Sending the second riddle poem to BBC Radio Bristol

The sending of the second riddle poem to BBC Radio Bristol turns the Penny Black theft into a fresh public puzzle: an anonymous-looking sheet of verse arrives by post, is read on air, and redirects attention toward Victoria, a locked room, and the number seventeen. The broadcast invites listeners to speculate while police officers and the Bloodhounds try to work out whether those clues point to a real place or another layer of misdirection.

The message and its broadcast

After the four o’clock news headlines, the presenter introduces a note that the producer thinks may connect with the earlier cryptic verse, broadcast the previous Monday morning. The police had later said that first verse was almost certainly linked to the million-pound stamp theft from the Bath Postal Museum. By identifying the new note as a possible continuation, the presenter gives the second poem an immediate context: it is not merely an isolated riddle but a possible further move in the same challenge.

The note is printed on a sheet of A4 paper and arrives with the afternoon post, without a covering note. The presenter describes it as a possible effort by the cryptic cat burglar, but leaves open whether it is genuine or a hoax. That uncertainty matters. The broadcast offers the verse to the public as a clue without establishing who sent it or proving that its author committed the theft. Listeners are invited to follow the puzzle before its meaning has been verified.

The presenter says the poem will be passed to the police and asks listeners to send in suggestions. In practice, the police have already been alerted: the producer diplomatically telephones them before the item goes out. The distinction between the radio’s public presentation and the police’s prior notice places the broadcast in two registers at once. It is an invitation to public speculation, but it is also an anticipated development in an active inquiry.

The clues and their deliberate uncertainty

The poem asks where Victoria is and with whom, invokes the Grand Old Queen, then directs its audience to look for a lady in a locked room at seventeen. These references supply recognisable puzzle elements without resolving their relationship. The presenter thinks the audience may know what or who Victoria is, but immediately asks whether there are any locked rooms and how the number seventeen fits. The verse therefore narrows attention while withholding the connection that would make its instructions actionable.

The language also layers one mystery convention over another. A lady to be found suggests the card trick known as Find the Lady; the locked room evokes the familiar detective-fiction puzzle in which an apparent impossibility must be explained. The number adds a concrete-looking detail, but no explanation is supplied for it in the broadcast. Rather than naming a destination, the poem makes its readers test whether familiar references, local knowledge, and the setting of a locked room can be assembled into a coherent lead.

This mixture of apparent specificity and unresolved reference gives the riddle its force. Victoria and seventeen sound like usable pointers, while the question of what they point to remains open. The broadcast does not settle whether the verse directs its audience toward a person, a place, or a trick of interpretation; it makes that uncertainty part of the challenge.

The police response

The whole control room hears the broadcast because the producer has contacted the Bath police in advance. Peter Diamond is there: a sixth sense has brought him from behind his desk at what proves to be the critical time. John Wigfull is the notable exception, listening privately on a separate radio upstairs. The same broadcast thus reaches the inquiry through different listening positions, rather than gathering all the officers in one room.

The Assistant Chief Constable convenes a special meeting of senior staff to pool their experience. He argues that the development must be treated seriously and that, if the new riddle resembles the first, knowledge of Bath may be essential; any one of those present might possess the information that clarifies it. Yet the expressions around the table show that no one is confident of solving anything. The meeting turns the poem’s local references into a practical investigative question, while acknowledging that collective expertise has not yet yielded an answer.

Interpretation among the Bloodhounds

The riddle also becomes a subject of discussion among the Bloodhounds. Miss Chilmark interrupts an exchange that she considers unproductive and urges the group to address the riddles heard on the radio and reported in the papers. When Polly asks whether anyone remembers how they went, Miss Chilmark produces two press cuttings from her crocodile-skin handbag, shifting the discussion from recollection to documentary evidence.

Miss Chilmark reads the Grand Old Queen as recalling the epithet associated with W. E. Gladstone, the Grand Old Man, commonly abbreviated as G.O.M. She connects the instruction to look for the lady with Find the Lady, and the locked room with the detective-fiction puzzle that Milo had mentioned the previous week. For her, those allusions create an undertone of trickery. Her reading identifies the verse’s cultural and genre references, but it does not solve the question the presenter raised: how the clues, especially the room and seventeen, fit together. The poem’s circulation consequently produces interpretations rather than an agreed answer, keeping the theft and the riddle campaign linked by suspense.