The Alphabet Thief

From the six clues given below, see if you can discover if there's a Sherlock hiding in your head.

E4 
Three men, A, B and C, and their wives, were entertained at the home of their friend D, one evening. After the departure of their guests, Mr and Mrs D discovered that a valuable antique had been pinched. Later it was found that one of the guests was the crook. From the six clues given below, see if you can discover if there's a Sherlock hiding in your head.
(1)  The spouse of the thief lost money at cards that evening. (2) Mr C had hurt his leg in an accident and had to walk with the help of a crutch. (3) Mrs B and another female guest were together practically the whole evening and neither played cards. (4) Mr B had asked to be introduced to Mrs A, who was an attractive young lady. (5) Mr C gave his wife half of the money he had won to make up for her loss. (6) Mr B had beaten the thief at tennis that morning in a mixed doubles match. 
DEAR MS 
Death-Do-Us-Part Dept:
(The question was: "Why are only the nostrils of a dead body plugged and not the ears and mouth too?" But no one seems to have got it right although Narasimha Murthy Uppu, u_n_murthy@yahoo.com, Shashi Shekher Thakur, shashishekher@yahoo.com and Alan D'Souza, iamaland@gmail.com got the nostril part right. The reason is, after death, rigor sets in on muscles controlling mastication and block the mouth, which results in the upper and lower jaws being brought tightly together. The ears do not discharge any fluid as the eardrums, themselves serve as a barrier. But there is no natural barrier to the outpourings of fluids from the nose. If it is left unplugged, the fluids from the throat and lungs may flow out - specially if the head is kept low.)
(The second problem was: "Some tribal 'doctors' often treat snakebites by sucking out the blood from the wound. If blood grouping is so important during transfusions then why is it that nothing happens to the person doing the sucking?" - MS)
Snakes-Alive! Dept:
An ABO incompatible reaction would happen only when the 'bloods' mix, which can happen only in a transfusion when the blood is given intravenously. But the doctor sucks the blood, so it remains in the extra-vascular compartment (vascular = blood) and doesn't mix with his own blood, so no question of any reaction. Now, even considering the fact that the doctor has some cut inside his mouth, only a tiny amount of the victim's blood would mix with his own, causing a minimal clumping of the RBCs, which would not be too significant. - Dr. Amit Saple, amitsaple16@gmail.com
(The third problem was: "If an hourglass with all the sand in the upper half is placed in a jar full of water, it sinks to the bottom. But as sand gradually falls into the lower half, the hourglass moves upwards. Why?")
Hourglass-Gravitas-Dept:
When a floating body is slightly displaced, its centre of buoyancy (CB) shifts. The vertical line joining the new CB meets the original line through original CB at the metacentre. If the metacentre lies above the centre of gravity (CG), the body will float and if it is under the CG, it will sink. So, when the sand is in the upper part, its CG also lies towards the upper part and so metacentre lies below it making the body float. But, as the sand gradually falls into the lower half, its CG slowly starts coming down and eventually, as the metacentre moves above the CG, the body starts to float. - Dhruv Narayan, dhruv510@gmail.com
ENDGAME(S)

1. A and B are given one each of two consecutive natural numbers n and n + 1. Both know that the numbers are consecutive although neither knows whose number is bigger. After every minute a beep is heard and each is asked to say out aloud whether she knows the other's number. Who is the first person to guess correctly and after how many beeps?
2. Why does a pan-balance (the one used by some goldsmiths) having the same weight on both pans only stablise with the rod in the horizontal position? (This is not as easy as it looks! - MS)

(To get in touch with Mukul, mail him at mukul.mindsport@gmail.com)

• Mindsport