bout de papier, Vol. 17, No. 3 (2000) — Fall 2000 // Automne 2000, pp. 47–48
Felix Africa stared, bemused, at the stuffed gorilla by the entrance to the Olde Curiosity Shoppe: crossed bandoliers, a camouflage-pattern jungle hat, unlit cigar and “Viva Che!” button. LDC Liebnitz glared at a tall figure in tie-dye shirt and faded jeans slouching behind the counter and snarled “It’s spelled ’guerilla’, Leo.” The man just smiled faintly and replied, “You never did get my jokes, Louie.” (Louie?? thought a thunderstruck Felix.)
The ace logician stiffened. “Maybe not,” he replied, “but I can remember having to haul your sorry ass out of more scrapes when we were kids — scrapes that started from your jokes. And you still call on me in a jam.” “For sure,” Leo admitted. “You were always the bright one. But we had some good times together too. Remember Nelly Trent, the girl we rescued from that freak, Clasher Skednic?” Ludwig mellowed visibly at the memory. “’Course I do. We took her out to the commune, calmed her down and gave her two weeks of decent grass, Jefferson Airplane and batik wallpaper. As I recall, she split for the coast just before Clasher figured out where we’d stashed her.” Leo nodded. “That’s right. She runs a real groovy head shop on the Haight now – gets some great samples from New Guinea.” Both men sighed, lost in reverie. Felix stared at them incredulously and wondered if there was such a thing as a psychedelic time warp. “Which is where we come back in,” said
Leo, re-surfacing. “That jewel-encrusted egg over there — NO DON’T TOUCH IT MR AFRICA UNLESS YOU WANT YOUR CONSTITUENT ATOMS REDIS- TRIBUTED OVER THE ENTIRE SPACE/TIME CONTINUUM — is actually a bomb left behind by a friend of Clasher’s, a damp dwarf by the name of Quilp who placed it with great care on the counter and handcuffed me to it at gunpoint. He warned me not to pick up the egg or it would go off. Then he told me it would go off anyway if I didn’t press the jewels in the right order within a two-hour period — which still gives us about 17 minutes.”
Ludwig examined the egg with care. “Looks like Fabergé. Probably Igor Fabergé. Carl’s anarchist brother.” Dashing for the door, Felix cried, “Yeah, boss, great workmanship. But it’s a bomb!” Ludwig replied, “Oh calm down, Felix. I can hardly leave Leo in the lurch, and you shouldn’t show the white feather so close to appraisal time.
“Better a bad appraisal than a good funeral,” muttered Felix, searching his suit surreptitiously for avian detritus, but he came cautiously back. “Besides,” Leo chimed in, “Igor is well known in the antiques trade. He made a lot of these little gizmos for his unsuspecting aristocratic clientele, but always left a puzzle by which they could save themselves — if they were bright enough. Since the average Russian aristocrat had a lower IQ than his prize turnips, this still wasn’t really very sporting. But I have something better than a Russian turnip, Louie. I have you.”
Ludwig looked at him balefully, shook his head and turned his attention to the seven ornate boxes that lay in a row beside the egg on the counter. “I assume these make up the puzzle,” he said. “Right,” replied Leo. “Written on the inside of each box is the anagram of the name of a gemstone. If you press the jewels on the egg corresponding to the anagrams as they appear in order from the smallest to largest box, then the bomb won’t go off. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to re-open the boxes (themselves mechanical puzzles), but I have a few notes here from the investigations I did while waiting for you to arrive.” So saying, he passed over a crumpled scrap of paper.
“You still neglect your penmanship, I see,” remarked Ludwig acerbically as he bent over the notes. “Twelve minutes now,” noted Felix, his voice breaking slightly.
A long pause was broken only by the sound of Leo humming “Louis Louis” with vigorous one-handed air guitar back-up, and by strangled groans from Felix. Then Ludwig looked up and said, “Simple enough. Igor must have had an English client, so I didn’t have to waste any time translating from the Old Church Slavonic. “ He strode over to the egg, pressed a series of jewelled buttons and lifted the egg off the counter. Wiping the sweat from his brow, Felix gave a pasty smile and murmured, “With three minutes to spare. Hardly even exciting, was it, sir?” Examining the bottom of the box carefully, Ludwig noted absently, “Quilp’s watch seems to have been slow. We in fact had three seconds left.” Africa promptly fainted. “Bummer,” noted Leo, “these Gen-X guys just haven’t got it” “Maybe not,” replied his brother, “but most guys from the sixties got so ripped they forgot where they put it.”
The egg still handcuffed to his wrist, Leo helped his brother revive the young man, thanked them both amiably and walked them to the door, saying, “Look after my brother, Mr Africa. Mom always says he is the only man she knows who could get run over by a calliope.” Ludwig gave him a look that would have frosted a volcano in mid-eruption but had no effect on the aging hippy. Felix braced up and essayed gamely, “Keep the faith, baby, sir.” Leo saluted him gravely and strolled back into the shop, whistling “Strange Days” and searching for a hacksaw.
Can you duplicate Ludwig’s feat by unscrambling the seven anagrams and listing the results in the right order to defuse the egg? bout de papier will decide the winner by drawing from a box containing all correct entries received by February 1, 2001. The winner will receive a book prize autographed by A Aalto. Not necessary for the solution, but can you also unravel the inner meaning of the name CLASHER SKEDNIC and its linkage to Nelly Trent and (Daniel) Quilp?
The boxes: Each box is rectangular (all the corners are right angles) and each side is an exact number of inches long (no fractions). Each box has a different set of dimensions (but 2x2x3 for example would be counted the same as 2x3x2). Each box has a different volume (length times width times height) greater than one cubic inch and less than a hundred. They are arranged left to right from lowest volume to highest. Three are cubes (le all three dimensions are the same) but no cube is beside another. The volume of one of the boxes is the sum of the volumes of the three cubes. Each box has a different colour scheme and a different place of origin.
The anagrams: Inside each box has a different anagram, disguising the name of a precious or semi-precious stone or equivalent, in singular or plural form. The number of words in the anagram is the same as the number of words in the name of the gem (e.g., the anagram for LAPIS LAZULI would have two words).
More notes: (1) The slime green box from Transylvania has a volume of 8. (2) The box from Nepal is directly between the white box and the box with the anagram TARPAPER HISS. (3) The gold box contains the anagram BREAM. (4) Four boxes have sides that are 3×3: the largest one (by volume), the one from Osaka, the one containing the anagram CAROL and the one in tangerine and violet. (5) The box from Cuzco has sides with three different dimensions, all greater than 2. (6) The rust red box is at one end of the row, the box containing the anagram BRUISE at the other. (7) The indigo box is just to the left of the box from London and just to the right of the box containing the anagram FEAR HOTEL ROMP. (8) The black and blue box is the second largest and is beside the box from Zanzibar. (9) The middle box is twice as large in volume as the second-smallest. (10) The box containing the anagram STRANGE has a volume exactly the square of the volume of the smallest box
— the only such pair. (11) The box containing the anagram STEAM SAGO is just to the right of the box from New Zealand. (12) Two of the boxes have volumes only 4 cubic inches different.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 17, No. 3 (2000) — Fall 2000 // Automne 2000, pp. 47–48. Read the rest of this issue →
