The Waiter

Three men in a cafe order a meal the total cost of which is $15. They each contribute $5. The waiter takes the money to the chef who recognises the three as friends and asks the waiter to return $5 to the men.

The waiter is not only poor at mathematics but dishonest and instead of going to the trouble of splitting the $5 between the three he simply gives them $1 each and pockets the remaining $2 for himself.

Now, each of the men effectively paid $4, the total paid is therefore $12. Add the $2 in the waiters pocket and this comes to $14. Where has the other $1 gone from the original $15?




Similar Riddles

A murder has been committed in a house. You are a detective and have to find out the murderer.

You investigate by asking three questions to each of the six suspects. Out of those six suspects, four are liars. It is not necessary that they speak everything a lie. But in their answers, there must be at least one lie. One of the six is the murderer.

There are eight rooms in the house in which the murder has been committed: Kitchen, Living Room, Bathroom, Garage, Basement, 3 Bedrooms.

At the time of the murder, only the murderer was present in the killing room. Any number of people can be present in any of the other rooms at the same time.

Can you identify the murderer and the four liars? Also, can you find out who was in which room?

The responses of all the suspects are mentioned below.

Joseph:
Peter was in the 2nd bedroom.
So was I.
David was in the bathroom.

Mandy:
I agree with Joseph that David was in the bathroom and Peter was in the 2nd bedroom.
But I think that Joseph was in the living room, OH MY GOD!

Peter:
Mandy was in the kitchen with Christopher.
But I was in the bathroom.

David:
I still say Peter was in the 2nd bedroom and Jennifer was in the bathroom.
Joseph was in the 1st bedroom.

Jennifer:
Peter was in the bathroom with Christopher.
And Mandy was in the kitchen.

Christopher:
David was in the kitchen.
And I was in the 2nd bedroom with Peter.

PS: The corpse was found in the Living Room.

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Amazing Facts

Out of the Box

The phrase “thinking outside the box” was popularised from the solution to a topographical puzzle involving 9 dots in a box shape.