- AWatchmen in the cloth market are engaged by the month and not by the night
- BTwo or three of the smaller shops share the services of a single watchman between them
- CThe cloth market has been served by the same police station for as long as anyone can remember
- DAlmost every shopkeeper in the market engaged his watchman in the weeks after his own shop had been broken into, and shops that have never suffered a break-in seldom engage one at all
Step-by-Step Solution
The official has the sequence the wrong way about: the thefts came first and the watchman was engaged in answer to them, so shops with watchmen are simply the shops thieves had already picked out. Terms of engagement, watchmen shared between shops and the market's police station say nothing about which of the two things came first, and it is the order of events that the official's explanation stands or falls by.
Answer: D) Almost every shopkeeper in the market engaged his watchman in the weeks after his own shop had been broken into, and shops that have never suffered a break-in seldom engage one at all