bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1992) — Summer 1992 // Été 1992, p. 48
Ace logician LDC Liebnitz strode into the office of the Head of his Service to find Chief MacBannoch and his Deputy, Lydia Kraantz, huddled over a ragged sheaf of paper. From the mingled odours of stale cigar smoke and frustration, he deduced that Jimmy the Turk had struck again. “Right you are, Liebnitz” growled MacBannoch. “We sent him out on a simple errand — chasing down rumours that an unknown country was trying to “fix” the World 12-tone Flugelhorn Finals. He reported back by phone that he had discovered the culprit country, laughed uproariously and hung up. We got this report by carrier awk. As usual, it’s just a puzzle of some kind.”
“I’ve got the puzzle pretty well solved, Ludwig,” added Lydia, “but I can’t see where it gets us.” Liebnitz took the sheets from her and read.
This set of interlocking circles represents the interlocking memberships of four well-known international organs — the Organization of Arbitrary States (OAS), the Imaginary Monetary Fund (IMF), the City- States and Countries of Elsewhere (CSCE) and the Unlikely Nations, Elusive States and Cities Outrageous (UNESCO). The members of these bodies are characterized by the fact that they do not exist — like Oz or Yoknapatawpha.
The diagram contains “sectors” numbered I to 13. Each circle defines the membership of one of the four bodies (the outer circles are marked A to C, the inner circle is D). Each sector therefore defines the different affiliations of the 17 imaginary places — since they can each belong to more than one body. The place(s) found in sector 8, for example, belong only to body B, while the place(s) found in sector 6 belong to bodies A, C and D.
In the clues below, each place is defined twice, once with its name as an anagram in capital letters, eg HALARINGS, and once by a substantive reference, eg “the sunken land”. (Note: “adjacent” means touching along a full side, not just a point.) Which places lie in each sector? Which bodies relate to which circles?
1. King Arthur’s seat and Captain Hook’s island are the only two places with membership in both the CSCE and the IMF. One of these is in a sector adjacent to the sector containing a country Gulliver visited.
2. Only one sector has three occupants. These are: HALARINGS, PATIOU and NEW HERO.
3. Carroll’s kingdom and AURITRAIN occupy a sector adjacent to the sector containing INARAN and Tolkein’s world.
4. The CSCE is body A.
5. ARNATIVIFY has one body in common with MACHIGOTTY, but none in common with METCOAL.
6. The musical Scottish village and Lil Abner’s hometown lie in the same sector.
7. The sectors containing RODEO LAD and SANATILT touch at a single point.
8. The country where the Prisoner of Zenda was held and More’s ideal lie in two non-touching sectors within the OAS circle.
9. Only one sector is empty; three sectors have two occupants each.
10. Sector 13 contains only Batman’s lair, sector 7 only Babar’s capital.
11. Only four places have memberships in just one body: PHOGDACT, one of Bunyan’s cities, OBROADING and the goal of many conquistadors.
12. LIMED THREAD is in UNESCO, in a sector adjacent to the one containing DANNEWORLD, which is in the CSCE
13. James Hilton’s sanctuary and GRAND GOBBIN are in different sectors, but each belongs to only two bodies.
14. Samuel Butler’s nowhere lies in a sector touching at a single point the one containing TELEVICELLES.
15. CS Lewis’ kingdom is in all the bodies except the IMF, the sunken land in all except the CSCE, and RAVEN REND ELVEN in all except UNESCO.
Liebnitz frowned, “As you say, Lydia, the puzzle itself is not impossible. It’s straightforward Venn diagram, and all we need are a few verifications from the old Britannica. But what in the name of my Aunt Polly’s pea-pods is Jimmy trying to say?”
MacBannoch took the original report to examine it. Unfortunately, he did so using the hand that held his cigar, which rapidly began to scorch the flimsy foolscap. Liebnitz snatched the papers back just in time, stared at the top sheet and then clapped him heartily on the back. “Brilliant work, Chief,” he said, “the heat from your cigar has brought out a message written in secret ink. It reads FILL THE REAL-WORLD GAP.”
Within a few more minutes, Liebnitz had solved the Turk’s riddle. When he showed the result to the Chief, MacBannoch gasped, coughed and sprayed cold coffee all over his desk-top. Lydia’s eyebrows went up and she chuckled, saying “Ah well, the follow-up isn’t our department’s anyway.”
Can you duplicate their feat, by first answering the questions in Jimmy’s puzzle and then by working out the country trying to fix the flugelhorners?
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1992) — Summer 1992 // Été 1992, p. 48. Read the rest of this issue →
