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Scenedoku

Crime-scene logic cases

The Recess

An assize court in the English provinces · November 1952 · twenty minutes behind a closed door · Difficulty: Detective 5 · 8×8

Lewes, November 1952. The trial of a country solicitor accused of poisoning his partner had lasted nine days, and on the tenth morning Judge Vivian Ashcombe was expected to sum up. At eleven o'clock he called a twenty-minute recess and withdrew to his chambers, where the sealed exhibits of the case were kept in the old safe. The doors of the building stayed locked: both counsel, the clerk, two jurors and two members of the public were somewhere on the floor of the court. When the recess was over, the judge did not come back – he lay beside the open safe, and one exhibit was missing.

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 safe, the flagpole, the scales of justice, the desk, the potted plant, the lectern, the tables, the water cooler, the pillar, the coat rack and the clock) cannot be occupied; the chairs and the benches 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

  • Annis (counsel for the prosecution): She was at the Counsel Tables.
  • Bramwell (counsel for the defence): He was in a corner of his area.
  • Cecil (the clerk of the court): The pillar was somewhere in his row. He was not beside a bench.
  • Dorcas (a juror, a schoolmistress): The lectern was somewhere in her row.
  • Erasmus (a juror, a retired major): The desk was somewhere in his column.
  • Frederica (the accused's sister): Exactly one row north of her was somebody sitting in a chair.
  • Gilchrist (a reporter of the county newspaper): He was sitting on a bench. Somebody else in his area was beside the pillar.
  • Vivian (the judge): The victim. He was found in the Judge's Chambers, beside the safe – alone with the murderer.

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