Henry Ernest Dudeney/Puzzles and Curious Problems/136 - Juvenile Highwaymen/Solution

by : $136$

 * Juvenile Highwaymen

Solution
The apple-woman had $40$ apples of which Tom had $10$, Ben had $8$ and Jim had $10$.

Proof
Let $n$ be the number of apples the apple-woman started with.

Let $T$, $B$ and $J$ be the number of apples stolen by Tom, Ben and Jim respectively.

We have:

These can be more conveniently written as: