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Scenedoku

Crime-scene logic cases

The Flea Market

The Ecseri flea market in Budapest · a Saturday morning in October · the appraiser's coffee went cold · Difficulty: Detective 6 · 9×9

Budapest, the Ecseri flea market, a Saturday morning in October. Five dealers had set up their wares in the covered hall: pendulum clocks, tin toys, leather-bound books and a whole room of old furniture. Vászoly, an appraiser from a famous auction house, came every month to hunt for treasures, and this morning a rumour was going round that one of the stalls was selling a fake. He sat down in the snack bar with an espresso and a notebook – and that is where he was found. Since the gates had opened, nobody had left the hall: five dealers and three buyers were inside.

Rules

  1. At each of the four stalls there was at least one vendor.
  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 pendulum clocks, the gramophone, the teddy bear, the counter, the espresso machine, the amphorae, the dollhouse, the bistro table, the globe, the bookcase, the chest, the mirror, the floor lamp, the old bicycle, the wardrobe and the scales) cannot be occupied; the rocking horse, the bench and the armchair 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

  • Anikó (the clock dealer): She was at the Clock Stall.
  • Benedek (a pedlar of postcards and badges): The bistro table was somewhere in his column.
  • Cirill (the furniture dealer): Exactly one row north of him was a man.
  • Döme (the toy dealer): He was in the first row.
  • Enikő (the antiquarian bookseller): She was not beside the bookcase. An amphora was somewhere in her row.
  • Fülöp (a collector of gramophones): There was exactly one other person in his area.
  • Gyöngyvér (an interior designer): There was no amphora in her area.
  • Hella (an art student): She was the southernmost person in her area. The armchair was somewhere in her area.
  • Vászoly (an appraiser from an auction house): The victim. He was found in the Snack Bar, beside the espresso machine – alone with the murderer.

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