First Round Puzzle: A Pile of Letters

by Francis Heaney (with help from Frank Longo)

The Black and White clues must be interwoven in the same grid; Black clues only interlock with Black clues, and White clues only interlock with White clues. When both sets of answers are filled in, and the Black clues are shaded in, the grid looks like this:

1 Across and 1 Down in both the Black and White clues contain clues as to what to do next. The Black 1 Across and 1 Down answers are PAUL PENA, a blind blues singer, and POLYPHEMUS, a blind mythological creature. The White 1 Across and 1 Down answers are RAISED and BUMPS. The next step is to divide the puzzle into 2-by-3 rectangles and translate from Braille. This gives:

OUTHHRP
UPSLPIN
PENROLL
SALKLIK
INORAMU

These are all English words with two letters removed (and in each case there is only one pair of letters which can be added to make a word). The words are:

MOUTHHARP
UPSLOPING
PREENROLL
STALKLIKE
IGNORAMUS

The letters added are:

MA
OG
RE
TE
GS

And reading down the "pile" of letters gives the answer MORTGAGEES.

There is also a bigram hidden in the puzzle, and if you look at the shaded-in grid, you will see, in white, the letters TH piled on top of each other in the middle of the grid.