Turville

The rebus is the same as for Turville Heath without HEATH [REB16].

The track playing in the background is not Hound Dog but Gonna Send You Back to Georgia by Chicago bluesman Hound Dog Taylor [TUR1]. His real name was Theodore Roosevelt Taylor, so it's no wonder he preferred to use a nickname.

The words of Hound Dog are laid out in an 8x8 matrix, which corresponds to a chessboard [TUR2]. Chess was (or maybe wasn�t) a theme of the 1989 Hunt, set by myself � which is why the man I meet looks like Uncle Paul..

The answer to the first chess puzzle in algebraic notation is as follows:

1. b4 (Threatening Rf5 and Rf1 mate. White cannot begin with 1. Rf5 because Black's 1. ... Rc5 would pin the rook) 1. ... Rc5+
2. bxc5 (Threatening Rb1 mate)    2. ...a2
3. c6 (with the same threat as move 1)   3. ...Bc7
4. cxb7   4. ... any
5. bxa8=Q mate 

So the key move is b4, which when looked up in the "chessboard" formed by the words of Hound Dog yields the word YOU. [TUR3]. This puzzle, composed by Sam Loyd in 1861, is named Excelsior, after the poem by Longfellow. 

The next puzzle is not a chess position but a code, in fact a code devised by Brian Jackson that was used in the 1989 Hunt itself. 

So, for example, a white bishop on a black square would represent the letter O. In this case, we can obtain the letters in the word EXCELSIOR. [TUR4]. This was one of the few points where a reference back to past answers was essential (although presumably the code was cracked from scratch in 1989).

The next puzzle is a �knight�s tour�. Starting from the indicated square you can obtain the question �WHEREABOUTS IN LONDON DOES ONE FIND JAMES NEWMAN, ERNEST BEVIN AND JOHN BURNS?� The answer is WOOLWICH, these being the names of the ferries [TUR5].  

The fact that I now fall into a kind of dream might remind you of the similar circumstances in Radnage and indeed this is another red herring pointing you to Cold Christmas. Curbside Jimmy and Washboard Jean are probably very big in Texas. That would be her washboard that she's holding. Some of their fine tunes can be found on http://www.schnipp.com/ including Seems Like All My Friends Are Dogs These Days and, more relevantly, or in fact irrelevantly, Cold Christmas Wind [TUR6]. As it happens, I used to suffer from cold Christmas wind myself until I gave up the turkey sandwiches. Anyway, the further reference to McGuffin (Alfred Hitchcock's term for an object that is central to the plot but which is essentially irrelevant) should have alerted you to the fact that this little section is a false clue [TUR7] again directing you to Cold Christmas.

The song now playing on the jukebox is The Hounds of Love by Kate Bush [TUR8]. You need Kate�s name for the code, which is a Vigenere cipher, as indicated by the initial letters of the phrase �very inscrutable graphics etched neatly everywhere round each� [TUR9]. If you take the coded letters from the blackboard with a key of KATEBUSH then you obtain another London-based question GWYLUM, HUGINE, MUNIN, BRANWEN, BRAN, GUNDULF, BALDRICK AND WHO? These are the names of the ravens in the Tower of London - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_London. The missing one is THOR [TUR10]. Coincidentally the January issue of Fortean Times (don't ask) had a article about these ravens in which it was revealed that there are currently only six: Hugine, Munin, Bran, Branwen, Gwylum and Cedric, the last of which sounds like an imposter to me.

Passwords and Directions

(a) YOU to get to Northend
(b) EXCELSIOR to get to Lane End
(c) WOOLWICH to get to Turville Heath
(d) THOR to get to Ibstone