Scenedoku

Crime-scene logic cases

Lipa Cave

Lipa Cave near Cetinje · the evening tour · a cry passed from chamber to chamber · Difficulty: Chief 9 · 10×10

The evening tour of Lipa Cave, below Cetinje, had just climbed off the tour cart when Vuk, the head guide, was found dead. Somebody cried “Help!”, and the cry went from chamber to chamber, passed on only by those who were there to hear it – the cave swallows every sound that nobody carries on. Nine people were in the cave besides Vuk.

Rules

  1. Whoever “heard the cry” was in an area joined to the Curtain Hall by a chain of areas that all held somebody, each linked to the next by a passage.
  2. Every occupied area passes the cry on to the areas it opens into through a passage (the openings drawn in the walls); the Forecourt outside the cave mouth counts as an area too.
  3. Exactly two of the eight areas were empty.
  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. Squares with objects (stalagmites, rocks, lamps, the ticket booth, the sign, the coil of rope, the staircase, the ladder, the water) cannot be occupied; the benches and the tour cart can. A corner of an area is a square of it that faces outwards (another area or the edge of the board) on a horizontal and on a vertical side.
  6. “A stalagmite was somewhere in her row” = a stalagmite is on one of the squares of her row, in any area; “there was no bench in his area” = on no square of the area he was in.
  7. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

  • Anđela (schoolteacher from Podgorica): Somebody else in her area was sitting on a bench.
  • Bojan (student): He was the only man beside a lamp. He was alone with a woman.
  • Cvijeta (retired midwife): She did not hear the cry. She was alone with Anđela.
  • Danilo (lawyer): He was in a corner of his area.
  • Emir (photographer): There was no bench in his area. He and Cvijeta were on the same diagonal.
  • Fahrudin (driver of the tour cart): He was sitting on a bench or in the tour cart.
  • Gorana (second guide): A stalagmite was somewhere in her row.
  • Hristina (ticket clerk): She did not hear the cry.
  • Isidora (cave biologist): She was not in a corner of her area. She was alone with a visitor.
  • Vuk (head guide): The victim. He was found in the Curtain Hall, beside a stalagmite – alone with the murderer.

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