The Hall of Mirrors

Funfair hall of mirrors · closing time · sixteen rooms of glass · Difficulty: Chief 10 · 16×16

Closing time at the funfair’s Hall of Mirrors. When the lights come back on, the owner Valerie is found dead in the exit tunnel, beside the sign. Sixteen people were inside: eight guests, four performers and the staff. The hall is one open floor divided into sixteen rooms and full of mirrors – everyone saw only what the mirrors showed them along their own row and column. Read the statements, find everyone’s square on the plan and unmask the murderer: alone with Valerie in the Exit Tunnel, seen by nobody – not even in a mirror.

Rules

1. Sightlines: everyone looks along their own row and column, in all four directions. A sightline passes over empty squares (benches, stools and carpets included), is turned by 90° at every mirror – like light bouncing off it: heading east into a ╱ mirror it continues north, into a ╲ mirror south – and stops at any other object or at the wall of the hall. Since no two people share a row or a column, whoever you see, you see in a mirror.
2. Nobody blocks a view: “I saw two people” counts everybody standing anywhere along the four sightlines, also behind someone else; “I saw nobody” means all four lines were empty. Seeing is mutual.
3. Nobody saw the murderer: apart from the victim, no one was on the murderer’s sightlines – not even in a mirror.
4. Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
5. “Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. The hall is one open floor: the dashed lines are the borders of the areas of the puzzle. Squares with an object (mirrors, pillars, counters…) cannot be occupied; benches, stools and carpets can.
6. Directions refer to rows and columns, not to the same line: “one row north of him” = in the row directly above, in any column.
7. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

• Agnes (retired teacher): She was in the Star Chamber. She saw nobody.
• Barnaby (student): He was in the Blue Corridor.
• Chloe (photographer): She was in the Infinity Room.
• Dexter (tourist): He was beside a pillar. He saw exactly two people.
• Edith (nurse): She was in the top row. She saw nobody – not even in a mirror.
• Frank (accountant): He saw Kimberly. He was alone in his area.
• Gwen (florist): She was the only one beside the counter.
• Howard (bus driver): He saw Chloe in a mirror. He was in row 2.
• Imogen (fortune teller): She was in the rightmost column. She saw nobody.
• Jack (clown): He was in row 12.
• Kimberly (magician): She was beside a pillar.
• Leo (juggler): He was in the Crystal Cave. Exactly one row north of him was a performer.
• Maud (ticket seller): She was beside a lamp, in column 1.
• Ned (maze operator): Exactly one row south of him was a woman. He was in column 13.
• Opal (cleaner): She was alone in her area, in column 7.
• Valerie (owner of the attraction): The victim. She was found beside the sign in the Exit Tunnel – alone with the murderer.

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