Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask Puzzle 020: Nine Red Bricks Hints and Answer

Puzzle 020 is Nine Red Bricks, a 40-picarat Write Answer puzzle on Market Street in Stansbury, during the Chapter 2 flashback to Hershel Layton's school days. Lionel is fixing his mother's garden wall and has nine bricks lined up, numbered 1 to 9. Two bricks that sit next to each other are much heavier than the rest, and he can only find them by lifting bricks one at a time. He wants to do it as efficiently as possible, and the question asks for the largest number of bricks he might need to lift. You write that number in the answer box on the touch screen.

Video: Nine Red Bricks solved. It shows the answer, so skip it if you only want the hints.

This page covers story Puzzle 020 in Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask on Nintendo 3DS, using the North American text, with pictures rebuilt from the game's own art. If you're after Daily Puzzle 020 or Puzzle 20 from another Layton game, see Wrong Puzzle 020? below.

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask Puzzle 020 Nine Red Bricks: nine red bricks numbered 1 to 9 in a row in front of a garden wall, a man peeking over the wall at the top left and a stern woman in a grey dress on the right, above the empty two-digit answer box with a small button under each of its two digit squares — Illustration of the nine bricks on the top screen and, on the touch screen, the empty answer box with a button under each digit square, rebuilt from the game's art.

What Puzzle 020 is

Puzzle 020 at a glance
Name	Nine Red Bricks (the same in the US and UK English versions)
Type	Write Answer (a number, up to two digits)
Picarats	40
Location	Market Street, Stansbury
Chapter	Chapter 2
When	Hershel's school days
Given by	Lionel
Solved by	Hershel
Market Street opens after	Puzzle 019, Spinning Maize (Pebble Lane)
Next puzzle number	Puzzle 021, A Lick of Paint (Old Towne)

The question reads: "Lionel is contemplating a row of nine bricks for his mother's garden wall. Two adjacent bricks in the row are much heavier than the rest, but he can't remember which. He's decided the only way to identify them is to lift the bricks one by one, but to save time, he wants to do it in the most efficient way possible. Can you work out the maximum number of bricks he might need to lift in order to find the two heavy ones?" The objective bar on the touch screen sums it up as "How many bricks?"

Reading the question

Most wrong answers to this puzzle come from the word "maximum." It doesn't mean "lift bricks until there's nothing left to check," and it doesn't mean the luckiest case either. Lionel picks the smartest order he can, and then luck goes against him as badly as it can. The answer is how many lifts that plan needs in its worst case, the number he can be sure of never going over.

The heavy bricks are a pair. They're next to each other, so finding one of them leaves only two candidates for the other.
Light bricks count too. A lift that finds nothing still rules bricks out.
He doesn't have to lift the last brick he's sure about. Once only one pair is possible, he's done.

The bricks are numbered 1 to 9 from left to right in the puzzle art, and the hints below use those numbers.

Puzzle names

Puzzle 020 names
Version	Puzzle name
North America	Nine Red Bricks
UK	Nine Red Bricks
Japanese	9個のレンガ ("nine bricks")

The Japanese title is 9個のレンガ.

The UK English text keeps the title but words the question and the answer explanation a little differently, with British spellings such as "neighbouring." The bricks and the answer are the same in the US and UK English versions.

Wrong Puzzle 020?

Daily Puzzle 020 in Miracle Mask is a different puzzle: Sailing 02, from the Perilous Voyage set. It has nothing to do with bricks.
Puzzle 20 in another Layton game is a different puzzle. If yours doesn't show nine numbered red bricks in front of a garden wall, you're in the wrong game.

Where you get it

Puzzle 020 comes in Chapter 2, the flashback to Hershel's time in Stansbury. Market Street opens when you solve Puzzle 019, Spinning Maize, on Pebble Lane. Go to Market Street and talk to Lionel, who's standing in the street in front of the crates and the café. He greets you with "Hello there, Hershel! Looking well, my boy!", tells you his mother wants her garden wall fixed, and the puzzle starts.

Market Street in Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask with Lionel standing in the street in front of a stack of crates and a café, and four numbered rings marking the hint coin spots: 1 on the white boxes on the crates, 2 on the manhole cover at the bottom left, 3 on the hanging street lamp at the upper right and 4 on the hanging basket at the far left edge — Illustration of Lionel on Market Street, with the four hint coin spots numbered, rebuilt from the game's art.

It doesn't look like a puzzle the story needs. Solving it doesn't appear to open anything new. Lionel probably offers the puzzle from the time Market Street opens until the objective "Find a Way into Randall's Room!", possibly apart from a short stretch later in the chapter. Flashback puzzles you miss should turn up later with Nanna Grams (known as Elizabeth in the UK version), who keeps the puzzles you missed, once Chapter 3 begins.

Market Street has four hint coins, all in the normal view, with no zoomed-in view to search: on the white boxes stacked on the wooden crates just left of Lionel, on the manhole cover in the street at the bottom left, on the street lamp hanging beside the café's signboard at the upper right, and on the hanging basket at the far left edge. Four coins pay for the first three hints and leave one over, but the Super Hint costs two, so you'd need a coin you've saved from elsewhere to open every hint.

Hints, one at a time

These walk through the same bricks as the game's own hints, in the same order, with a little more explanation. The game's Hint 3 and Super Hint also say how many lifts that takes; here that count is left for you, and it's in the answer section. Open only the next one you need. In the game, Hints 1 to 3 cost one hint coin each and the Super Hint costs two.

Hint 1: Use the pair

The two heavy bricks are side by side, so you don't need to lift every brick to catch one of them. Try lifting brick 2 and then brick 4. If both are light, which bricks can you rule out?

Hint 2: When a brick is heavy

Say brick 4 turns out to be heavy. Its partner has to be brick 3 or brick 5, so lifting one of those two tells you which. If bricks 2 and 4 are both light, bricks 1 to 4 can all be ruled out, because no heavy pair fits there.

Hint 3: Keep going along the row

Next, lift brick 6. If it's heavy, the other heavy brick is 5 or 7, and lifting either one settles it. Count the lifts in that case. Now, what if brick 6 isn't heavy either?

Super Hint: The end of the row

If bricks 2, 4 and 6 are all light, lift brick 9. If it's heavy, the pair is 8 and 9. If it isn't, the pair can only be 7 and 8, and Lionel doesn't need to lift anything else. Now count the lifts in the longest of all these cases.

Answer and full solution

The answer below covers every step, with pictures of the lifting plan and the solved puzzle. Open it when you're ready.

Show the answer

The answer is 4. Write 4 in the answer box and touch Submit. The game also accepts 04. With the right plan, Lionel never needs more than four lifts: he lifts bricks 2, 4 and 6, and then either one neighbour of a heavy brick or brick 9.

The nine bricks with gold rings and the numbers 1, 2 and 3 on bricks 2, 4 and 6, and a teal ring with the number 4 on brick 9 — Illustration of the lifting plan: bricks 2, 4 and 6 first, then brick 9 if all three are light.

Every case of the lifting plan
What Lionel finds	Next lift	Heavy pair	Lifts in total
Brick 2 is heavy	Brick 1 (or 3)	1 and 2 if brick 1 is heavy, otherwise 2 and 3	2
Brick 2 is light, brick 4 is heavy	Brick 3 (or 5)	3 and 4 if brick 3 is heavy, otherwise 4 and 5	3
Bricks 2 and 4 are light, brick 6 is heavy	Brick 5 (or 7)	5 and 6 if brick 5 is heavy, otherwise 6 and 7	4
Bricks 2, 4 and 6 are all light	Brick 9	8 and 9 if brick 9 is heavy, otherwise 7 and 8	4

The longest cases take four lifts, so four is the maximum. The game's own answer text gives the same plan: "For example, he might start by lifting bricks 2, 4, and 6. If one of them is heavier, he can then lift a neighboring brick. If that brick isn't also heavy, then he knows the one on the other side is."

Step by step:

Lift brick 2. If it's heavy, lift brick 1. Heavy means the pair is 1 and 2, light means it's 2 and 3. Done in two lifts.
Lift brick 4. If it's heavy, lift brick 3: heavy means the pair is 3 and 4, light means it's 4 and 5. If brick 4 is light too, bricks 1 to 4 are out of the running.
Lift brick 6. If it's heavy, lift brick 5 to decide between 5 and 6 or 6 and 7. That's the fourth lift.
Lift brick 9. Only reached if 2, 4 and 6 are all light, so the pair is 7 and 8 or 8 and 9. Brick 9 being heavy means 8 and 9. Light means 7 and 8, with no fifth lift.
Write 4. Lionel says, "Oh...right clever. Thanks. It sure feels good to get things done on my own!"

Why three lifts can't always be enough: there are eight possible heavy pairs (1 and 2, 2 and 3, and so on up to 8 and 9). Any single brick belongs to at most two of them, so if the first lift is light, at least six pairs are still possible. Two more lifts can only tell four cases apart, so some case always needs a fourth lift. No plan beats four.

The garden at sunset after the puzzle is solved: the man is climbing over the wall at the top left, the woman has gone, and the nine numbered bricks are still in a row — Illustration of the top screen after a correct answer.

If your answer keeps failing:

You wrote 7. That's what lifting bricks in order from 1 needs in the worst case. It works, but it isn't the most efficient way, and the question asks about the efficient way. The game's wrong-answer line says, "Remember that Lionel wants to lift the bricks in the most efficient way possible."
You wrote 9 or 8. Lionel never needs to lift every brick. Because the heavy bricks are a pair, a light brick rules out its neighbours as partners, and the last pair can be worked out without lifting it.
You wrote 2 or 3. Two lifts is the luckiest case of the plan, not the worst. The question asks for the most he might need.

Picarats, hints and hint coins

Nine Red Bricks shows 40 picarats when it starts. The puzzle can award 40, 35 or 30 picarats. Wrong answers can drop it to 35 and then 30, though how many misses it takes to drop a step isn't clear. Either way, it pays to be sure before you touch Submit. A wrong answer gets "Too bad," with a reminder that Lionel wants to lift the bricks in the most efficient way possible. If you try again, Lionel asks, "Ya can't even figure out which are the heavy ones?"

Hints cost hint coins, not picarats. The costs are one coin each for the first three hints and two for the Super Hint, five in total. Market Street's four coins cover the first three hints with one to spare. Or use the free hints on this page and save your coins.

Versions

Nintendo 3DS family: this page covers the 3DS game. You write the number with the stylus in the answer box on the touch screen.
US and UK English versions: same name, same bricks, same answer. The UK text is worded a little differently.

The scene around the puzzle

Hershel answers Lionel's greeting with "Good evening, Lionel." Lionel goes on: "I saw that scrawny friend of yers, Henry, shoppin' for the Ascots. They sure make him pull his weight! What little of it there is! Hee!" Then he boasts, "I could never be a servant like him! I'm too independent. Mother told me to fix her garden wall, and I'm doin' it by myself!" If you back out of the puzzle, he says, "Oi! Hershel! Help me figure out about these bricks, will ya?"

When it's solved, Hershel says, "Happy to help. Good luck with the wall," and Lionel answers, "I've no luck. Only know-how! Know-how, as in knowledge, not "nohow" as in not being able to do something, that is." Talk to him again afterwards and he says, "Mother's garden still needs plenty of work... She'll be mad if I'm not done soon."

FAQ

Where is the answer to Puzzle 020?

It's in the Answer and full solution section above, hidden until you open it. If you only want a push, open the hints one at a time first.

What is Puzzle 020 called?

Nine Red Bricks, in both the North American and UK English versions. In Japanese it's 9個のレンガ.

Where is Puzzle 020?

On Market Street in Stansbury, during Chapter 2. Talk to Lionel in the street in front of the crates and the café.

Do I need to solve Puzzle 019 first?

In practice, yes. Market Street opens when you solve Puzzle 019, Spinning Maize, on Pebble Lane, and Lionel is on Market Street.

What does "maximum" mean in this puzzle?

It's the worst case of the most efficient plan: the most lifts Lionel could need if he lifts the bricks in the smartest order and luck goes against him. See Reading the question above.

Do I have to solve Puzzle 020?

Probably not. Solving it doesn't appear to open anything new, and missed flashback puzzles should go to Nanna Grams from Chapter 3.

Does it matter how I write the number?

The answer box has room for two digits. The answer reveal above says exactly which forms the game accepts.

How many picarats is Puzzle 020 worth?

It shows 40 picarats when it starts, and the puzzle can award 40, 35 or 30 picarats. Wrong answers may reduce the picarat value.

Is Daily Puzzle 020 the same as Puzzle 020?

No. Daily Puzzle 020 is Sailing 02, from the Perilous Voyage set. Story Puzzle 020 is Lionel's row of bricks.

More Miracle Mask puzzles

For the rest of the game's puzzles, see the Miracle Mask puzzle index.