we find the strength to rise again, stumbled forward, and collapsed just a few yards from Doyle's seat. Doyle's seat. Doyle wrote, amid stooping figures and grasping hands, I caught a glimpse of the haggard yellow face, the glazed expressionless eyes, the long black hair streaked across the brow. Surely he is done now. He cannot rise again. At that moment, Johnny Hayes emerged from the tunnel, the stars and stripes on his chest. He was running well and had no idea that any of this had been happening. With Hayes behind him, Pietro pulled himself to his feet a hundred yards from the tape. Doyle wrote, He staggered up, no trace of intelligence upon his set face, and again the red legs broke into their strange automatic amble. He struggled forward another 80 yards and collapsed just

Starting point is 00:10:54 20 yards from the finish as Hayes closed the distance behind him. Finally, with the crowd screaming around him, he was pulled to his feet and broke the tape just 32 seconds before Johnny Hayes reached it. Durando Pietri had run 26 miles in less than three hours, but had taken 10 minutes to cover the last fifth of a mile because he had fallen five times. He said later that his memory had stopped after the fifth fall. Doyle wrote, he has gone to the extreme of human endurance. No Roman of the prime ever bore himself better than Durando of the Olympics of 1908. The great breed is not yet extinct. An American spectator sent home a postcard that day that said, have just seen the

Starting point is 00:11:30 greatest race of the century. Pietri was carried to a dressing room under the stands. The Boston Globe later announced that he died of exhaustion. The media reported that Italy had won the race, but the Americans filed a protest and demanded that the victory be awarded to Johnny Hayes. The marathon organizer agreed that Pietri probably couldn't have finished if they hadn't helped him up and supported him. Technically, there was some room for argument there. The marathon had only ten written rules, and none of them expressly prohibited giving assistance to a runner. Charles Hefferon, the South African runner who came in third, thought Pietri deserved the win. He said,

Starting point is 00:12:00 Such a race as this, I will either win by being first past the post, or I will not win at all. Durando has won. He deserves the committee upheld the protest and awarded the win to Hayes, saying Pietri would have been unable to finish the race without the assistance rendered on the track. G. Ward Price of the Daily Mail found Durando in a small house off Shaftesbury Avenue, lying on an iron bedstead, pale and haggard, but definitely not dead. When he heard the decision, Price wrote, Durando almost wept, rolling dark eyes in his pallid face. He was evidently protesting, while the members of the embassy staff were proffering explanations and sympathy. Through a translator, Pietri told Price, I was all right till I entered the stadium. When I heard the people cheering and knew that I had nearly won, a thrill of emotion passed through

Starting point is 00:12:44 me and I felt my strength going. Then I fell. I tried to struggle to the tape, but fell again. I never lost consciousness of what was going on. Even if the attendant had not picked me up, I believe I could have finished unaided. On Saturday morning, he found a crowd of fans camped outside his flat and the organizer sent him flowers. He lodged a counter-protest arguing that he hadn't asked for the help he'd received, but the decision was final, so he agreed to go to the stadium for the medal ceremony. There, the queen gave him a gold cup, saying, I am glad to give you this for your splendid race. I hope you are none the worse now after the terrible strain of the race. There had been no time to have the cup engraved, so it bore a handwritten note that read, For P. Durando,

Starting point is 00:13:20 in remembrance of the marathon race from Windsor to the stadium, from Queen Alexandra. If Pietri was a loser, he was the most celebrated loser in Olympic history. A fan offered him 12,000 francs for the cup, Irving Berlin wrote a song about him, he dined with Enrico Caruso, he received at least one marriage proposal, and he agreed to appear in music halls, where he struck poses in his running gear and displayed the Queen's Cup while his brother translated. Arthur Conan Doyle started a subscription for him and raised 308 pounds, which Pietri accepted at the offices of the Daily Mail. Doyle wrote, my wife made the presentation in English, which he could not understand.

Starting point is 00:13:53 He entered in Italian, which we could not understand, but I think we really did understand each other all the same. Later that summer, Doyle wrote a Sherlock Holmes story called The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge that includes a character named Durando. When Pietri left London, he was famous and modestly rich. Back home in Italy, an immense crowd welcomed him at the train station, and one sporting magazine described his disqualification as draconian and pitiless. To be fair to Johnny Hayes, his performance established both an Olympic record and a world record. Pietri later wrote, I am not the marathon winner, as the English say, I am the one who won and lost a victory. Still, Pietri's performance had helped to establish the institution of the modern Olympics and to transform the marathon into a recognized athletic event.

Starting point is 00:14:34 The drama at the Olympics brought the word marathon into the vernacular, meaning anything that lasted a long time or was exceedingly difficult. And it launched a boom in marathons, with new races starting in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Pittsburgh. In the New York City area alone, 17 amateur and professional marathons took place between November 1908 and May 1909. Pietri and the other competitors capitalized on their fame by running variously around the United States, sometimes in rematches against one another. In a six-month tour of North America, Pietri ran eight marathons, winning four, and competed in at least a dozen other races of 10 to 15 miles. By one estimate, he earned $30,000 altogether. In August 1909, he married Teresa Dondi, and they moved to a villa

Starting point is 00:15:16 that he'd built with his earnings. He and his brother bought two parcels of land in Carpi and built a four-story, 54-room luxury hotel that they called the Grand Hotel d'Orando. For a time, he was the wealthiest and most famous professional athlete in Italy, but after World War I, the hotel went bust, he lost most of his fortune, and he passed the rest of his days as a taxi driver on the Italian Riviera. He died on February 7, 1942, at age 56, and was buried with the scarf from his first national championship. Today, there's little sign that any of this happened. White City Stadium was torn down in 1985,

Starting point is 00:15:48 and an unregarded marker on the sidewalk indicates the finish line of the marathon. The gold cup that Queen Alexandra gave to Pietri sits in an Italian bank vault. But in 2008, on the centenary of his dramatic finish, a bronze statue of Durando Pietri was erected in his hometown, where the city hosts a marathon each fall in his memory. The statue is called Durando Pietri was erected in his hometown, where the city hosts a marathon each fall in his memory. The statue is called Durando the Winner. For the last two episodes, I have been reading follow-ups to things that we talked about in episode 229. And here's the last update that I have on that episode, for now at least.

Starting point is 00:16:33 Amber O. wrote, Hi Greg, Sharon, and Sasha. I got smacked in the face by the Bader-Meinhof phenomenon this morning when I heard about a fascinating mystery called the Great Mole Mystery just a few days after hearing your Stone of Destiny episode. You'll see why in a moment. On Christmas Eve night, 1975, a colorful individual named Peter Gibbs took off in a light airplane in pitch darkness on the Isle of Mull, Scotland, and never returned. The very strange thing is that while the plane was never recovered, his body was, and he had hardly a scratch on him. He had died of exposure on a hillside. None of the explanations that have been put forth really make total sense. The Badr-Meinhof bit of the story is that the airplane he was flying

Starting point is 00:17:15 was rented from Ian Hamilton, who was locally well known for his part in liberating the Stone of Skun 25 years to the night before this mystery occurred. So the first thing I got to learn here was that the Bader-Meinhof phenomenon is another name for the frequency illusion, which is the illusion that something that has recently come to your attention suddenly seems to appear with improbable frequency shortly thereafter. Or as an article in the Pacific Standard said, it's when a thing you just found out about suddenly seems to crop up everywhere. Stanford University linguistics professor Arnold Zwicky is credited with naming the frequency illusion, and he explained it as a combination of selective attention,

Starting point is 00:17:56 where you're more likely to notice things that are currently relevant for you, and confirmation bias, where you particularly notice or remember things that support one of your beliefs or hypotheses, and you don't notice so much the things that don't. The more colorful name that Amber used comes from 1994, when a commenter on the St. Paul Pioneer Press's online discussion board reported hearing the name of the 1970s German far-left militant group Bader-Meinhof twice in 24 hours. That's kind of funny because it means that this could have been named after absolutely anything. Right. I mean, it could, right. And it just happens to be named after that, yeah.

Starting point is 00:18:39 The next thing I got to learn about was the Great Mall Air Mystery, which is really interesting in itself and does weirdly connect to the Stone of Schoonone story. Peter Gibbs was a former World War II Spitfire pilot who continued to fly after the war. He had gotten a private pilot's license and had over 2,000 hours flight experience. In December 1975, Gibbs traveled with his girlfriend, Felicity Granger, to the Isle of Mull, an island of about 338 square miles in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. an island of about 338 square miles in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The couple were using the Glen Forza Hotel as their base, as the hotel had its own small airfield, so they could fly between different islands. As Amber noted, the connection here with the Stone of Scone is that the Cessna aircraft they rented belonged to Ian Hamilton,

Starting point is 00:19:20 the instigator of the plan to liberate the historic artifact from Westminster Abbey. the instigator of the plan to liberate the historic artifact from Westminster Abbey. The airstrip at Glen Forza was grass and at the time had no runway lights. On Christmas Eve after dinner, where according to an article in the Independent, Gibbs had enjoyed modest quantities of whiskey and red wine, Gibbs stated that he thought it would be possible to make night landings at the airstrip, and decided to take the Cessna up and land it in the dark to prove this. He seemed quite confident and was a rather experienced pilot, so apparently no one much objected to his plan. He borrowed two battery-powered lights that Granger would place

Starting point is 00:19:58 to be used as makeshift landing lights to guide him, and took off, planning to just make a quick circuit and then land again. Only he didn't return. At first, Mull's small police force did their best to try to find Gibbs or the Cessna, and then the search was joined by the RAF and Naval Air Service helicopters and hundreds of volunteers. The search continued for days, scouring the island and using sonar equipment to try to find possible underwater wreckage of the plane. Nothing was found. Four months later, in April 1976, Gibbs's body was discovered by a local

Starting point is 00:20:32 shepherd, partway up a hill about a mile from the Glen Forza airstrip. The initial search for Gibbs had included this area at the time of the disappearance. The shepherd found Gibbs's body lying across a fallen tree 400 feet up the hillside, not far from the road. The body showed no injuries other than a small abrasion on one leg, certainly a lot less than you would expect if his plane had crashed. And there was still no evidence of the plane, despite renewed searches for it. More than 10 years later, in September 1986, a clam diver reported finding a Cessna plane on the seabed of the Sound of Mull. He said that it had the same red and white registration mark of G-A-V-T-N as Ian Hamilton's plane had.

Starting point is 00:21:15 This wreckage was not recovered, so there isn't a lot that is known for sure about this plane, other than what the diver reported and what could be seen from some not terribly great photos. The plane appeared to be seriously damaged. The engine was lying some distance from the airframe, one of the wheels was off, both wings were missing, and the windscreen was out. It was also reported that both doors of the plane were locked. If this was the plane Gibbs had been flying and it had crashed at sea, this would mean that Gibbs, despite likely realizing he was going to crash, hadn't unlocked one of the doors first so that he could get out, and had survived this crash and managed to get out of the plane while only sustaining one rather mild injury, and then swam, fully clothed, about 300 yards through near-freezing water to the shore,

Starting point is 00:22:01 to then cross a road to struggle up a steep hill that's rather difficult to climb even during the day, and had been missed in the original search of the area. This is very interesting. But you're saying all this was found at least 10 years after the event? His body was found four months later, and then the plane, or the possible plane, was found 10 years later. So a lot can, I don't know how these things work, a lot can happen to a submerged plane in 10 years, I would imagine. Possibly, although I'm not sure what would make the engine throw itself far from the airframe and the wings to disappear.

Starting point is 00:22:37 Also, just thinking this through, if he wasn't able to see these lights that were put out for him at the airstrip. That's the conjecture. Then it seems to me that, I don't know, all he's got under him now is dark countryside and dark water, and he's got to come down somewhere. Right. So this wasn't necessarily a crash. I mean, he may have been trying. I'm totally speculating.

Starting point is 00:23:01 Yeah. He may have been trying to come down on water because he thought of all the options that was maybe his best chance. Possibly. Then why wouldn't he have unlocked one of the doors? Assuming that what the diver was reporting was correct and that was his plane, why would the doors both be locked? Yeah. Nothing, as Amber said, no story that's put forward makes complete sense. The real story must be something that's kind of improbable because nothing really likely seems to make any sense. The real story must be something that's kind of improbable because nothing really likely

Starting point is 00:23:25 seems to make any sense. And the only other piece of information that I have about this story is that in 2004, there was another sighting of an underwater plane in the same area by the Royal Navy in the course of a coastal mapping operation. It was originally thought that that might be the missing Cessna, but it was eventually identified as the wreckage of a Catalina flying boat which had crashed during World War II. And that's all that I could find on what seems to be really known about this mystery. And I guess the further it recedes into the past, the less likely it is we're going to find anything more. I guess that's possibly true, although maybe a metal plane might still be found at some point. That's very strange.

Starting point is 00:24:07 Chris Fraterola had an update on the What Three Words location encoding system that we discussed in episodes 218 and 224. Hi, Greg and Sharon. I bought a new beer today called Fear Movie Lions. It was a bit of a head-scratcher, so I proceeded to read the back of the can, which explained that a 3 meter by 3 meter square in their Richmond, Virginia brewery had this What Three Words moniker, and that the beer was named after it. Of course, I knew about this from your recent podcast mentioning the site.

Starting point is 00:24:36 Thanks for keeping me hip to all the esoterica I need to enjoy my beer, work, and drives. So that's kind of a neat idea. You can give your product or company a name that's also its address. If you think about it, that might be a really good idea for, say, restaurants, because then if people know the name of your restaurant, they'll always know its address, too. Oh, good thinking. So instead of Katz's Delicatessen in New York City, they could call it Boxer Headed Crush. Or instead of the Walsley in London, they could call it Next Rose's Shave. Those are really memorable names, too.

Starting point is 00:25:08 That's a win-win all around. I was thinking this could become a whole new factor in evaluating the worth of a property. You know, whether its address is like fun or really nice sounding, or whether it's something like Rotten Tomatoes Garbage or Skunk Mud Pit. And I made up those word combinations. And then I actually tried looking for them on what three words. And I found that while those exact ones aren't there, there is an often comatose garbage in the Republic of Kazakhstan, a garbage trash pits in Minnesota, a skunk's much spit in Sao Paulo, a skunk spit stink in western australia and a trash pits stink in queensland and i can just imagine that some people could be turned off from buying a property whose address is trash pits

Starting point is 00:25:52 stink you probably wouldn't want to name your restaurant that no that would lower your property values i imagine i imagine it would thanks so much to everyone who writes into us we really appreciate how much we learn from our listeners. If you have anything that you'd like to add, please send it to podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I'm going to give him a strange sounding situation, and he's going to try to work out what's going on asking only yes or no questions. This puzzle comes from Peter Bartholomew. Peter, an ordinary working guy, lives in a quiet affluent village

Starting point is 00:26:31 in the north of England well known for its sleepiness and lack of crime. His wife informs him in a serious and worried tone that there has been a murder on Middle Drive, a neighboring road that goes down the center of the village. Peter shouts in great genuine glee and without sarcasm or irony, Yes! Brilliant! How could that be?

Starting point is 00:26:52 Okay, by murder, she doesn't mean the actual killing of a human being. She does. She does. She does. Really? Yes. So someone's been murdered. She announces to him that someone's been killed, deprived of their life.

Starting point is 00:27:05 Yes. Does it matter that it happened on Middle Street? Yes, it does for this particular situation for Peter. Does this involve fiction in some way? No. Someone was really killed. Yes. And what does he say?

Starting point is 00:27:19 Yes, brilliant. And that's not... Without sarcasm or irony. Not a local figure of speech. Right. Does he... How do you even go... Has anyone else been killed?

Starting point is 00:27:33 No. Do I need to know more about the crime? No. Really? It's just a murder? Yes. Has he, I hate to ask this, profited in some way by this news? Profited isn't quite right.

Starting point is 00:27:47 Benefited, personally. Not exactly. Maybe phrase your question differently. He regards this as good news? For him, personally, yes. Is it that he feared that more people might be killed and he's glad that only one was? No, that's a good guess, but no. Are there other people involved that I need to know about besides him and his wife and this murder victim?

Starting point is 00:28:16 Do I need to know how the person was killed? You say I don't need to know anything about it. You don't need to know anything about the crime. Okay. Okay, so you're saying I need to sort of rephrase we wouldn't quite want to say that he profited or benefited by this but he regards it as a good thing yes that's why he's saying what he's saying yes for him personally it feels like a good piece of news was the person a bad man he doesn't even know who's been murdered is I want to ask if there's some kind of pool or wagering or something involved.

Starting point is 00:28:49 No, nothing like that. And I don't need to know more about the crime. Why would you then be happy? Is he just evil? Is he just a terrible person? No, and this actually happened to Peter, our listener, so I'm sure he's a wonderful person. Well, that would totally solve the puzzle, though. Okay.

Starting point is 00:29:12 I'll tell you, I think what he's probably feeling is relieved. Because he felt that he himself was in danger? Not exactly. I mean, what I'm thinking of is that he was a potential murder victim and... No, nothing like that. Relieved because he was in some jeopardy of being accused of a crime?

Starting point is 00:29:36 No. But he thought he was at risk or in jeopardy of something. Oh, oh, oh. I take it back. When you say accused of a crime, what do you mean? Well, I don't even quite know. I guess that he might be a suspected murderer,

Starting point is 00:29:57 and then the fact that this takes place when his whereabouts are accounted for means that he's not. No. And this happened to him, and it's something that could very plausibly happen to anybody. So there's no really elaborate, complicated backstory, but there is a little bit of a backstory. But he's relieved when he finds out that there was a murder in his village.

Starting point is 00:30:20 On Middle Street. On Middle Street, yes. Then that's important. Well, it was important to him personally because he had driven down Middle Street. On Middle Street, yes. Then that's important. Well, it was important to him personally because he had driven down Middle Street the day before. Or Middle Drive, actually. He'd driven down Middle Drive the day before and hadn't died. And hadn't died, but had seen something.

Starting point is 00:30:41 And then found out that what he saw was because there'd been a murder. Oh, okay. So he'd driven down it after the murder had taken place. Yes. And what might you see outside a murder scene when you were driving down the street? Well, they generally tape it off or... But he didn't see that. He didn't see that?

Starting point is 00:31:03 He did not see that. So he just saw... Oh, I see, he just saw a murder victim? No, no, he didn't see that. He didn't see that? He did not see that. So he just saw, oh, I see. He just saw a murder victim? No, no, he didn't. He saw the crime scene. No, he didn't know that he saw a crime scene, but he did see. Right, but he's. Yeah, he drove past the crime scene.

Starting point is 00:31:17 He saw something that he's now reinterpreting in this new life. Yes, yes, yes, yes. He drove past the crime scene. Well, you'd see police. He saw police cars. And thought that those were there for him? Not for him specifically, but for another reason that might then involve him. What's a more typical reason for seeing police cars?

Starting point is 00:31:41 Well, if he was speeding or breaking some traffic law. Yes. So the police were going to cover the murder yes and he said this actually happened to me i was driving down middle drive the day before this incident and was surprised to see a big police truck parked by the road as i passed it i realized it could only be a speed trap no other reason for a police truck in our quiet area and was thoroughly disheartened to look down and see I was doing 40 miles an hour in a 30 mile an hour zone. The police in the UK have trucks like this with secret speed cameras. That's it, I thought, speeding ticket and large fine for me.

Starting point is 00:32:14 So the following day, when my wife mentioned the murder, I realized that the truck was there for an actual serious crime, and I wouldn't be getting a speeding ticket. So my immediate reaction was, I am ashamed to say, one of joy at not getting a speeding ticket, hence my yes brilliant shout. I did, in my defense, feel thoroughly ashamed afterwards. That makes sense, though. So thanks so much to Peter for that puzzle, and we're glad you didn't get a ticket. If anyone else has a puzzle for us to try, please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Futility Closet is a full-time commitment for us

Starting point is 00:32:47 and is supported entirely by our incredible listeners. If you'd like to help support our celebration of the quirky and the curious, you can find a donate button in the support section of the website at futilitycloset.com. Or you can join our Patreon campaign, where you'll get extra discussions on some of the stories,

Starting point is 00:33:11 more lateral thinking puzzles, peeks behind the scenes, and updates on Sasha, our official Futility Closet mascot. You can find our Patreon page at patreon.com slash futility Closet store, information about the Futility Closet books, and the show notes for the podcast, with links and references for the topics we've covered. If you have any questions or comments, you can email us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by Greg's awesome brother, Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 236-The Last Lap

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