Newts Errant

by Keith Baker
Solving Tips

Story

Tragedy has befallen Gussie Finknottle. Upon rising in the morning he went to feed his newts and, to his horror, discovered that he had forgotten to put the cover on the aquarium the evening before. Needless to say his newts, Queenie, Irving, Samantha, Elizabeth and George were not in their home but scuttling about Gussie's flat and hiding from him in various places.

For several hours, Gussie tried to track down his newts, but as soon as he spied one and was persuing it, a second would scuttle across the floor, breaking Gussie's concentration whereupon he would lose track of any newts whatsoever.

Driven to madness, he ran into the street yelling "Help! Help! Help!" just at the time Monty Bodkin happened to be passing by. Listening to Gussie's tale of woe, Monty suggested that they nip round to the Drones club to get some volunteers to help hunt the newts down, on the grounds that any Drone at ten in the morning who hadn't had too many Gin & Tonics would be at least equal to the task of hunting down a newt.

At the Drones club, Gussie & Monty enlisted the help of Orlo Porter, Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright and Kipper Herring. They descended upon Gussie's flat and managed to round up the errant newts in short order. One was found in a shoe, one behind a copy of Oliver Twist on the shelf, one newt hid under a sofa, one in a desk drawer and one was found in the pocket of a jacket.

Later in the day, the 'Fearless Newt Hunters' as they called themselves were having celebratory snifters at the club. Gussie was relating the tale to the bartender, but (unused to the effects of beverage alcohol as he is) he forgot who found which newt, where it was found, what distinguishing colour of spots each newt had or which order they were found in.

Can you help him remember the correct tale from the following ten clues?


./Labels/h_Drone.png ./Labels/h_Speckles.png ./Labels/h_Location.png ./Labels/h_Order.png
./Labels/v_Gussie.png ./Labels/v_Monty.png ./Labels/v_Orlo.png ./Labels/v_Catsmeat.png ./Labels/v_Kipper.png ./Labels/v_Red.png ./Labels/v_Green.png ./Labels/v_Yellow.png ./Labels/v_Blue.png ./Labels/v_Orange.png ./Labels/v_Under_sofa.png ./Labels/v_Shoe.png ./Labels/v_Desk_drawer.png ./Labels/v_Behind_book.png ./Labels/v_Jacket_pocket.png ./Labels/v_1.png ./Labels/v_2.png ./Labels/v_3.png ./Labels/v_4.png ./Labels/v_5.png
./Labels/v_Newt.png ./Labels/h_Queenie.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Irving.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Samantha.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Elizabeth.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_George.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/v_Order.png ./Labels/h_1.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_2.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_3.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_4.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_5.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/v_Location.png ./Labels/h_Under_sofa.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Shoe.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Desk_drawer.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Behind_book.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Jacket_pocket.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/v_Speckles.png ./Labels/h_Red.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Green.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Yellow.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Blue.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Orange.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
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x o blank x o blank x o blank x o blank
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JavaScript Grid by Scott Noyes

Clues

  1. The newt with yellow speckles (not Irving) was not found first nor last, and the newt with red speckles didn't hide in something that could be worn.
  2. The newt that Catsmeat found was hiding "in" something, and had neither yellow nor blue speckles.
  3. Gussie found his newt some time before the male newt with orange speckles (which wasn't the fourth newt found), and he didn't find it in the desk drawer.
  4. The newt found in the jacket pocket wasn't Samantha (who doesn't have yellow speckles nor hides under sofas) nor was it found by Monty Bodkin.
  5. Kipper Herring didn't find a female newt nor did he find the first newt.
  6. The newt hunters were: Catsmeat, The finder of the newt with the orange speckles, the finder of the newt in the drawer, the finder of Queenie and the person who found the second newt.
  7. Elizabeth was found right after George was located, but sometime before Monty found his newt (which didn't have red speckles), which was sometime before the newt (which didn't have blue speckles) in the shoe was located.
  8. The newt with the green speckles was found immediately before the newt under the sofa.
  9. The newt in the desk drawer was found immediately before the newt with blue speckles was found (but not by Gussie), which was found immediately before Irving.
  10. The first newt caught was either in the jacket pocket or behind the book, and was a male newt.



Solving Tips


Use an X when you are sure that two fields do not match. Use a dot when you are sure that two fields do match. Click once to place an X. Click a second time to place a dot. Click a third time to clear the box.

Select marker color by clicking the colored radio buttons. You can use colored marks to indicate which clue provided a value, or to indicate a guess that might not be correct, or just because you like solving puzzles in teal.

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Use the "Current Solution Window" button to parse the grid for your solution. This feature simply looks for dots in the top set of rows and creates a list that you can copy and paste into your email for submission.

If you want to clear the grid and start over, just refresh the page. Note that there is a bug in IE6 (and possibly other browsers), so that if a color other than the default is selected, that color may appear to be selected after the reload, but the actual color used will be the default.

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Scott
snoyes@gmail.com