Final answer:
The absence of evidence for a robbery supports Sherlock Holmes's first hypothesis that no robbery occurred, as his deductive method relies on eliminating impossibilities to reveal the truth.
Step-by-step explanation:
The student's question appears to be about a hypothetical situation related to a detective story, most likely referencing Sherlock Holmes and his methods of deduction. The question asks: How does there being no robbery favor Holmes’s first hypothesis? If we place this question within the context of a typical Holmesian investigation, the lack of evidence for a robbery would support Holmes's first hypothesis that no robbery actually took place. Holmes often eliminates impossible scenarios to find the truth.
In this situation, if there's no direct evidence of a robbery, it might suggest that the suspicion of armed robbery is unfounded, and possibly the individuals apprehended were only guilty of the lesser crime of carrying an unlawful weapon. Therefore, the absence of evidence of a robbery does not just favor but critically supports Holmes's initial hypothesis.