Scenedoku

Crime-scene logic cases

The Last Tram

Tram depot · after the last run · two trams in the hall and an empty foreman’s desk · Difficulty: Detective 6 · 9×9

The last tram of the night rolled into the depot at 0:40. By one o’clock the hall should have been dark, but Vicky, the night foreman, was nowhere to be found. Nine people were in the depot that night. Vicky was found dead; the first morning service started late.

Rules

  1. Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
  2. “Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. Squares with objects (the lamp, the trams, the desk, the computer, the hose, the washtub, the TV, the shelf, the crate, the drill, the tables, the cart, the espresso machine, the counter, the vending machine, the sink and the locker) cannot be occupied; the benches, the chairs, the stools, the sofa and the armchair can. An armchair is not a chair.
  3. 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 was a woman, in any column; “the northernmost person in her area” = nobody else in her area was in a row further up.
  4. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area. The victim made no statement – her square, too, follows from the others’.

Statements

  • Anastasia (driver of the last tram): Somebody else in her area was beside a chair. She was not with Donna.
  • Bob (driver, off duty): He was not in a corner of his area. He was the only one beside a bench.
  • Cody (driver of the first morning run): He was in the first column.
  • Donna (the mechanic): The cart was somewhere in her row.
  • Elton (the dispatcher): He was the northernmost person in his area. The desk was somewhere in his area.
  • Felina (the cleaner): The hose was somewhere in her area.
  • Gary (passenger who slept through the last stop): He was in a corner of his area. Exactly two rows north of him was a woman.
  • Heather (the night security guard): There was exactly one other person in her area. A stool was somewhere in her column.
  • Vicky (the night foreman): The victim. She was alone with the murderer.

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