The Tea House

Baku old town · a November evening · the champion's last game · Difficulty: Detective 5 · 8×8

Icheri Sheher, the old town of Baku, on a rainy November evening. In the old chaikhana behind the city wall the samovar had been boiling since noon, tea came in pear-shaped glasses with lemon and quince jam, and the clatter of nard checkers never stopped. Then the dice fell silent: Vugar, the quarter's nard champion, unbeaten all autumn, was found dead.

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 samovar, the cabinet, the shelf, the crate, the nard tables, the vine, the bistro tables, the herb bed, the tree, the fountain and the firewood) cannot be occupied; the chairs, the pouf, the carpet, the sofa and the bench 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 is a woman, in any column.
4. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

• Anar (tea master – keeps the samovar boiling): Exactly one row north of him was a woman.
• Bahar (waitress): The shelf was somewhere in her area.
• Cavid (retired teacher, nard player): He was in the first column. He was with Gunel.
• Dilara (carpet seller, nard player): A chair was somewhere in her area.
• Elnur (taxi driver, nard player): There was a tourist in his area. A chair was somewhere in his column.
• Fidan (journalism student, a week in Baku): She was the only one sitting in a chair.
• Gunel (travel blogger): Of the people in her area, exactly one was a man. A bistro table was somewhere in her row.
• Vugar (the quarter's nard champion): The victim. He was found in the Nard Room, beside a nard table – alone with the murderer.

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