Inquisitor 1930: Mistaken Identity by Radler

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Preamble:

The anti-clockwise perimeter names (not in order) a convicted murderer, his victim, the workers who discovered the body and the police officer in charge of the case. Unchecked letters therein could provide TED BLAZED DRUG DPT. All but four clues have a single letter misprint in the definition which must be corrected. The correct letters in clue order, explain how to treat the other four answers (producing real words). Solvers must highlight the appropriately revealed discovery (7 letters). The perfectly reasonable form at 26 is not in the main dictionaries. 7 is in Chambers, but not as a headword.

Well, we certainly had a struggle sorting everything out this week.

It’s Joyce blogging this week.

Our FOI was 9ac after guessing that the definition could be CARRIAGE. Thinking that the answer may be some obscure type of carriage, I had a look in Chamber’s Thesaurus and saw TENUE as a possible synonym. 3d followed quickly and then I realised that 7d could be an anagram. We often use a website that includes proper names in their searches. As the solution was not a headword in Chambers I thought I would give it a go and luckily the spiders were revealed. When I had also solved 8d, 12d and 11ac, Bert decided that he definitely wasn’t on Radler’s wavelength. In the end, I had just been lucky as we both came to a halt for a long time.

Eventually we completed the grid in a very slow and haphazard way. The Thesaurus was in constant use. Searching for possible synonyms for brothel-keeper was very useful as neither of us had heard of BAWD – it was actually the headword in Chambers.

Thankfully our guesses on the possible message using the misprints was largely correct. It enabled us to guess at possible synonyms to check in Chambers Thesaurus! However, 18ac caused us a real headache as we thought there was no misprint. Although we couldn’t identify it, we were convinced that REBORE did have one (apologies, the grid says that this is 21 NOT 20 – I am running out of time to alter the grid for the second time!)

The misprints seemed to say:

CHANGE ONE LETTER IN EACH TO UNCOVER THE BODY

The only way of connecting 7 cells was diagonally which meant that REBORE did not have a misprint.  It also took us longer than expected to reveal the misprint in 18ac, even though we knew what the letter had to be.

So, we had the completed grid.

We wrote down all the possible letters we could replace in the grid for the 4 words to reveal the 7 letter ‘body’. It had to start at P (in 2d) and end at T (in 34d). The I in 26 had to be O, given that the consonants D and W were either side of it. We also wondered about the possible use of 1 as the final letter in the ‘body’

It was then a slow but steady search in google searching all the possible combinations. It wasn’t helped by finding LINDOW WOMAN as a headline in one of the searches but not noticing that LINDOW WOMAN or  LINDOW 1 were the names given to the partial remains of a body discovered in a peat bog at Lindow Moss in Cheshire in 1983.

Wiki revealed that Andy Mould and Stephen Dooley, who were peat cutters, discovered an unusual item on their conveyor belt. On closer inspection, they realised it was a human head. The police were summoned and a local detective, George Abbott suspected that Peter Reyn-Bardt was responsible. For over two decades he had been under suspicion for the murder of his estranged wife. When questioned, Reyn-Bardt assumed that the skull fragment came from his wife and confessed to her murder. He admitted to strangling her, dismembering the body and burying the remains in a ditch.

Because the rest of the body could not be found, Abbott sent the head to Oxford University for further study. Carbon dating revealed that it was dated back to Roman times and could not therefore be the head of De Fernandez, Reyn-Bardt’s wife.

So, we have MOULD DOOLEY PETER REYN-BARDT GEORGE ABBOTT and DE FERNANDEZ around the perimeter.

A lot of these words were pretty obscure and we only really gained any advantage by guessing GEORGE and MOULD in the perimeter.

Thanks to Radler – a rather obscure theme this week which took a lot of teasing out.

ACROSS
No. Entry
9 TENUE C
[M]Carriage holding, ignoring suspicion of relationship (5)
TENUrE (holding) ‘ignoring’ R (first letter or ‘suspicion’ of relationship)
10 DEEPFRY H
Young children by river quietly prepare c[l]hips? (7)
FRY (young children) after or ‘by’ DEE (river) P (quietly)
11 GNARRED A
Gave angry b[e]ark wine after withdrawing most of selection (7)
RED (wine) after a reversal (‘withdrawing’) of RANGe (selection) missing last letter or ‘almost’
13 ERIE N
New York ca[b]nal threatening as released from trap (4)
A homophone (‘released from trap’) of EERY (threatening)
14 NITRIAN G
From some Egyptian [a]ground action, curtailed through Cardinal (likewise) (7)
TRIAl (action) in (‘through’) NINe (‘cardinal’ number) both (‘likewise’) missing last letters (‘curtailed’)
16 OLAF I E
Anti-fraud office opening for inspection Norwegian l[o[eader (5, 2 words)
OLAF (European Anti-Fraud Office) I (first letter or ‘opening’ to inspection)
18 CARDIO O
Type of working [p]out zip on knitwear (6)
O (zip) on CARDI (knitwear)
20 REBORE
Once half of York chaps concerned with engine renovation (6)
EBOR (half of EBORacum – York’s name once) inside or ‘chapped by’ RE (concerned with). We struggled with this one as we were unaware that ‘chap’ is also a verb meaning to crack or divide.
22 EAT INTO N
Each part of court to ru[b]n down (7, 2 words)
EA (each) TIN (part of squash court) TO. Bert vaguely remembered TIN from when we played squash about 50 years ago.
24 ADDIO E
Plus-one to get over and s[u]ee you (5)
ADD (plus) I (one) O (over)
25 ESSENCE L
What has [w]life to eat in German church (7)
ESSEN (to eat in German) CE (church)
26 IRATED
Angry, wanting “irrational” to be “judged excellent” (6)
I (irrational) RATED (judged excellent)
27 AUTHOR E
Our struggles with hat p[i]en (6)
An anagram (‘struggles’) of OUR and HAT
29 WEILL T
Composer (Kur[d]t), writer and reader with difficulty (5)
WE (writer and reader) ILL (difficulty). Kurt Weill was a German born American composer from the 1920s – we’d never heard of him.
31 CHOUSES T
[B]takes in cold stores (7)
C (cold) HOUSES (stores) – a new word for us, meaning ‘swindles’
35 BAWR E
Curt brothel-keeper and Romeo, Jock’s tal[l]e with humour (4)
BAWd (brothel-keeper) missing the last letter or ‘curt’ R (Romeo)
36 EL GRECO R
Painte[d]r noted Englishman first of all missing green (7, 2 words)
ELGaR (‘noted Englishman’) missing ‘a’ (first letter of all) ECO (green)
37 OPTS OUT I
Maybe “spot” dec[o]ides to “quit” (7, 2 words)
A play on the fact that an anagram (‘OUT’) of ‘spot’ is OPTS – hence the ‘maybe’
38 MODEM N
Way Mike means to connect computer to li[f]ne (5)
MODE (way) M (Mike)
DOWN
No. Entry
1 RENAL E
New filling not imagined of p[i]ee makers? (5)
N (new) inside (‘filling’) REAL (not imagined)
2 BURP
Encourage wind releasing boost of clean power (4)
A reversal or ‘boost’ of RUB (clean) + P (power)
3 NERD A
Stereotypical computer f[u]an contributes to rising adrenaline (4)
Hidden (‘contributes to’) and reversed (‘rising’) in aDRENaline
4 YRENT C
Variable payment for land formerly separated by for[g]ce (5)
Y (variable) RENT (payment for land)
5 REFT H
Once took ot[t]her’s stuff on foot (4)
RE (on) FT (foot)
6 REGRATOR T
He infla[m]tes market shopper, gold bolsters registration (8)
RAT (‘shopper’) OR (gold) after or ‘bolstering’ REG (registration)
7 EPEIRIDAE O
F[a]ormer family (weavers) I repaid misguidedly in empty enterprise (9)
An anagram (‘misguidedly’) of I REPAID inside EnterprisE missing the middle letters or ’empty’)
8 ERINITE U
Irish st[a]uff supply entire island (7)
An anagram (‘supply’) of ENTIRE and I (island)
12 ARABIST N
Represented right bias at Middle Eastern concer[t]ns I favour (7)
An anagram (‘represented’) of R (right) BIAS AT
15 ILE DE RE C
Well-versed before going under I piloted pla[n]ce off France (7, 3 words)
ERE (poetic or ‘well-versed’ word for ‘before’) underneath I LED (piloted)
17 FOREHORSE O
Team leader sh[[e]od by Smith for touching drugs (9)
FOR ‘touching’ E and HORSE (two sorts of drug)
19 D-NOTICE V
Cast objects about negator that pre[s]vented news story (7)
DICE (objects that you cast) around or ‘about’ NOT (negator)
21 RAN OUT OF E
Got through l[o]eft quickly (8, 3 words)
Double definition
23 USUCAPT R
For Ian to obtain right ove[n]r time usually requires skipper (7)
USU (usually) CAPT (skipper or captain)
28 ASLAN B
Talking [l]beast in Chronicles (like network) (5)
AS (like) LAN (network)
30 LYCEE O
French f[a]orms here yielding hot Chinese fruit (5)
LYChEE (chinese fruit) without or ‘yielding’ ‘h’ (hot)
32 SLUE D
Club closing early, base provides a great [m]deal for GIs (4)
SLUg (club) missing last letter or ‘closing early’ E (base)
33 AGMA Y
Hot stuff topless, such as the last thing you sa[w]y in Barking (4)
mAGMA (‘hot stuff’) without first letter or ‘topless’
34 TRON
From South, point as far as opening of town marketplace (4)
A reversal (from the South) of NORTh (point) without last letter or ‘going as far as the ‘t’ – the first letter or ‘opening’ to town

8 comments on “Inquisitor 1930: Mistaken Identity by Radler”

  1. While I made steady work with the clues it took a lot of digging (ho ho) to uncover the theme. I think you’ve made a slip in 26. I got the answer “A-RATED” (from AERATED – E) and that means the letters changed on the diagonal spell “PEAT”.

  2. Well spotted on the peat, Phil K. I had a lot of trouble with 26A, feeling that pi should be in there, which it wasn’t, or that i should be an abbreviation of irrational, which it isn’t, and never having clocked that e is an irrational number (as well as many other things!) It was indeed a puzzle that exemplified the difficulty that can come from single-letter misprints; the ARABIST answer to 12D was straightforward, and clearly we had to amend “concerts”, but I went successively through conceits, concepts and concerns, driven onwards by trying to create a meaningful instruction. And it took some time to track down the theme, not helped by George Abbott being better known to Google as a film director, and by some very unpleasant links turning up when typing in “Fernandez, murderer”. It’s an odd little story; I wonder how Radler met it. While bertandjoyce may not have recognised Kurt Weill’s name, I suspect they may have met Mack The Knife or Pirate Jenny, the best known songs from his Threepenny Opera (20th century updating of The Beggars Opera). Thanks to Radler and bertandjoyce.

  3. Firstly, thanks to Phil K for his comment. When we were at the S&B at York, the significance of PEAT was mentioned. We didn’t remember finding those letters. Since arriving home on Sunday evening, we have been very busy and forgot to check. We really didn’t like IRATED and now we know why! Having checked things in Chambers we can see how we went wrong as it doesn’t appear in the list of synonyms for angry and we were unaware that aerated also meant to excite or perturb.
    Also thanks to Sagittarius. We were busy and the blog took quite a while, especially with having to change the grid due to a mistake. I didn’t bother to search for the composer but you are correct – we do know Mack the Knife.

  5. The Inquisitor moved from the Indy to the i some years ago when the Indy went to online only. The different grids with all the other thematic adjustments would make it difficult to solve online.
    We have a digital subscription to the I newspaper which is very good. We take a screenshot of the puzzle each week and print it out so that we can solve on paper. When we are away we also take screenshots of the grid and edit things on screen but it can be very fiddly at times.

  6. A challenging puzzle with an interesting theme. One thing I liked about its design was the generous ‘checked’ to ‘unchecked’ ratio (2:1) of all the perimeter cells, with no ‘double unches’ . That was of great help in identifying some likely thematic names, starting with FERNANDEZ and GEORGE ABBOTT. I liked also the symmetrical placement of the answers to the four ‘normal’ clues and the way that LINDOW I was formed in the middle of the long diagonal.

    I had no difficulty with any of the clues, but they did take a long time to solve (as they have done with previous puzzles by this setter!). There were many clever touches, all of them much appreciated.

    Many thanks to Bertandjoyce and Radler.

  7. Ah, thanks very much Bertrandjoyce @5 – I had signed up for a subscription but still couldn’t find the puzzles in the ‘Puzzles’ archive. But after reading your comment I went and looked through the actual newspaper edition in the online archive and found it there! As you say, not really suited for online solving which I suppose is why – but very happy to have found it and be able to print out. Thanks.

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