Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask Puzzle 066: A Trip to the Hospital Hints and Answer

Puzzle 066 is A Trip to the Hospital, a 40-picarat Write Answer puzzle at the City Monument in Monte d'Or, during Chapter 5. A policeman whose partner is still in the hospital gives it to Professor Layton. In the puzzle, a man sets off to visit a friend in the hospital, remembers the flowers partway there, walks back to the flower shop, goes on to the hospital and then walks straight home. You add up every leg of the walk and write the total in the four answer boxes on the touch screen. The story doesn't need it, and it doesn't give a reward.

Video: A Trip to the Hospital solved. It shows the answer, so skip it if you only want the hints.

This page covers story Puzzle 066 in Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask on Nintendo 3DS (US and UK English), using the North American text. If you're after Daily Puzzle 066 or Puzzle 66 from another Layton game, see Wrong Puzzle 066? below.

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask Puzzle 066 A Trip to the Hospital: on the top, a man in a peaked cap, a grey-green jacket and dark trousers walks along a street holding a bouquet of red and white flowers, past a brick building with a teal awning, a teal door and pots of yellow and white flowers, and a yellow house with an arched white door; below, four empty answer boxes on a squared pad with a small box above them and a grey clear button under each — Illustration of the man with his flowers on the top screen and the four answer boxes on the touch screen.

What Puzzle 066 is

Puzzle 066 at a glance
Name	A Trip to the Hospital
Type	Write Answer (write a number)
Picarats	40
Location	City Monument, Monte d'Or
Chapter	Chapter 5
Given by	A policeman
Solved by	Professor Layton
When it's there	From the start of Chapter 5, when your objective reads "Continue the Investigation!", through "Head to City Hall!", "Go to the Racetrack!", "Speak to the Manager!" and "Ask about the Cart!"; the policeman's puzzle is gone once it reads "Go to Meet Henry!"
Reward	None
Previous puzzle number	Puzzle 065, Kitty Solitaire 2 (Big Top)
Next puzzle number	Puzzle 067, Language of Love (Merchant District)

The question reads: "A man went to visit his friend in the hospital. He got 500 meters from his front door before he remembered that he wanted some flowers. He went back to the flower shop and continued to the hospital. The flower shop is on a straight line between his house and the hospital, 800 meters from the hospital. Afterward, the man walked straight home, on the same road. How many total meters did he walk between leaving home and returning?" The objective bar at the top of the touch screen says "How far did he walk?" You answer by writing a number in the four boxes on the touch screen, one digit per box.

The picture on the top screen just sets the scene. Everything you need is in the question: two distances, the order of the trip and the fact that it all happens on one straight road. The question never says how far the flower shop is from the man's house, and you don't need to know.

Puzzle names

Puzzle 066 names
Version	Puzzle name
North America	A Trip to the Hospital
UK	A Trip to the Hospital
Japanese	お見舞いの道のり (O-mimai no Michinori, "the way to the hospital visit")

The Japanese title is お見舞いの道のり.

The UK version probably uses the same name, but the UK text is told differently. There, the policeman tells the story about himself, in the first person, after visiting his partner in hospital, and the question asks how many metres the policeman walked in total. The distances and the route are the same.

Wrong Puzzle 066?

Daily Puzzle 066 in Miracle Mask is a different puzzle: Zoo 07, from the Pen Pals set. There's no hospital walk in it.
Puzzle 66 in another Layton game is a different puzzle. If yours isn't about a man walking to the hospital by way of a flower shop, you're in the wrong game.

Where you get it

Puzzle 066 comes at the start of Chapter 5. Once your objective reads "Continue the Investigation!", a policeman is at the City Monument, the small square with the stone monument on a patch of grass. He's on the street to the left of the monument. The route is probably from the circus: leave the big top, follow the road to the right, walk right and talk to the policeman. He greets the Professor with "Hello again, sir. How is your investigation on the statue incident progressing?" and tells him, "Yes, we met after the stone-statue incident. I'm gathering evidence, but we now have the mastermind in custody. Do you like custard?" The mastermind, he says, is "Alphonse Dalston, of course! Why someone as rich as he is would do this is beyond me." Then he explains, "My partner got mobbed after the stone-statue incident! He's still in the hospital." and the puzzle starts.

The City Monument in Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask: a stone monument on a lawn on the right, statues and arcades behind it and a blue and white checked banner in the distance. A gold ring with the name plate Policeman, Puzzle 066 marks a spot on the street left of the monument, and four hint coin spots are numbered 1 at the pointing-hand sign on the far left, 2 at the top of the monument, 3 at the door at the back on the right and 4 at the head of the statue on the left — Illustration of the City Monument. The gold ring marks where the policeman stands (he isn't drawn here), and the numbers mark the four hint coins in the list below.

The policeman stays at the City Monument while your objective reads "Continue the Investigation!", "Head to City Hall!", "Go to the Racetrack!", "Speak to the Manager!" and "Ask about the Cart!", and his puzzle is gone once you're told to "Go to Meet Henry!". The story doesn't need it: it doesn't give a reward, and it's probably not mandatory. If you miss it, it probably goes to Nanna Grams (known as Elizabeth in the UK version) at the start of Chapter 7.

The City Monument has four hint coins, all in the normal view.

The pointing-hand sign on the far left.
The top of the monument.
The door at the back on the right.
The head of the statue on the left.

Each coin can be collected only once. These are the same four coins as on your Chapter 1 visit for Puzzle 011 and your Chapter 3 visit for Puzzle 037, so if you tapped them then, there's nothing left to pick up here.

Hints, one at a time

These are the game's own hints, word for word from the North American version and in the same order. 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: Draw the route

Let's call the point where the man realizes he needs to buy flowers X. The outgoing and return journeys can then be shown as:

home → X → flower shop → hospital → home

Try drawing this route, being careful with the position of the flower shop.

Hint 2: Name the distances

First, the man walks 500 meters from home to point X. Next, he returns to the shop. Call this distance Y. Then he walks 800 meters from the shop to the hospital. That's the total outgoing journey.

On the return journey, he walks 800 meters from the hospital to the shop and then walks from the shop to his home. So, call this last distance Z, and the total is:

500 + Y + 800 + 800 + Z

Hint 3: The two unknowns

There are two distances you don't know: Y, from point X to the flower shop, and Z, from the flower shop to the man's home.

The shop is somewhere on the straight line between home and point X, and the distance from X to home is 500 meters. So the distance from X to shop (Y) plus that from shop to home (Z) must total...

Super Hint: Put it together

As mentioned in Hint 2, the total distance is 500 + Y + 800 + 800 + Z.

From Hint 3, you can work out that Y + Z = 500.

The rest is just addition!

Answer and full solution

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

Show the answer

The answer is 2600. The man walked 2600 meters in total. The game's answer text explains it with its diagram: "The red line is the first 500 meters the man walked from home. The blue line is the return journey from the flower shop to the hospital, 2 x 800 = 1600 meters. The dotted lines show the original journey to the shop and the journey from the shop back home, which in total must be the same distance as the first 500 meters. So the total is 2600 meters."

Diagram of the Puzzle 066 route: a straight road with Home, Shop, X and Hospital marked in that order, 500 m from Home to X and 800 m from Shop to Hospital. Five arrows show the legs: 1, home to X, 500 m in red; 2, X back to the shop, Y, dotted green; 3, shop to hospital, 800 m in blue; 4, hospital to shop, 800 m in blue; 5, shop to home, Z, dotted green. A box below reads: Legs 2 and 5 together cover the stretch from X to home: Y + Z = 500 m. 500 + Y + 800 + 800 + Z = 500 + 800 + 800 + 500, with a teal label reading Total: 2600 meters — Illustration of the five legs of the walk. The shop's exact spot between home and X doesn't matter, because the two dotted legs always add up to 500 meters.

Step by step:

Put the places in order. The man turned back to reach the flower shop, so the shop lies between his home and point X, where he remembered the flowers. The hospital is farther along the same road. In order: home, shop, X, hospital.
List the legs. Home to X is 500 meters. X back to the shop is Y. The shop to the hospital is 800 meters. The hospital back to the shop is another 800 meters. The shop to home is Z.
Look at Y and Z together. Y runs from X to the shop and Z runs from the shop to home. Put end to end, they cover the stretch from X to home exactly once, and that stretch is 500 meters. So Y + Z = 500, wherever the shop is.
Add it up. 500 + 800 + 800 + (Y + Z) = 500 + 800 + 800 + 500 = 2600.
Write it in. Write 2, 6, 0 and 0 in the four boxes from left to right, then touch Submit.

A Trip to the Hospital solved: on the top screen, a blue house and a red brick shop with flowers on the left, the man in the peaked cap with surprise marks over his head in the middle, and an older man in a peaked cap with a moustache and his arm in a white sling on the right, with a red line, dotted lines and a blue loop drawn below them and arrows marked 500 and 800; on the touch screen, 2, 6, 0 and 0 written in the four answer boxes — Illustration of the solved puzzle with 2600 written in, and the game's own route diagram on the top screen.

If your answer keeps failing:

You put the shop between X and the hospital. The man "went back" to the flower shop, so it's behind him at point X, between X and his home. With the shop on the far side of X, the numbers don't fit the story.
You tried to work out where the shop is. You can't, and you don't need to. Only the sum Y + Z matters, and that's always 500.
You left out a leg. The 800 meters between the shop and the hospital are walked twice, once on the way there and once on the way home.
You wrote the digits in the wrong boxes. The number fills all four boxes: 2, 6, 0, 0 from left to right. Don't add units.

In the UK version the policeman walks the route himself, and the answer is the same: 2600 metres.

Picarats, hints and hint coins

A Trip to the Hospital shows 40 picarats when it starts. The puzzle can award 40, 35 or 30 picarats. Wrong answers may reduce the picarat value. A wrong answer gets "Too bad! Try drawing a diagram of the entire route to the hospital via the shop and back home." If you leave the puzzle without solving it, the policeman says, "My partner is doing all right, but that masked freak makes my blood boil..." Talk to him again and he says, "I hope they put that Dalston away for a long, long time." before the puzzle starts again.

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. The City Monument's four coins cover Hints 1 to 3 but not the Super Hint, and only if you didn't already collect them in Chapter 1 or Chapter 3. Or use the free hints on this page and save your coins.

What it unlocks

Nothing. A Trip to the Hospital doesn't open a minigame item or anything else. Solving it still adds its picarats to your total and counts toward the puzzles you've solved.

Versions

Nintendo 3DS family: this page covers the 3DS game. You write the number in the answer boxes on the touch screen with the stylus.
US and UK English versions: same name, same distances and the same answer. The UK text is told by the policeman about his own walk and uses metres, as described under Puzzle names.

The scene around the puzzle

Once the puzzle is solved, the policeman says, "The chief says that if Dalston cooperates, this should all be over soon." He adds, "I hope we can put this guy away fast so maybe I can catch the parade." Layton asks, "Is Mr. Dalston being questioned now?" and the policeman answers, "Yeah. If you go to city hall, you can hear his sob story." Layton replies, "Thank you for your time."

Before the puzzle, Layton asks about the mastermind: "This mastermind you're referring to...?" The policeman has his own evidence too: "I had custard after I discovered those suspicious wheel tracks. I think they'll be important evidence in the mastermind's trial."

Talk to him again and he has some advice: "If you find anything, don't be a hero. Tell the police. Nobody likes a hero. Except people in distress, that is!"

FAQ

Where is the answer to Puzzle 066?

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 066 called?

A Trip to the Hospital, in both the North American and UK English versions. In Japanese it's お見舞いの道のり.

Where is Puzzle 066?

At the City Monument in Monte d'Or, in Chapter 5. Talk to the policeman on the street to the left of the monument.

Why can't I find the policeman's puzzle?

He's there from the start of Chapter 5 until your objective becomes "Go to Meet Henry!". If you've gone past that, the puzzle probably goes to Nanna Grams at the start of Chapter 7.

Do I have to solve Puzzle 066?

No. The story doesn't need it, and it's probably not mandatory. It doesn't give a reward either, only its picarats.

Are there hint coins at the City Monument?

Four, all in the normal view: the pointing-hand sign on the far left, the top of the monument, the door at the back on the right and the head of the statue on the left. They're the same coins as in Chapters 1 and 3, so they're gone if you collected them then.

How many picarats is Puzzle 066 worth?

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

Is Daily Puzzle 066 the same as Puzzle 066?

No. Daily Puzzle 066 is Zoo 07, from the Pen Pals set. Story Puzzle 066 is the policeman's walk to the hospital.

More Miracle Mask puzzles

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