The Circular Puzzle
On most weekends Holmes and I find ourselves called away on business, so it is a rare Sunday morning that finds us both sitting and examining that day’s papers. When this does happen, however, Holmes often calls out to mock any puzzles he finds among the pages, laughing at what he regards as the childish simplicity of their conundrums.
One morning, though, he summoned my attention away from a particularly fascinating article on a new animal discovered in the far throws of the Empire to show me a new type of puzzle being featured in the paper.
“Look at this circle of letters, Watson,” he said. “It is a puzzle so simple that a child can understand it, so I thought you might enjoy it. The aim is to try and create as many words as you can, each of which uses the letter in the middle plus some combination of two or more others. In fact, I’ve already spotted a rather apt nine-letter one.”
What is the longest word you can spot? And how many other words can you find? Holmes professed to have discovered twenty in total.