Mona Lisa Heist

Puzzler time. This one is fun. Here we go.

Once upon a time, there was a detective. He worked for Acme. His name is Larry.

It was a dark and stormy night and there was a knock at his door. He opens the door and it is his helper, a guy named Moe who has helped him out before in many of his other cases over the years. His helper says he has an important piece of information on the Mona Lisa case. The famous Mona Lisa has been stolen, and this guy has a key piece of information to help solve the case. Moe tells Larry that his friend named Curly is waiting outside. Curly works at a carpet factory, and he has the information about the stolen Mona Lisa.

Moe asks Larry if Curly can come in. So Larry the detective, of course, says, "Yes, sure. Bring him in."

The guy comes in and he tells the detective that he works in a carpet factory. And he thinks his boss may be involved in the Mona Lisa heist.

Larry the detective asks Curly why he thinks that about his boss.

Curly says that he was in his boss's office cleaning up some stuff and he saw this memo on his boss's desk. It told his boss to go to this carpet auction. And to buy a certain roll of carpet. For $995 the Mona Lisa was rolled up inside the carpet.

So then, Curly tells Larry that if they give him $1000 he will go to the auction and buy this roll of carpet. So, if they bought the roll of carpet, they would get the Mona Lisa. And then they could return the Mona Lisa and get a big reward.

So, after Curly had finished telling his story, Larry the detective kicks both Moe and Curly out of his office because he did not believe them.

So, what was it about the story that Larry the detective did not believe? And why?

Good luck.

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Remember last week's puzzler?

The Little Demon

This one is old. Short and old. But also quite good. Here we go.

A long time ago, when I was a younger man, around 1980 or so, this happened to me in the winter.

I pulled into the supermarket parking lot and parked beside a huge beast of a GM station wagon with a 400 cubic inch V eight engine. As I got out of my pickup, I noticed a young boy in the station wagon, pretending that he was driving like a maniac sitting behind the wheel. His parents were not in the car. The kid was in the car alone, windows rolled up. This would never happen these days. You can't leave kids alone for any reason these days. But it was the 1980s. Things were different then.

So, he's behind the wheel, pretending to drive. It looked like he was pretending to drive a race car or something. He was having a great time pretending. The car was off completely, he was just behind the wheel pretending to drive.

When I returned from the store, the kid's mother was there, and the hood was up. I asked if I could help. The car wouldn't start. The engine wouldn't even turn over. But the mother tells me that everything had been just fine before they got to the store.

What was the problem?

There was nothing wrong with the starter. There was nothing wrong with the battery. And there was nothing wrong with the engine. There was no mechanical failure. The car had run perfectly fine when she parked it. She goes into the store. She's gone for 20 minutes, she comes back and the little demon has wrecked her car. The kid did not have the key to the car, she had that the whole time.

What happened?

Hint. The little kid is not a red herring but an essential piece of the puzzle.

I'll give you another hint. This good samaritan was able to solve the problem by removing something.