Scenedoku

Crime-scene logic cases

The Brewery

Bavarian brewery · the night before the festival tapping · the copper was hot and the brewmaster was gone · Difficulty: Inspector 7 · 9×9

The festive barrel is tapped at noon, and the night before, the brewery near Munich does not sleep: the last brew is still boiling in the copper. At three in the morning Verena, the brewmaster, was nowhere to be found. Nine people were in the brewery that night. Verena was found dead. This year’s tapping was called off.

Rules

  1. Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
  2. “Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. Squares with objects (the counter, the table, the desk, the safe, the barrels, the scales, the carts, the copper pots, the ladder, the sink, the staircase, the conveyor belt, the crate, the fridge, the water trough, the tree and the well) cannot be occupied; the stools, the chairs, the benches and the hay bale can.
  3. 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 was a woman, in any column; “the northernmost person in her area” = nobody else in her area was in a row further up.
  4. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area. The victim made no statement – her square, too, follows from the others’.

Statements

  • Anneliese (brewer): She was in the Brewhouse. A cart was somewhere in her column.
  • Benedikt (the maltster): He was the only man beside the scales.
  • Clemens (the cellarman): A barrel was somewhere in his area. There was exactly one other person in his area.
  • Dagmar (the bookkeeper): She was the only one beside the desk.
  • Eckhard (the dray driver): A barrel was somewhere in his column. Exactly two rows north of him was a woman.
  • Florian (the taproom innkeeper): He was the easternmost person in his area. He was beside a chair.
  • Gisela (the festival’s organiser): She was beside the water trough. She was the westernmost person in her area.
  • Hedwig (hop merchant): She was the westernmost person in her area. A barrel was somewhere in her area.
  • Verena (the brewmaster): The victim. She was alone with the murderer.

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