The Researcher's First Murder - Solved!
Concerning fathomed depths, an unsubtle tomb, precise self-estimation, a petard-hoist inventor, and a puzzle of misfits.
Nothing but a pack of cards
I am delighted to announce that my murder mystery / box of postcards / very hard puzzle The Researcher’s First Murder has been solved! The deadline for entries was the end of last month, and here are the results:
Total entries received before the deadline: 47
Of which:
All Correct: 24
All correct but for one error: 10
All correct but for two errors: 6
Several errors: 5
Entirely wrong: 2
(Those last two were of course my favourites. I suspect at least one of them of being itself a puzzle, set for me.)
The first entry received was not all-correct, but very nearly so, and came from Julian West, Andrew Bull and team on the impressively early date of 7th September.
The first all-correct entry, and therefore the winner of the £1000 prize, arrived on 9th October, and came from the formidable team of James Leaver, Tim King, Darren Roberts, Craig Fothergill, Deane Short and Ned French. Huge congratulations to them.
The next three all-corrects were also team efforts, and so the first solo all-correct solution came from Brigid Martin on 11th December.
For a full list of the all-correct entrants, and to see the draw for the second place prize of £250, here is a video from an old haunt of mine… (contains minor spoilers for part of one chapter. To avoid them, skip to one minute in. )
Congratulations, then, to second place winner Rosemary Thorner, and huge thanks to all the solvers; as well as to all the nearly-solvers, and indeed all the nowhere-nearly-solvers. I hope you all got some fun out of it, and thank you once again for the very kind comments with submissions that indicated that you did.
Finally, if you are a solver who came to this Substack newsletter to see the results, and is wondering where you might find more of my puzzles, possibly in a slightly more accessible stand-alone format… well, the answer to that is ‘this Substack newsletter’. Among various other pieces of nonsense, there is usually a new puzzle in every edition, alternating between being in the free half and the paid half. We have a leaderboard and everything. For instance, here’s last week’s:
Solution to Last Edition’s Puzzle, One For the Road.
I asked you which specific pub in London you should meet me in, if I sent you this list of pubs you shouldn't meet me in…
The mighty HBB - whose name I believe I read out above - extended their already commanding lead by being the first to give the answer in the comments.
If I tell you that the addresses indicated pubs named The Gun, The Champion, The Marksman, The Court, The Flag and The Fellow; and draw your attention to the comment at the top suggesting I’m looking for somewhere we could go on to afterwards… perhaps that will suggest the answer, as perfectly explained by second place winner Kniffler:
The six addresses are those of pubs with names that can be followed by "ship". There are many "Ship" pubs in London, but the distance on each clue is the distance from that address, by road, to the particular Ship Tavern in Holborn.
Exactly. Welcome to the leaderboard, Kniffler, it now looks like this:
There is a new puzzle beyond the paywall.
For the avoidance of doubt
Conversation I imagine took place before the commissioning of a tomb I saw today:
-Your Grace, have you given any more thought to the design of your tomb?
-Oh, my Dead Box? The box for when I’m dead, to be dead in?
-…Alas, your Grace, yes.
-Yes, I’ve given it loads of thought! I haven’t really thought about anything else since you told me I was going to get one. And the main thing I’ve decided is: I really definitely want everyone to know I’m completely dead.
- …I think, your Grace, the mere presence of the tomb will establish that lamentable fact.
-No, people might think I’m just napping. So, I want the carvings on it to totally tell everyone I’m very extremely dead.
-Perhaps a weeping angel…?
-Nah. Angels get sad about loads of things.
-Or a reaper with a scythe…?
-No! You’re not listening! I want a box that goes: ‘Hey! Everybody! There’s a dead guy in this box! Really dead! The deadest!’
-Perhaps your Grace has an idea yourself?
-I thought you’d never ask.
Beyond the great divide, why AZ was an eighth-grade mathematician, a scientist writes a poem about a speeding ticket, and an Odd One Out puzzle.
But for those stopping to rest in the shade of the paywall, see you next time,
Love,
The Airport