We, the Brigade

A company holiday home on the lake shore · summer 1974 · some of them testify as “we” – for everyone who was with them · Difficulty: Inspector 8 · 16×16

August 1974: the Béke brigade of the machine-tool works spends its reward weekend at the company holiday home on the lake shore. On Saturday evening the brigade leader, Veronika, goes to the office to write up the brigade diary – and is found dead beside the desk. Her fifteen brigade mates are questioned at once, but the habit of the diary dies hard: some of them still testify in the plural, speaking for everybody who was with them. The murderer was alone with Veronika in the Office. Read every statement, work out who spoke for whom, and find the square of all sixteen people.

Rules

A sentence in the plural (“We…”, “None of us…”) is true of every suspect in the speaker’s area.
“Sitting” = on a chair, in an armchair, on a bench, on a stool, in a deckchair, on a log, on the sofa, on the swing or in the Trabant.
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 bicycle, the lamps, the fir, the sign, the stove, the sink, the tables, the shelf, the cabinets, the counter, the gramophone, the desk, the safe, the coat rack, the potted plants, the clock, the fireplace, the table football, the chessboard, the card table, the bookcases, the film projector, the trophy, the wardrobes, the parasols, the trees, the fountain, the flower patch, the hedge, the campfire, the woodpile, the beached dinghies, the reeds, the buoy) cannot be occupied; the seats – the chairs, the armchairs, the benches, the stools, the deckchairs, the logs, the sofa, the swing and the Trabant – and the beds 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.
“An armchair was somewhere in his row” = an armchair is on one of the squares of his row, in any area; the same goes for columns, and “somewhere in his area” = on a square of the area he was in.
Directions refer to rows and columns, not to the same line: “Exactly one row north of her was a man” = the person in the row directly above hers is a man, in any column.
“She and Ottó were beside the same kind of thing” = beside objects of the same type; they need not be the same piece.
Statements about the people in an area (“exactly one other person”, “Somebody else”) count the victim too.
The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

Antal (lathe operator): There was exactly one other person in his area.
Bálint (welder): “We were all sitting.” He was beside a table.
Csombor (apprentice): A cabinet was somewhere in his column. A cabinet was somewhere in his area.
Diána (payroll clerk): She was in the Garden. Somebody else in her area was sitting on a bench.
Edit (quality inspector): “None of us was beside a tree.” She was at the Fire Pit.
Friderika (crane operator): She was with Nóra.
Gyula (foreman): An armchair was somewhere in his row. Somebody else in his area was beside an armchair.
Hugó (electrician): He was sitting.
Ibolya (storekeeper): Exactly one row north of her was a man. An armchair was somewhere in her column.
Jenő (toolmaker): “None of us was in a corner of our area.” A cabinet was somewhere in his area.
Katalin (draughtswoman): “We were each beside a deckchair.” She and Ottó were beside the same kind of thing.
Lajos (driver): He was sitting. Somebody else in his area was beside an armchair.
Magdolna (coil winder): She was not sitting. An armchair was somewhere in her row.
Nóra (canteen cook): “We were each sitting in a chair.” Exactly one row south of her was a woman.
Ottó (fitter): “None of us was in a corner of our area.” A potted plant was somewhere in his area.
Veronika (the brigade leader): The victim. She was found in the Office, beside the desk – alone with the murderer.

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