Scenedoku

Crime-scene logic cases

The Handshakes

A village vicarage · New Year’s Eve, midnight · ten coins in the poor box, one for every handshake · Difficulty: Inspector 8 · 12×12

New Year’s Eve at the vicarage: Reverend Arnold is hosting the village notables. The house has an old custom: at midnight everyone shakes hands with everyone in the same room, and every handshake puts a coin in the poor box. Shortly after midnight Vic, the churchwarden, was found dead in the study. The box tells how many handshakes there were – the rest is up to the statements.

Rules

  1. At midnight everyone shook hands with everyone who was in the same area; there were 10 handshakes in all.
  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 beehive, the well, the snowman, the fireworks, the wardrobe, the chest, the candelabras, the bookcases, the stepladder, the boots, the plant, the lantern, the coat rack, the desk, the safe, the tile stove, the Christmas tree, the piano, the grandfather clock, the champagne, the tables, the cabinet, the shelf, the barrel, the crate, the stove, the sink, the counter and the firewood) cannot be occupied; the armchairs, the chairs, the benches, the sofa and the stool can. An armchair is not a chair. Two objects are the same kind of thing only when they have the same picture. A corner of an area is a square of that area that borders the outside (another area or the edge of the board) on one horizontal and one vertical side.
  4. Directions refer to rows, not to the same column: “exactly one row south of him was somebody” = somebody was in the next row down, in any column. “On the same diagonal” = the two squares lie on one diagonal line of the board, in either direction and at any distance.
  5. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

  • Arnold (the vicar): He was in the Hall.
  • Brooke (the vicar’s wife): Somebody else in her area was beside the sink.
  • Connor (the organist): He was not in a corner of his area. Exactly one row south of him was somebody beside a bench.
  • Daphne (the housekeeper): There were exactly three other people in her area.
  • Elizabeth (the cook): She was beside the stool that nobody was sitting on.
  • Farrel (the mayor): A woman in his area was sitting in a chair.
  • Gretchen (the schoolteacher): She was not in the Library.
  • Harrison (the village doctor): A bookcase was somewhere in his row. He was alone with somebody sitting in an armchair.
  • Isabel (the postmistress): An armchair was somewhere in her column.
  • Julian (the blacksmith): The lantern was somewhere in his column.
  • Karina (the pharmacist): She was the only woman beside a table. She and Brooke were on the same diagonal.
  • Vic (the churchwarden): The victim. He was found in the Study, beside the desk – alone with the murderer.

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