Listener treasure hunt

[Quizmonkey]

I know this was asked last week but... I've filled the grid and read the story, just can't get any further. Can anyone help?

[dr john]

See my answer to Patch47's Q last week for an alternative method of arriving at the solution.

[Quizmonkey]

Thanks Dr John, I did see it! I may be just being thick this week, but I tried a similar method and just couldn't make it work. Is your four-word treasure C.T.F.C. ? (If you see what I mean!). Also couldn't work out how 10 lines, joining 21 cells (presumably going through some of them without 'turning') could make the right shape! Any further help SO much appreciated!

[dr john]

Not quite! Holmes says "It is nothing less than..." (and the first word of the title gives a clue).

[Quizmonkey]

Thanks for your patience Dr John - I'm putting my current incompetence down to the heat :) I'm normally on the Listener high scorer list!

From your clues, the only 21-letter phrase I can come up with is EKOC (with the O spelt as in the title).

And did you ever work out how the 'stepping' works?!

[dr john]

Would it help to know that part of H's description of the treasure ('the kings of') is redundant?

[Quizmonkey]

Thanks again - I now have ACOE, and will start looking for it in the grid, using the 'twisted double ring' description in the story.

[Quizmonkey]

Think I'm going to have to give up on this one. I spent hours trying to trace the encrypted treasure in the grid last night - but too many possible letter permutations, not knowing the cypher. Ah well.

[dr john]

Sorry QM, this is probably a bit late now but I succeeded by searching for a sequence of letters along the rows with a similar pattern to the last word of the treasure (ie 2nd + 6th letters the same but no others). I hadn't thought of the 'double ring' reference but I suppose with a bit of twisting it might fit...