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This puzzle is part 24 of Gladys' journey across the globe. Each part can be solved independently. Nevertheless, if you are new to the series, feel free to start at the beginning: Introducing Gladys.

Dear Puzzling,

By the time you receive this message, I may have already returned from my trip. Today I visited a luxurious mansion built by an important person. I hope your board game skills are not rusty, because you'll need them for today's puzzle!

Wish you were here!
Love, Gladys.

enter image description here

Across
1. Large inlet
5. Local name for Scotland
9. More delicate
10. A place where a fly is a nuisance
11. An African country or its capital city
15. Less feral
16. A Uruk-hai, for example
18. Native of an Arab state
19. Zilch
20. Precious stone
21. Card below trey
22. Evaluated

Down
1. Perfect is the enemy of —
2. Prefix for -cycle or -brow
3. Short-range network
4. — as a fiddle
5. Arsenals
6. Instead of = in — of
7. Grandmaster Larsen
8. Newspaper piece
12. Outlaw assassinated by coward
13. Members of the clergy
14. Arizona landmark: Horseshoe —
15. Ancient Roman attire
16. Legal obligation
17. Sushi ingredient

Gladys will return in "Thousands and thousands of words".

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  • $\begingroup$ Man, everyone's answers below was each on 9 upvotes. Glad to have upvoted each and awarded three answer badges, hehe. Great puzzle, jafe! Is the series still continuing? (Not that I can solve it :P) $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Jul 15, 2019 at 19:21
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    $\begingroup$ @MrPie Thanks! The series has already finished. The last puzzle is number 26. As you may know, the entire series was a result of a comment you made back in April :) $\endgroup$
    – Jafe
    Jul 15, 2019 at 19:32
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    $\begingroup$ I remember that! Ahhh, so it was one big meta puzzle! Well, I'm honoured to have inspired you to make such a big puzzle, coming from me who can just pull off a riddle, haha. Fun fact: Gladys series = Less easy grid. $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Jul 15, 2019 at 19:39

3 Answers 3

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Once again, I feel like I’m swooping in and snatching the answer, using the excellent solutions already provided by @Glorfindel for the chess puzzles and @Jay for the crossword. Thanks to you both!

If we:

Only use white’s moves for the chess solutions per @Glorfindel’s answer, and then map them accordingly according to @Jay’s crossword, we get Tjong a Fie which is a luxurious mansion in North Sumatra, Indonesia.

Specifically:

a4: T
b5: J
a6: O
b7: N
a8: G
—
c7: A
—
d8: F
f7: I
g7: E

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Partial answer with the crossword

..abcdefgh
.
8 gulfalba
7 onairier
6 ointment
5 djibouti
4 tamerorc
3 omaninil
2 gemdeuce
1 assessed

Using the answer from Glorfindel to try and find the code

a4 T
c5 I
b5 J
d6 T
a6 O
c7 A
b7 N
c8 L
a8 G
c7 A
d8 F
d8 F
f7 I
h8 A
g7 E

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Partial answer with solutions for the chess problems:

Top left: white to move mates in 5, with 1. Rxa4+ Kc5 2. Rb5+ Kd6 3. Ra6+ Kc7 (or Kd7 or Ke7) 4. Rb7+ Kc8 (or Kd8 or Ke8 or Kf8) 5. Ra8#
Top right: white to move mates in 1, with 1. Nxc7# (so-called 'smothered mate')
Bottom left: white to move mates in 3, with 1. Rd8+ Qxd8 2. Qxf7+ Kh8 3. Qxg7#

(; these were easy enough to figure out without Stockfish)

Note that

for every problem, the first move is to a square which has a number in the bottom right diagram (a4 = 15, c7 = 9, d8 = 4). I'm not sure if this is relevant, though.

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