Can you Believe who the Murderer is?

[00:00:11][music] Hello. Welcome back to Cracking the Cryptic. And yes, welcome to the murder scene. We've got a chalk outline and uh we have to be detectives today and apparently find a reveal a killer. So, I don't know how we're going to do that with the Sudoku. It's happened occasionally before, but if you like being a detective, there's still just time left perhaps to enter the detective pets Sudoku hunt, which is our monthly reward on Patreon um by Sandra Nala and Panthetherra. It involves um helping their pets basically solve a domestic mystery and there's a logic problem as well as some Japanese sums number sums sodoku some fog of war sodoku and others great fun puzzles. Thanks so much to Sandra and Panthetherra for that and uh it's been wellreed when we've had people writing in. Hundreds of people have entered already. Um, also on Patreon, of course, we've got crosswords and um they include the Times Monthly Club special went up a couple of days ago. They include um other crosswords like Sabers's listener. Very tough cryptics these. Um and there's also gridoggram and connections. I knew one of those yesterday actually. So loads going on on Patreon. Do join us there. We'd love to have you. And uh for value, for money, if you want more Sudoku, try our apps.

[00:01:40]They're fantastic. They include Line Sudoku and Domino Sudoku, Classic Sudoku, too, The Worms. Uh we've got a bit of merch as well. So, uh do avail yourself of that on the links under the video. Um including Marty Sears, Rat Run, mugs, and so on. Um, I will say a very quick vamos to both teams in tonight's World Cup final. Um, and and I'm quite pleased that my England team provided at least an interesting match in the what used to be called third place playoff and is now apparently the bronze medal match or something. Thank you, FIFA. Uh, so that's the news from the real world. Um, in our world, there's a dead body here. And this puzzle came in from um from Little Sis, who was introduced to Cracking the Cryptic by her big bro, which is excellent. And I think the puzzle is by Little Sis, but she's crediting Big Bro in the uh in the authorship just because of that introduction. And she said uh that she has all the ideas and no gear.

[00:02:50]So, in fact, it's been through a tester.

[00:02:53]I've put it into into the software via Sudoku Maker and it's quite good. I mean the the original outline of the body was dotted lines. In fact, you can see it on the thumbnail, I guess. Um, but let me read the rules because this is going to be interesting. Normal Sudoka rules apply. That means one to nine will go in every row, every column, and every 3x3 box. Uh the gray outline is cut into segments by the box borders and each segment sums to the total given. So we've got well yeah okay if the outline only cuts through half a cell so that applies here and here and here and here only half the value of the number is included in the total. So, we've got 27 in those three and half of those four cells. 16 in those four and half of those two cells. 17 in that one and half of those three. 11 in those two and half of those two.

[00:03:59]Um, cells divided in half always contain an even number, which is helpful for the maths. In cells joined by a red dot, these are blood stain dots. I think in the original, one digit is double the other. So they're like our normal black dots. Neighboring digits along a green German whispers line have a difference of at least five.

[00:04:23]And the yellow squares reveal a number that corresponds to a letter of the alphabet based on a = 1 up to z= 26.

[00:04:33]Revealing the killer in this way is required. Wow. Well, that's part of the puzzle today. We have to name the killer apparently. Okay, give it a try on that first link under the video. see how you get on. Um, I'm going to start now. Uh, I nearly clicked the stop recording button. Let's get cracking. Here we go.

[00:04:53]So, I look at the 11 and I think, oh yeah, that's 1 2 3 5. Nonsense. Two of the cells are halved.

[00:05:06]Oh, the 16 is that's a big number. Six.

[00:05:10]Sorry. 16 is a very small number. There is a big number of cells in it.

[00:05:16]If we were to put the minimum digits in these six cells, what would the digits add up to? Let's start there. They would be say 1 2 3 4 5 6. That would be the minimum. That adds up to 21.

[00:05:32]Now what we could deduct from that is the highest two even digits which would be six and four out of that set. Uh they add up to 10.

[00:05:44]Half of them is five. Deduct five from 21 and we get 16.

[00:05:50]I think that means this is 1 2 3 4 5 six here. I'm just going to think about if we deducted a higher even number. Having used a higher even number. Yeah, that wouldn't help because we'd be left with if we used eight, which is basically a higher even number than four or six. We would have had to we would have to use the value of four in the in the sum rather than with six and four where we're using the value of three and two.

[00:06:19]So, I hope you followed that. I think the maths is sound. I'm really very confident that these are the digits 1 2 3 4 5 6. In fact, furthermore, it is the digits six and four that are in the cells that are h haveved by the outline.

[00:06:38]And then these digits don't contain six and four. And the one on the black dot now out of 1 2 3 5 the only pair that forms one being double the other is one and two. So that's a pair. This is a three five pair and that's a 4 six pair.

[00:06:54]The remaining digits that go in the box are going to be 7 8 9 and there's another pair because two of those can't go on the dot and that is seven and nine. They don't have a sudoka digit companion that they can go on a black dot with because for seven half of it is three and a half and double it is 14 and neither of those are sodoka digits etc. So that's a seven N pair. This digit is eight. On the black dot, this one is four. And in the box, that one is six.

[00:07:27]And there's our start in box five. I mean, I think that all holds together.

[00:07:34]Now, can I use the 11 cage?

[00:07:40]The 11 cage, the max, the minimum digits I can put in, well, they're 1 2 3 4. If I start h havinging them, I'm way below the number I need.

[00:07:55]No, I know what to do. I know what to do. What to do is to remember that rule.

[00:08:01]Cells divided in half always contain an even number.

[00:08:06]So in this box, all of these four cells, they're all divided in half. They're the four even numbers. They must be, mustn't they? I think so. So, what's going on here? These are 2 4 6 and 8. Uh, on the red dot, we can't use six. It's either a 2 four or a 48 pair. Four is definitely in use there, and therefore, it's not in use in the other pair. We've got an eight looking across at those cells.

[00:08:35]Four and six don't look across at their equivalents.

[00:08:40]And we can sum these up. So 2 + 4 + 6 + 8 = 20 divided by 2 gives us a 10 contribution from those cells. These three others have to add up to 17 to get to the 27 total. And they're all made up of odd numbers.

[00:08:58]Now 17 in three odd numbers. The five odd numbers sum to 25.

[00:09:08]The ones we're not counting, the two we're not counting therefore sum to 25 minus 17 equals 8. And therefore, it's either 1 7 or 35 that are not in this. And nine is in this group.

[00:09:25]Actually, it might be worth coloring for par.

[00:09:30]Those digits are all definitely even.

[00:09:33]Let's make them light blue. These ones are definitely odd. And all the remaining ones in box four are odd.

[00:09:39]We'll make them orange.

[00:09:46]This can't be a 48 red dot because four and eight are both looking at this cell.

[00:09:53]So if if it's a 24 red dot, we know the order.

[00:10:01]It could be 2-1 in either order or it could be 63 in one particular order.

[00:10:10]Oh, hang on. There's this rule again. A rule that cells divided in half always contain an even number. All of these cells are divided in half. They're all even. And that's all the evens in row eight. So everything else is odd, including this digit, which I've just pencil marked as 1, two, or six. Yes, it can't be three. That's right. That is a one now cuz it's odd. We've just proved that by these four all being even. Now that is on a dot with a two.

[00:10:40]These are from 468. So is that.

[00:10:47]Now these four cells contribute to the 17 cage.

[00:10:54]Can we work out? We might be able to. If that was a 4 six pair, they add up to 10. Half them and it's five. This is always contributing. Half of two is one. 5 + 1 is six. That this digit would have to be an 11.

[00:11:13]You could count all of it, but it would have to be an 11, and that's too much.

[00:11:16]So, this is not 468. It's way too much actually. If this was four and eight, we'd be getting seven from the hings and that digit would be 10. So four and six and four and eight don't work here. This must be a 68 pair.

[00:11:34]All of these cells are contributing half of 16, which is eight. And that digit is a nine. And we have completed this 17 cage. That nine fixes seven and nine in box five.

[00:11:53]And now we try and do the same thing with the 11 cage. I guess there is definitely a four in these two cells.

[00:12:00]And that is contributing two to the total. The other digit in these cells is either contributing three or four.

[00:12:10]Now, if this is a four and a six contributing two and three, we've got six more in these cells, but we can't use the digit four. So, then they would be 1 five.

[00:12:24]If this is 48, which I think is the other alternative it is, then they're contributing six and these add up to five. But again, we can't use four. So these would be 2 three. So this pair that I've got highlighted are either a 1 five or a 23 pair. I don't necessarily know the parity.

[00:12:52]Oh, there's a four by sodoku in one of these cells.

[00:12:56]Therefore, a four in one of these.

[00:13:06]Hm. What next would you say? 1 2 6 8 94.

[00:13:10]These are from 357. They're definitely odd.

[00:13:16]Two and six must be up here somewhere.

[00:13:26]Made good progress with the body shape.

[00:13:29]Um, oh, hang on. This is on a red dot. This digit can't be a five ever. And it can't be a one in this situation because that can't be a two. So that is two or three.

[00:13:45]Oh, weren't these either a 2 three or a five pair? Let me do the maths again. 12 / 2 is six. Then they were 2 three. If that was 48.

[00:13:57]If that was 4 six, that's five and a five. Yes. And we can't have the one five pair because this digit can't be one of them. So that is a two three pair. They add up to five. These have to add up to six by being 48 halved. And now we know where six and eight go in box eight.

[00:14:18]And we've got a 48 pair here.

[00:14:25]Why isn't this resolved?

[00:14:31]I've kind of got to the point got as far as I can with par. I'm going to have to I actually this is quite a strange puzzle. There's there's quite a few clues what with the c the sort of outline and the red dots in this area where the where most of the chalk outline is.

[00:14:55]There are very few clues in the rest of the puzzle because I don't think we can use the yellow cells and there's only a few short green lines. I'm going to get rid of the coloring.

[00:15:11]Um I'm going to get rid of the coloring because what I'm going to try and use blue and orange for from now on is to color polarity along the green lines.

[00:15:23]Right? What I haven't told you about green lines but you may know is that firstly five cannot go on a green line ever because it's neighbor is impossible. It would either be zero or less or 10 or more.

[00:15:38]Um therefore the lines have alternation between digits that are higher than five and digits that are lower to maintain this difference of five.

[00:15:50]And so we could color this sort of in in two colors that are different from each other.

[00:16:04]Red and green say.

[00:16:07]And we could color this one in two other digit in two other colors because we just don't know.

[00:16:15]Um I can't use yellow. That's quite annoying. Let's use gray. Okay. um because we just don't know which is odd and which is even. But but we've got this pair that is one of each. So one is high and one is low.

[00:16:30]And the high one can't be six, seven or nine in this column. So the high one is an eight. The low digit that eight is touching is not allowed to be a two. And eight can't touch four because they're too close together in number. So that's eight with one or three there.

[00:16:48]Uh this one is 25 no 2356 or there's too many possibilities.

[00:17:03]Why was that not more helpful? There's a four either at the top or bottom of the column.

[00:17:13]Oh, this green line. This is more helpful. Look in this row. We've had a 48 pair and 6 2 1. The low digit on this pair is a three and the high digit is not allowed to be eight. So that's a 39 pair.

[00:17:27]Now how can we find out which one is high and which one is low? Can we?

[00:17:31]Whichever one is a three is going to be touching a nine on one side and an eight on the other. And it is not this gray cell because if that was a three, this digit would have to be eight or nine.

[00:17:43]And it can't be. So that's the nine.

[00:17:46]This is the three. The three is touching an eight. We now know that eight and nine are high. Three is in the low numbers.

[00:17:56]And in this row, we've got only a five seven pair left to go.

[00:18:03]This digit is one or two. It can't be four by sodoku and four can't touch eight. This one is one, two, or four.

[00:18:17]Oh, look at this. This silly red dot. I was ignoring it before when I was letting that be one or five. I'm still ignoring it now. Now we made that a 4 eight pair. This is done. That's a two.

[00:18:29]It can't be three anymore. This is four.

[00:18:32]That's eight. That's three.

[00:18:35]Doesn't sort this out. Yes, it does.

[00:18:36]Eight does sort this out into a two six pair. And that makes this digit a four and this one an eight.

[00:18:44]There's a two x-wing between those. Both two and four have to be in this group of cells now.

[00:18:53]And eight in this pair by by virtue of these eights in the grid.

[00:19:05]Right? So we know the coloring of this line. We still don't know this one's properly. 1 2 8 6. This is 3 4 5 7 or 9.

[00:19:16]It's not four either. Actually, this digit can't be five because we've made it a rule of green lines. Five can't get on them. It can't be four in this case cuz that can't be nine. So, we're looking at three, seven, or nine in this cell. If it's low now, this one can't be three because this would be the same polarity in the same box and would have to therefore be low and three as well.

[00:19:47]Where does that get us? Doesn't tell us what this is. This is 8 9 1 or three.

[00:19:56]I'm going to write those in. Um, this one is either touching a one but is not 9 or 8 or is touching an eight.

[00:20:06]It's 2 3 6 or 7. I don't know. I I can't see the point of writing that, but maybe I'll work it out.

[00:20:14]2 4 8 3 There's a nine in one of these cells. I've pencil marked that because it's in this cage that adds up. So, that can't be nine. But actually, more importantly at the moment, this can't be nine. So the nine in the bottom row has to get wedged in the corner. This digit is 1 5 6 or 7. That's it's not I don't know. It could be any of those.

[00:20:47]4 8 26. This is nine plus a pair that adds to seven. This is another pair that adds to seven.

[00:20:57]uh to eight. I'm sorry. This was adding to 17. 9 plus either 35 or 17. This is another pair that adds to eight.

[00:21:06][clears throat] Oh, three. Three can't be here. Three is placed in box eight. That's good. This is a four, five, seven triple down at the bottom. And that can't be seven in the middle.

[00:21:27]because of this seven just in the outline um outside the outline but you know what I mean this digit is one or six.

[00:21:39]Now if it was one this would have to be 935 and that would have to be eight.

[00:21:50]Sorry about my cough.

[00:21:58]I don't know. This digit is in one of these two.

[00:22:02]Oh, Sudoku. There's a four in one of those cells. There's an eight in one of these.

[00:22:09]There's a two in one of those.

[00:22:14]None of this is solving the German whisper here. And I haven't really got anywhere with this one.

[00:22:19]Well, haven't actually got anywhere at all with it. How about this row? 2 and four there. 6 9 8.

[00:22:28]These are from 1 357.

[00:22:31]I do know there can't be a pair summing to eight.

[00:22:35]Because that's a pair summing to eight.

[00:22:37]And this one will need that one to make eight, not that one.

[00:22:42]I don't think that says I can delete five from this cell. Although it might mean it. I don't think it does.

[00:22:49][clears throat and cough] It does mean that's three or five. This can't be a one seven pair. Although one of them is one or seven.

[00:23:05]Oh, I've just had a thought about the yellow cells.

[00:23:17]Revealing the killer is required. Sorry, I'm going to just get a drink and I'll be back with you. Right, my thought about the yellow cells is that I've been thinking there's a good chance these are twodigit numbers.

[00:23:34]Now, can we rely on that? Actually, we can. I mean the alternative is that nine cells have been selected for onedigit numbers and those digits would all have to translate to letters in the range A to I. Now there are words that you can make with just those like cabbage or something but they're they're very constrained and they're probably not in use here. So I think the point of the puzzle is probably that this is a one-digit number leading to a letter and these are twodigit numbers leading to letters and in that case they all have to begin with one or two because the letters are in the range from 10 to 26.

[00:24:14]So I think that's a reasonable deduction and I I think it's fair to use it especially as it says revealing the killer is required. So these digits are all one or two and this one is definitely one now and that's going to help. This becomes two. This becomes one. This is four. This is six. The remaining digit is hang on. I was I said four and typed five. There we go. This is five or seven.

[00:24:45]This these are from 567.

[00:24:49]Actually there's a two six pair looking at that one. So we found six.

[00:24:54]Well, this is good. Now, you [clears throat] may think I'm a bit peculiar, but while I don't think it's wrong to use that as a deduction that these are two-digit numbers, I do think it's probably wrong to try and work out that if these are Q, they're probably not in it. Well, yeah. Okay, there's the difference. The difference is the word probably.

[00:25:19]Um, we have to work out what these letters are. But we can know that they must begin with a one or a two from the from the two-digit issue. Ah, there's a two in one of those cells. So, this is a one. Yes, that was because of this two X-wing. So, that fixes two one here and two six here.

[00:25:42]And now we can place one in this box.

[00:25:46]And it's there. And that means that this is a 953 triple I think because it remember it has to add to 17 to make this cage 7 to 27. That's a seven. That deals with the five seven pairs.

[00:26:05]Oh, only two of them. It doesn't sort this lot out. That's okay. Now up here we have a 1, two, three triple. We know that is one or two in its yellow number.

[00:26:17]Uh then in this column we have a 459 triple. And then in this column we have a 678 triple. And that has sorted out our polarity issue. This digit is going to be eight. 67 there. This is eight.

[00:26:31]Out of the options we had eight was the only one that came up trumps. So those get orange. These get blueed. This is low and is three. This is high and is eight. This is low and is one. This is high and is six or seven. I don't know which.

[00:26:51]But that three is looking at box five.

[00:26:54]Five. Three.

[00:26:57]Three.

[00:26:59]This row is now going to contain 2 47.

[00:27:03]Uhhuh. And we know from this column where the four goes. That was a naked single. Effectively these digits are from 359 and that's good. Right in this column we need a four or a five at the top. This can't be a five.

[00:27:23]And in this column these are from 479 and include a nine.

[00:27:30]Now hopefully we can get to this. It doesn't have a one on it now. And therefore it doesn't have a six on it because six always needs to be next to one on a green line.

[00:27:41][clears throat and cough] So so in fact in these two cells 4 two and one are seen. So these have to have a three as the low digit and it has to go there.

[00:27:54]I hadn't realized this cell sees all the low digits 1 2 3 and four. So this is high and it's now what? Eight or nine.

[00:28:02]Actually, I'm putting eight back in parenthesis. This is N in a corner mark.

[00:28:08]This is a nine because it can't be eight. And nine is taken out of these cells. This can't be three or one in this row. This is two. Then we get one and that's three in the corner. Well, that's three in the spot. Light. Now, we need a one in this corner. This is low and is two or four.

[00:28:29]This one hasn't been resolved. Um, now how are we getting on with other numbers?

[00:28:39]13984.

[00:28:48]Kind of run out of things to do. 53819.

[00:28:52]This is a naked naked single. It sees 1 9538427.

[00:28:58]So that's a six.

[00:29:01]Oh, I thought that was going to do lots of stuff and it didn't do anything. 61.

[00:29:06]We've got this 427. This is five or eight by Sudoku.

[00:29:14]Uh 4961.

[00:29:18]We need a three in this column. There's only one place. It's there.

[00:29:28]We need an eight in this column. Oh, look. 8. Eight. That's an eight.

[00:29:34]Oh, I never colored this line. Since I'm coloring the whisper lines, might as well do it. We got an eight there. We need eight in this column. And it's here. And that's a nine on the line, which I can't type in because I'm in the wrong mode. That was eight. That's what I was trying to put there. Not particularly yellow. Sorry. Um, that's a five. Here we go. This is nine and five.

[00:30:01]In this column, we have five or seven.

[00:30:04]Two, five or seven. This is where six goes.

[00:30:10]That fixes 7 six. This has to be a six by Sudoku now, which is fine for its column. These are from 257. This one can't be seven. Nor can this. That's a two five pair. And this blue digit is four.

[00:30:29]And now this isn't four or five which is in the two five pair. So this is nine.

[00:30:36]That's a four five pair. So we can remove four and five. And this is the only place for nine in the top row.

[00:30:46]and got nearly all the letters by now.

[00:30:54]Actually, what have we got left?

[00:31:00]It feels like Is this all a deadly pattern?

[00:31:12]It might be. I'm not sure. Those will get resolved by whatever this is.

[00:31:27]I don't know. Let's think about the letters then. We've got I 19. That's the one that fools me. It's S, isn't it? R is 18. O is 15. That one I know. That's my anchor. PQR is 18. S is 19. I S M O and then this is either N or Q 14 or 17.

[00:31:55]Oh, I Okay. Um, right. We don't go row by row, which as a cross worder I always assume must be what we're going to do.

[00:32:05]We start here in the top left and we go clockwise and we get S I M O and I think this is N. And we've discovered that Simon is the murderer and we had to reveal the killer in this way to finish the puzzle. Wow. Well, I mean I'm definitely getting on the phone to the roses straight away. Um, you know, he may be a friend, but murder is murder, right? That gives us a two and a seven in the top row. That gives five and two there. 5 4 7 4 5 and 7 and two. And I think this is the solution. Uh, of course, there wasn't a solution link. Um, hopefully little sis sent in a solution. I'll check that that's right. Uh, before you have a go at the puzzle, so when you do it, this will be correct as the solution. It did say revealing the killer is required and it was required to disambiguate uh these light blue cells. Basically, we had to reveal the killer. And I'm sorry, Simon, it's you. There we go. That's murder by numbers. Well done, detectives. You've done a great job.

[00:33:14]Now, move over to Detective Pets on Patreon and have fun with that. Thank you so much for watching. Um, I had fun with that. Good work, little sis. And I will see you again next time. Bye for now.

[00:33:29]>> [music]