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Scenedoku

Crime-scene logic cases

The Climbing Gym

Granite Loft climbing gym · Thursday evening · the lights went out · Difficulty: Detective 6 · 9×9

Thursday evening at the Granite Loft, the climbing gym under the old railway arches. Halfway through the evening session the lights went out for a minute – and when they came back, Vidar, the owner and head route setter, lay dead at the foot of the lead wall, beside the ropes. Eight people were in the gym: four climbers, two members of staff and two visitors. One of them is the killer. Read every statement, find everyone’s square on the plan and unmask the murderer – alone with Vidar at the Lead Wall.

Rules

  1. Every climber was beside a climbing wall (the staff and the visitors could be anywhere).
  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 (climbing walls, counters, lockers, the vending machine, the hangboard…) cannot be occupied; the crash mats, the chairs, the benches and the doormat 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.
  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; “north of Astrid” = in a row further up, in any column.
  5. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

  • Astrid (competition climber): Made no statement.
  • Blake (boulderer): A bench was somewhere in his column.
  • Cleo (beginner): A locker was somewhere in her row.
  • Dorian (lead climber): There was a woman in his area. A climbing wall was somewhere in his row.
  • Elvira (instructor): She was alone with a man.
  • Ferdinand (receptionist): A chair was somewhere in his column. A bench was somewhere in his area.
  • Giselle (Cleo’s mother): She was alone with a member of staff.
  • Hugh (photographer): He was the only one beside a counter. He was alone with somebody on the doormat.
  • Vidar (the owner and head route setter): The victim. He was found in the Lead Wall area, beside the ropes – alone with the murderer.

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