By Candlelight

A country house · autumn 1931 · the lights fail during the soirée · Difficulty: Chief 10 · 16×16

An English country house, an autumn evening in 1931. Victor, the master of the house, is giving a soirée for his family and a few guests, the staff on duty – when the lights fail in the middle of the evening and everybody takes a candle. When the power comes back, Victor is found in the Gallery, beside the suit of armour. Sixteen candles, seventeen rooms.

Rules

There was a power cut. Everyone held a candle that lit their own row and column as far as the walls of the room. Wherever anybody was, the candles of those inside together lit every square of that room.
Light passes through furniture but not through walls: a candle lights only its own room.
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 suit of armour, the statue, the paintings, the grandfather clocks, the bookcases, the globe, the lectern, the fireplaces, the tables, the mirrors, the dressing table, the cabinets, the harp, the piano, the gramophone, the staircase, the palms, the coat racks, the stove, the scales, the barrels, the billiard table, the sink, the washtub, the mangle, the wine rack, the crate) cannot be occupied; the chairs, the armchairs, the sofa, the chaise longues, the benches, the stools and the loungers can. An armchair is not a chair. 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 her was a woman” = the person in the row directly above is a woman, in any column.
“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. “Somebody else in his area was beside a bench” = another person in his area was directly beside a bench. “Somebody else was beside the same bench as her” = she was beside a bench, and another person was beside that very bench. “Right beside an area where nobody was” = on a square that touches an empty area directly – left, right, above or below, across the wall.
“There was at least one other person in her area” = she was not alone. “There was a man in her area” = at least one man was in her area. “Somebody else in his area was sitting in a chair” = another person in his area was in a chair.
The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

Angelica (the hostess, Victor’s wife): She was in the Drawing Room. A mirror was somewhere in her column.
Barnaby (Angelica’s brother): An armchair was somewhere in his row.
Cordelia (the daughter of the house): Somebody else was beside the same bench as her.
Digby (the son of the house): A cabinet was somewhere in his column.
Edwina (novelist): She was not alone in her area.
Felix (barrister): He was with Angelica. He was in a corner of his area.
Gwendolen (actress): Somebody else was beside the same armchair as her. An armchair was somewhere in her row.
Hugh (retired colonel): He was sitting.
Inigo (architect): A bench was somewhere in his row.
Jane (pianist): She was sitting. There was a man in her area.
Katharine (journalist): She was beside an armchair. There was at least one other person in her area.
Lawrence (the butler): He was in the Servants’ Hall. Somebody else in his area was beside a bench.
Maisie (the housemaid): She was right beside an area where nobody was. Exactly one row north of her was a woman.
Norman (the chauffeur): A cabinet was somewhere in his area. Somebody else in his area was sitting in a chair.
Olive (the cook): She was in the last row.
Victor (the host): The victim. He was found in the Gallery, beside the suit of armour – alone with the murderer.

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