Scenedoku

Crime-scene logic cases

The Name Day

Gjirokastër · Saint Basil’s day · every fireplace was lit · Difficulty: Detective 6 · 9×9

On 1 January, St Basil’s Day, the old stone house below Gjirokastër castle was full of guests: Vasil, the head of the family, was celebrating his name day, fires burned in the fireplaces, lamb roasted on the charcoal grill. Late in the evening the old man quietly left the celebrations and did not return. He was found dead. The name-day song broke off unfinished.

Rules

  1. Exactly one person was beside each fireplace.
  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 fireplaces, the tea tray, the cabinet, the oven, the loom, the shelf, the staircase, the chest, the trees, the washtub, the well, the charcoal grill, the amphora, the sheep and the firewood) cannot be occupied; the bed, the sofa, the bench and the floor cushion 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

  • Arta (Vasil’s daughter, the hostess): She was beside the oven.
  • Bujar (Vasil’s son, stone-slate roofer): There was no other man in his area. He was in the Courtyard.
  • Cen (Vasil’s grandson, student in Tirana): He was in the Winter Room.
  • Drita (Bujar’s wife, weaver): She was beside the floor cushion.
  • Etleva (neighbour, polyphonic folk singer): The bench was somewhere in her column.
  • Fatos (neighbour, raki distiller): The amphora was somewhere in his column. Exactly one row south of him was a man.
  • Gentiana (guide at the citadel museum): There was a member of the family in her area.
  • Hysen (antique dealer): A fireplace was somewhere in his row.
  • Vasil (head of the family, celebrating his name day): The victim. He was found in the Cistern Cellar – alone with the murderer.

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