The Patisserie

A Budapest patisserie · a Sunday morning in 1912 · the oven was still warm · Difficulty: Officer 3 · 6×6

Budapest, spring 1912, a Sunday morning in the most elegant patisserie on the square. The first Dobos cakes had just come out of the oven, the espresso machine hissed behind the shop counter, and the marble tables of the salon and the terrace filled up with ladies in hats and gentlemen with newspapers. Vendel, the head confectioner, had promised to reveal his secret recipe to someone that very morning. He never did: he was found in the bakehouse, beside the oven. Everyone in the house gave a short statement – find out who was alone with him.

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 shelf, the oven, the espresso machine, the tiered cake, the flower tubs, the café table and the parasol) cannot be occupied; the chairs can.
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 is a woman, in any column.
4. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

• Aranka (the shop girl behind the counter): The tiered cake was somewhere in her row.
• Bendegúz (the apprentice confectioner): He was on the Terrace. He was not beside the parasol.
• Cyrill (a newspaper critic): He was the only man beside the café table. He was alone with a woman.
• Dorottya (an operetta actress): She was the easternmost person in her area.
• Etelka (a countess, regular customer): Exactly one row north of her was a member of staff. The café table was not in her area.
• Vendel (the head confectioner): The victim. He was found in the Bakehouse, beside the oven – alone with the murderer.

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