Scenedoku

Crime-scene logic cases

The Water Lily Pond

Giverny · a June morning before opening · an unknown water-lily study · Difficulty: Detective 6 · 9×9

Giverny, an early June morning, an hour before the gates open. A small plein-air painting group has been allowed to work in the painter's house and gardens. Valoire, an art dealer from Paris, brought an “unknown water-lily study” to be authenticated. Before eight she is found dead, and a fresh scratch runs across the signature of the study. The authentication never took place.

Rules

  1. Exactly one person was beside each painting.
  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 desk, the cabinet, the stove, the paintings, the table, the flower beds, the flower arch, the weeping willows and the water) cannot be occupied; the chaise longue, the chairs, the sofa, the benches, the bridge and the boat 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

  • Aude (teacher of the painting class): A flower bed was somewhere in her column.
  • Babette (student of the class): Somebody else in her area was beside a painting.
  • Christian (student of the class): A bench was somewhere in his column.
  • Diego (student of the class): A bench was somewhere in his area.
  • Eustace (head gardener): There was a painter in his area. A chair was somewhere in his column.
  • Fabrizio (water gardener): He was the only man beside the water. He was beside a weeping willow.
  • Ghislaine (guide of the house): She was not beside the cabinet. Exactly one row north of her was somebody beside the chaise longue.
  • Harvey (water-lily grower, delivering plants): He was in a corner of his area.
  • Valoire (art dealer from Paris): The victim. She was found in the Studio, beside a painting – alone with the murderer.

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