The Observatory

Mount Aster Observatory · night of the meteor shower · one shooting star too many · Difficulty: Inspector 8 · 12×12

The night of the great meteor shower at the Mount Aster Observatory. The dome is open, the visitors have been shown the sky, the students are developing the plates – and at midnight Vesna, the director, is found dead in the Dome, beside the great telescope. Eleven people were in the building: four astronomers, three students and four visitors. One of them is the killer – and slipped away afterwards through rooms where nobody was. Read every statement, find everyone’s square on the plan and unmask the murderer – alone with Vesna in the Dome.

Rules

1. The escape: after the crime the murderer walked from the Dome to one of the two exits – the loading door of the Workshop or the garden stairs of the Terrace – without meeting anyone: every area they walked through was empty. Areas connect only where a door is drawn. The Dome itself is where the murderer started – it does not have to be empty.
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 telescopes, consoles, desks, bookcases, tables, the stove…) cannot be occupied; the chairs, the benches, the armchair and the sofa can. A corner of an area is a square of that area with two outer sides.
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; “north of Barbara” = in a row further up, in any column.
5. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

• Anselm (solar astronomer): He was beside a table. He was the southernmost person in his area.
• Barbara (comet hunter): She was beside a table.
• Caspian (night assistant): He was beside a sink. There was a student in his area.
• Daniela (deputy director): She was beside a chair. There was exactly one other person in her area.
• Elias (doctoral student): He was in a corner of his area.
• Franka (student): She was beside a bookcase. There was a visitor in her area.
• Gregor (student): There was a woman in his area. He was north of Vesna.
• Helena (patron): She was not in a corner of her area.
• Ivo (amateur astronomer): Exactly one row north of him was a woman. He was the only one beside a bench.
• Jemima (science journalist): She was in the Hall. She was alone in her area.
• Kieran (town councillor): He was the northernmost person in his area.
• Vesna (the director): The victim. She was found in the Dome, beside a telescope – alone with the murderer.

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