First Come

Lake Geneva · July 1931 · the guests arrived one by one · Difficulty: Chief 10 · 16×16

A July night in 1931 on Lake Geneva. Vienna, the most celebrated hostess on the lake, gives a summer soirée in her villa. The butler lets in the fifteen guests one by one, in the order of the letters on their invitations, and everyone stays in one room all evening. Shortly before midnight Vienna is found dead in the Salon, beside a sofa. Vienna’s soirée was her last.

Rules

The guests arrived one by one, in the alphabetical order of their letters (A first, O last), and everyone stayed where they arrived. The hostess (V) was in the Salon from the start.
What someone says about their company is true for the moment they arrived: it covers only those who came before them and the hostess.
Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
“Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. Squares with objects (the statues, the palms, the tables, the bookcases, the paintings, the mirrors, the coat racks, the cabinets, the fireplaces, the instruments, the fountain, the suit of armour, the champagne tower, the desks…) cannot be occupied; the chairs, the armchairs, the benches, the sofas, the deckchairs, the chaise longue and the stool can. An armchair and a deckchair are not chairs. A corner of an area is a square of it that faces outwards (another area or the edge of the board) on a horizontal and on a vertical side.
Directions refer to rows, not to the same column: “exactly one row north of him was a woman” = the person in the row directly above is a woman, in any column.
“An armchair was somewhere in her row” = an armchair is on one of the squares of her row, in any area; the same goes for columns, and “somewhere in her area” = on a square of the area she was in. “Somebody else in her area was beside the fountain” = another person in her area was directly beside it.
The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

Alexander (her brother): Exactly one row north of him was a woman. He was in a corner of his area.
Benigna (her sister-in-law): A bench was somewhere in her area.
Cesar (her nephew): The suit of armour was somewhere in his row.
Danuta (her school friend): A bench was somewhere in her row.
Edison (a banker): When he arrived, there was exactly one other person in his area. He was in the Garden.
Florinda (a racing driver): When she arrived, there was exactly one other person in her area. The chaise longue was somewhere in her column.
Glenn (a diplomat): He was sitting, but not in an armchair.
Halima (her oldest friend): The champagne tower was somewhere in her column.
Ibrahim (a painter): The suit of armour was somewhere in his area.
Jessica (a singer): An armchair was somewhere in her row. The piano was somewhere in her column.
Ken (a pianist): When he arrived, he was alone in his area. He was sitting.
Ludmilla (a poet): When she arrived, there were exactly two other people in her area. She was sitting.
Max (the neighbour from the boathouse): When he arrived, Jessica was in his area, and somebody else in his area was beside an armchair.
Nina (the neighbour from the vineyard): When she arrived, somebody else in her area was beside the fountain. A desk was somewhere in her column.
Owen (the harbour master): An armchair was somewhere in his row, and an armchair was somewhere in his column.
Vienna (the hostess): The victim. She was found in the Salon, beside a sofa – alone with the murderer.

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