On Wednesday the moon put out the light, the birds altered their plans, and the Society placed two clues beneath the event as though it had arranged the whole thing.

It had not. The Committee asked me to make that point particularly clear.

What the Society did arrange was a Crossing for the occasion, with the answers kept back until today. If you have carried them since Wednesday, you may now check your work. If you have not, the full explanation is below, and nobody in the parlour will think less of you. Dr Quire took the second hint herself.

Mr Peregrine Fitch, Membership Secretary

The Crossing, as posed

Two clues, one shared letter. Six letters across and five down. They meet at the third letter of the across answer and the fourth letter of the down answer.

1 across (6). Racoon, disturbed, seen only at totality

1 down (5). Some plum brandy in the moon’s deepest shadow

The workings follow. Look away now if you would rather keep the eclipse a little longer.

The workings

1 across. Racoon, disturbed, seen only at totality (6)

The answer is CORONA.

The honest part is “seen only at totality”. The sun’s corona is its pale, outer atmosphere, normally lost in the glare. During a total eclipse the moon covers the bright disc and the corona appears around it. It is the white halo people cross countries to stand beneath for a few minutes.

The disguised part is an anagram. “Disturbed” is the signal, and RACOON is the material. The single C spelling is accepted British English, and all six letters are present:

RACOON, disturbed, becomes CORONA.

The surface is doing more than making a pleasing picture. Animals really do alter their behaviour in the false night of totality. A disturbed racoon is not merely plausible on eclipse day, it is almost documentary.

1 down. Some plum brandy in the moon’s deepest shadow (5)

The answer is UMBRA.

The definition is “the moon’s deepest shadow”. The umbra is the cone in which the sun is completely hidden. Where that cone touches the Earth, the eclipse is total. Everyone outside it receives only part of the performance.

The wordplay is already printed in the clue. “Some” tells you to look inside what follows. Run the two words together:

plUM BRAndy

UMBRA sits across the join, consecutive and undisturbed. The surface offers a hip flask at an eclipse gathering while the answer waits inside the drink. Dr Quire considers this efficient hospitality.

And the crossing

The R in CORONA is the R in UMBRA. Solve the halo and it gives you a foothold in the shadow. Solve the shadow first and it returns the favour. That small exchange is why the Society sets two clues rather than leaving either one to face the dark alone.

The Doorkeeper’s Question, answered

Last Sunday’s Dispatch asked:

Some evening in Naples, the drink (3)

The answer is GIN.

“Some” is the hidden-word signal. Put evening beside Naples and the answer appears at the join: eveninG INaples. The definition is “the drink”. Three letters, all accounted for, with no need to trouble the bar.

This week’s Doorkeeper’s Question

One small thing to carry until next Sunday:

Fish distraction (7)

The answer appears in the next Dispatch. The Doorkeeper reads everything and confirms nothing.

The Society of Crossed Words publishes a daily crossing for those beginning, and a course in four volumes for those continuing.

societyofcrossedwords.com

On Wednesday the Society did something it has not done before: it posted a Crossing in the open feed and declined to say what the answer was.

If that is how you arrived here, welcome. You were promised the workings, and the Society keeps its promises with the same care it keeps its secrets. They are below, every step of them.

If you solved it on Wednesday and have spent four days feeling quietly superior, that is also entirely permitted. It is one of the chief pleasures of membership.

Mr Peregrine Fitch, Membership Secretary

The Crossing, as posed

Two clues, crossing at a single shared letter, as ever. Six letters across, six down. They meet at the second letter of the across word, which is the third letter of the down word.

1 across (6). Cost broken with hard: he counts for nothing

1 down (6). New picture developed into a mystery

The workings follow. Look away now if you would rather wrestle with it first.

The workings

1 across. Cost broken with hard: he counts for nothing (6)

The answer is CIPHER.

Every cryptic clue says the same thing twice: once honestly, once in disguise.

The honest half here is “he counts for nothing”, and it is the part almost everybody misreads. The word cipher sends the mind straight to codes and secrecy, and the Society’s whole manner encourages exactly that reading. It is the wrong one. A cipher is also a zero, and by extension a person of no consequence, a nonentity, a nobody. “Counts for nothing” is doing triple duty: a nought, a nonentity, and the old arithmetic sense of ciphering, which simply meant doing sums.

The disguised half is an anagram with a letter added. “Cost” gives PRICE. “Broken” is the signal to rearrange it. “With hard” adds an H, the same H that sits on the side of a pencil. PRICE, broken, with H:

PRICE + H → CIPHER

1 down. New picture developed into a mystery (6)

The answer is ENIGMA.

The honest half is “a mystery”, sitting at the end where definitions like to sit.

The disguised half is the same machine again, run the other way round: a letter, then an anagram. “New” gives N, one of the little letter-words the Dispatch wrote about a fortnight ago. “Picture” gives IMAGE. “Developed” is the anagram signal, and it is a fine one, because the whole surface reads as an ordinary sentence about a darkroom. That is what a good surface does: it gives you a perfectly sensible picture to look at while the real instruction walks past you.

N + IMAGE, developed → ENIGMA

And the crossing

The I of CIPHER is the I of ENIGMA. Solve either one and it hands a letter to the other: the small kindness the Society is named for. A cipher and an enigma, crossing in public, in a puzzle whose answer was itself withheld for four days. The Society trusts the setter knew what he was about.

The Doorkeeper’s Question, answered

Dispatch No. 3 asked you this:

Fish distraction (7)

The answer is HERRING.

A HERRING is a fish, and a herring is a distraction, though it normally turns up painted red. Two definitions, side by side, nothing else. The Society appreciates a clue that is itself a small red herring.

This week’s Doorkeeper’s Question

For those who like something to carry about with them:

Some evening in Naples, the drink (3)

The answer appears in the next Dispatch. Do not write in. Discretion is expected.

The Society of Crossed Words publishes a daily crossing for those beginning, and a course in four volumes for those continuing. societyofcrossedwords.com

The Society records that the first Dispatch was received without complaint, which the Membership Office regards as a triumph and the Committee regards as insufficient evidence. Several new members have been proposed since, each by a person of excellent judgement, and each has been admitted without ceremony because the ceremony has not yet been written. The parlour clock continues to run four minutes fast. Nobody has been able to establish who wound it. Proceedings continue.

Mr Peregrine Fitch, Membership Secretary

The Week in Crossings

The daily ceremony continues each morning: two little clues, crossed at a single shared letter, with hints for the asking and every answer taken apart afterwards. This week the parlour met an anagram that behaved impeccably, a hidden word that hid in plain sight for rather too long, and a charade that several members insist was unfair. The Society thanks them for their correspondence and has filed it.

Dr Quire’s Margin Note: the sentence that runs backwards

Last week I told you that almost every clue is two clues in one sentence. Here is the second thing worth knowing: a clue is under no obligation to run left to right.

Some wordplay asks you to write a word backwards. The clue will tell you so, though never in those words. It will say returned, or sent back, or in reflection, or going west, or brought up if the answer runs down the page. These are instructions, wearing the costume of ordinary English.

The difficulty is that the instruction hides inside a sentence which appears to mean something else entirely. That sentence is the surface, and the surface is lying to you. It is meant to. A good clue is a polite deception, and being deceived politely is the whole pleasure of the thing.

So when a clue mentions anything turning, returning, rising, reversing or heading west, do not picture it. Take the word beside the instruction and read it the other way round. If a real word appears, you have found the seam.

W.Q.

The Doorkeeper’s Question

Last week’s answer, as promised. READER, an anagram of REREAD, signalled by “oddly”, and defined by “one holding this page”. Several of you replied. The Doorkeeper acknowledged none of it, as is his custom.

This week, one clue, unexplained. The answer appears in next Sunday’s Dispatch, and nowhere else before it.

Stink, sent back, makes jumpers (5)

Reply with your answer if you wish; the Doorkeeper reads everything and confirms nothing.

Society Notices

The daily crossing: two clues each morning, free. The course in print: A Course in Cryptic Crosswords, Volumes One to Four, set down by Dr W. Quire, at societyofcrossedwords.com. Proposals for membership: forward this Dispatch to your single most trusted confidante, and no more than one.

You received this because a person of excellent judgement proposed you. Membership is exclusive. Discretion is expected.

It is recorded that on this Sunday the Society of Crossed Words began keeping public minutes, a decision the Committee debated for some years and the Membership Office lost. I am instructed to say that this bulletin will appear weekly, that it will be brief, and that forwarding it to more than one trusted confidante at a time is considered enthusiastic. The kettle in the members’ parlour has been descaled in honour of the occasion. Proceedings continue.

Mr Peregrine Fitch, Membership Secretary

The Week in Crossings

The daily ceremony continues each morning in the app: two crossed cryptic clues, sharing a single letter, warmly explained after the solve. This week’s crossings ranged from an anagram that behaved itself to a homophone that divided the parlour. The daily crossing is free, forever, on the App Store and Google Play.

Dr Quire’s Margin Note: the only secret worth having

New members ask for the trick of cryptic crosswords as though it were kept in a locked drawer. It is not. Here it is, and it fits on a luggage label: almost every clue is two clues in one sentence. One part is an ordinary dictionary definition of the answer, sitting at the beginning or the end, never the middle. The rest is wordplay, a small machine that builds the same answer out of letters. The innocent sentence they appear to make together is called the surface, and its only job is to mislead you. Stop reading the surface. Find the seam. Everything else I shall teach you is merely identifying machines, and I have never once needed the drawer.

W.Q.

The Doorkeeper’s Question

One clue, unexplained. The answer appears in next Sunday’s Dispatch, and nowhere else before it.

Reread, oddly, one holding this page (6)

Reply with your answer if you wish; the Doorkeeper reads everything and confirms nothing.

Society Notices

The daily crossing: free each morning, in the app, on the App Store and Google Play. The course in print: A Course in Cryptic Crosswords, Volume One, at societyofcrossedwords.com. Proposals for membership: forward this Dispatch to your single most trusted confidante.

You received this because a person of excellent judgement proposed you. Membership is exclusive. Discretion is expected.