The Auction House

Marlowe & Voss · opening night of the autumn sale · one of the guests is a forger · Difficulty: Chief 9 · 16×16

Opening night of the autumn sale at Marlowe & Voss, the old auction house on the square, and the Saleroom was packed for lot 40. The gavel had just fallen when the shout went up from the Strongroom: Vincent, the head auctioneer, lay dead beside the safe. Sixteen people were still in the house that night – five members of staff and Vincent himself, five collectors bidding against one another, three dealers advising them, and two from the press covering the sale. The police already knew, from an unrelated catalogue-fraud inquiry, that one of the fifteen suspects is a forger, identified only because he or she was beside a painting at the wrong moment. The forger may or may not be the killer – but one of them is. Read every statement, find everyone’s square on the plan, and unmask the murderer who was alone with Vincent in the Strongroom.

Rules

The forger: exactly one of the fifteen suspects is a forger – nobody knows who. The forger was beside a painting. The forger may or may not be the murderer; the victim was not the forger.
“Not the forger” means the speaker is not the forger; “with the forger” means the forger was in the speaker’s area; “exactly two rows north of him was the forger” counts rows, in any column.
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 (paintings, tables, crates, the safe, the rostrum…) cannot be occupied; the chairs, the stools, the benches and the sofa can. A corner of an area is a square of that area that borders the outside (another area or the edge of the board) on one horizontal and one vertical side.
“Right beside an area where nobody was” = on a square that touches an empty area directly – left, right, above or below, across the wall.
Directions refer to rows and columns, not to the same line: “exactly one row north of him was a woman” = the person in the row directly above is a woman, in any column; “north of Augustin” = in a row further up, in any column.
The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

Augustin (auctioneer’s assistant): Exactly five rows south of him was the forger. A woman was beside the same painting as him.
Beatrix (cataloguer): She was in the Loading Bay. She and Dagny were on the same diagonal.
Cyprian (porter): There were exactly two other people in his area. He and Norbert were on the same diagonal.
Dagny (restorer): There was no bench in her area.
Elspeth (cashier): A crate was somewhere in her row. She was beside a counter.
Fenwick (shipping heir): Somebody in his area was beside a chair. Somebody in his area was beside the rostrum.
Genevieve (retired judge): She was the only woman beside a chair.
Humphrey (retired diplomat): There was a dealer in his area. The bookcase was somewhere in his row.
Imelda (gallery owner’s widow): There was a dealer in her area. Somebody else was beside the same painting as her.
Josiah (young tech millionaire): A cabinet was somewhere in his column.
Kendra (Old Masters expert): There was no man in her area. She was not the forger.
Lucian (Paris dealer): A desk was somewhere in his area. He was in the first row.
Marguerite (provenance researcher): The cart was somewhere in her area. A crate was somewhere in her row.
Norbert (art critic): He was beside a lamp. The forger was in his area.
Odette (society columnist): She was right beside an area where nobody was. A bench was somewhere in her row.
Vincent (the head auctioneer): The victim. Not the forger. He was found in the Strongroom, beside the safe – alone with the murderer.

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