Detective Emma Sidi cracks the case for the team of three

After Alex stands with his back to Babatunde and Emma to show the contents of the chest to Andy, Babatunde asks him if he can “get your bum out our face man?”.

Emma begins by establishing an effective silent means of communication for Andy, by telling him to stick out his tongue if the item in the chest was food. When he does not stick out his tongue, Emma and Babatunde take his answer at face value.

Emma then asks Andy to stick out his tongue if the item in the chest is related to one of them. After he sticks out his tongue, Babatunde asks him whether the chest contains figurines of them. When Andy sticks out his tongue again, Emma and Babatunde are both shocked at how well things appear to be going.

When Alex then asks Andy if his team have worked out what’s in the box, he has to lie and say “yes”, but then Alex contradicts him by stating that they have not. This prompts Babatunde to say that Andy and Alex need to “have it out”, since they’re saying different things.

Emma seems to suspect what’s going on, so asks Andy whether the lining of the box is “plush like velvet”, in response to which he pokes his tongue out. Alex helps confirm Emma’s suspicions by then asking Andy if he knows what velvet is, forcing him to state that he does not. In response to this, Emma stands up and exclaims “Andy’s lying! Everything that Andy says is a lie!”, followed by “This man doesn’t know what velvet is?! Look at him! He’s Andy Zaltzman! He knows what velvet is.”

Having established that Andy is lying, Emma again asks him to stick out his tongue if  the chest contains something edible, and he again keeps his tongue inside his mouth. There then begins a long series of guesses by both Babatunde and Emma about what kind of food it could possibly be, including cheese, canned fish, fish, baked beans, “old bread”, and “something that a prepper would have in their house”.

When Alex interrupts to ask what a prepper is, Emma explains, and then Andy chimes in with “The end of the world isn’t coming”.

The food guessing game then continues, with peas, Brussel sprouts, kale, something boiled, something that smells, something pickled, an onion, a cucumber, an orange, a mango, strawberries, cherries, an egg, blueberries, a kiwi, a lime, and then finally a lemon.

Having identified that lemons are involved, but that this isn’t the final answer, Emma asks Andy whether the chest contains something like “lemons and the bible”. Andy keeps his tongue inside his mouth again, and his facial expression suggests that she is thinking along the right lines, so she suggests “lemons and the dictionary”, before asking whether the other item has text on it, and whether you could read it. Andy’s non-committal response prompts her to then ask the more precise question “Could you read it and enjoy it?”, which causes Andy to poke his tongue out.

Emma decides that the other item is “boring”, and possibly involves numbers, so she suggests “lemons and reams of data”. When Alex asks Andy if there are any numbers in the chest, he says “no”, prompting Emma to guess that the other item is money. When Andy keeps his tongue inside his mouth again, she makes the more specific guess of “lemons and ten quid”, and then “lemons and a five-pound note”.

Andy tells Alex that he doesn’t think he should stop the clock, indicating that he thinks Emma has guessed correctly, but Alex responds that she is “half right”. This prompts Babatunde to guess that it’s “lemons and £2.50”, before Emma correctly guesses that there’s just one lemon and a £5 note.

In the studio, Greg observes that their attempt was “just genuinely impressive”, and Alex reveals that Emma had figured out that Andy was lying within about 8 minutes, but that the team then took another half an hour before correctly identifying the contents of the chest, making 116 guesses in total. He also reveals that Andy had not been deemed to be telling the truth at any point, so the team does not stand to lose any points.

Having won the task, the team of three earn 5 points each.

(Written by Karl Craven and proofread by M3 / Andres Sanchez)

(Illustrations collected and adjusted by: David Fuller)