Jaspistos

Maths lesson

issue 28 May 2005

In Competition No. 2393 you were given the first 101 numerals representing the value of π and asked to supply a piece of prose in which each word has the number of letters corresponding to the figures, zero to be represented by a ten-letter word.

My thanks to Martin Kochanski for this idea. The consensus was summed up by Mae Scanlan’s final words: ‘Callous, diabolical, crafty villain, Jaspistos!’ Hilary and David Wade get the top £30, and the other prizewinners, printed below, have £25. I have included my personal effort (without reward) just to show that I’m prepared to swallow my own medicine.

‘It’s a maze. A prize conundrum. No bloody doubt.’ Our guest shrugged miserably. ‘Mycroft? Unusually, not in the Diogenes Club. Honest Mr Holmes, this one has panicked him, I’m certain.’

‘Certainly seems irrational. Or singular.’

‘Scotland Yard?’ I suggested. ‘Baffled, I assume?’

‘Naturally,’ the Inspector confessed, not mincing words. ‘A mysterious crime, executed by miscreants’ — Lestrade’s accents fell fearfully — ‘more than human, gentlemen.’

‘No, not miscreants,’ replied Sherlock.

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