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The day was March 18, 1990. Just a few hours ago, multiple valuable artworks were stolen by men in fake uniforms. You, a famous code breaker, happened to stumble upon two pieces of evidences that the criminals left at the crime scene. From various lead, you also knew that on Friday, the perpetrators are going to meet in a location somewhere in Boston to discuss the price of the artworks in the black market. Going of these evidences, how can you find the time and location that the thefts will meet?

Evidence 1:

A standard newspaper article:

enter image description here

Evidence 2:

A jigsaw puzzle, but all the pieces are shuffled.

enter image description here

Evidence 3:

A piece of paper that has the following letters written in pencils:

NHNTTMZNHVRK

Five RC

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  • $\begingroup$ Something you apparently aren't aware of is, that trying to solve your jigsaw puzzle on a computer by cutting out the pieces and rotating them into a correct position would be a major PITA, which most people won't bother to do. $\endgroup$
    – Sleafar
    Commented Jun 24, 2018 at 6:41
  • $\begingroup$ @Sleafar Could it be that the jigsaw is rot13(npghnyyl abg vagraqrq gb or er-cbfvgvbarq naq zrnaf fbzrguvat ryfr vafgrnq)? $\endgroup$
    – dram
    Commented Jun 24, 2018 at 10:43
  • $\begingroup$ I love the fact about Franklin. I would enjoy seeing all eagles in American iconography replaced by turkeys. $\endgroup$
    – LinuxBlanket
    Commented Jun 24, 2018 at 12:00

2 Answers 2

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I can at least give you a time:

10 PM

I found this by:

Seeing that "Joana V" is an anagram of "Navajo". as it turns out, each fact references a letter in the Navajo Code Talker alphabet: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker#Navajo_code_talkers
The words are Turkey, Elk, Nut, Pig and Mouse. In order, they translate to TEN PM.

Now for the location...

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Jigsaw

enter image description here
D Y U M T
F R E K H
W L I Q B
V O C P X
A G S Z N

Perhaps it will be used for

a Playfair cipher or something of the kind. But for what it's worth, using the Playfair tool at http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/playfair.php and that square doesn't appear to turn NHNTTMZNHVRK into anything useful. ... Well, more specifically it yields XTXNMUSZFXFE, which does have suspiciously many Xs in it; they might be padding, stand-ins for repeated letters, etc., but looking at (say) "T NMUSZF FE" nothing jumps out at me. Bobson, in comments, implies that some other way of Playfairing it yields something with a different variety of suspicious exiness, but I'm not sure what other way. If I run the same letters forward through the same tool, I get TBTHDTNAFXEH which doesn't seem interesting.

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  • $\begingroup$ I wonder if the specific piece of art used is relevant in any way. Any idea what it is? $\endgroup$
    – SKOG
    Commented Jun 24, 2018 at 20:17
  • $\begingroup$ It's called "The Dutch Proverbs" and was painted by Pieter Breugel the Elder in 1559. $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Commented Jun 24, 2018 at 20:54
  • $\begingroup$ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlandish_Proverbs $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Commented Jun 24, 2018 at 20:55
  • $\begingroup$ It doesn't appear to have been one of the artworks stolen in the (real) heist mentioned in the puzzle. $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Commented Jun 24, 2018 at 20:59
  • $\begingroup$ You think there are any proverbs to go with the animals in the article? It seems like "Joana V" can anagram to "Navajo"...and all of those animals show up in the Navajo code talker alphabet: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker#Navajo_code_talkers $\endgroup$
    – SKOG
    Commented Jun 24, 2018 at 21:15

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