Scenedoku

Crime-scene logic cases

The Chain Dance

Tórshavn · Ólavsøka eve, the coffee break · nobody left out of the chain · Difficulty: Detective 6 · 9×9

On the eve of Ólavsøka the village hall on the edge of Tórshavn was packed: in knitted jumpers and silver-buttoned costumes people had been dancing the chain dance for hours to the old ballads. Vagnur, the skipari, had led the singing for thirty years. At midnight came a coffee break and the chain broke up. When the dance was to go on, the skipari was found dead. The ballad stayed unfinished.

Rules

  1. Nobody was alone in an area.
  2. Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
  3. “Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. Squares with objects (the oven, the coffee urns, the clock, the flagpole, the table, the lectern, the boots, the pillar, the lantern, the sink, the coat racks, the net rack, the mirror, the coil of rope, the beached dinghy, the anchor and the barrel) cannot be occupied; the chair, the benches and the doormat can.
  4. 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.
  5. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

  • Andrias (fisherman): Somebody else in his area was beside the boots.
  • Beinta (sheep farmer): She was in the Porch.
  • Christoffur (schoolteacher): He was the only one beside the pillar.
  • Durita (nurse): The clock was somewhere in her column.
  • Erla (treasurer of the hall committee): The lectern was somewhere in her column.
  • Finnur (chairman of the hall committee): He was the only man beside a coffee urn.
  • Gunnvá (baker of the festival cakes): She was in a corner of her area. Exactly one row north of her was a member of the hall committee.
  • Hallur (caretaker of the hall): There was another man in his area.
  • Vagnur (skipari, the lead singer of the chain dance): The victim. He was found beside the beached dinghy – alone with the murderer.

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