The Straw Poll

The county hall · election night · the flag of a room tells which party had more people in it · Difficulty: Chief 9 · 16×16

On election night two camps waited for the count in the county hall: six Blues and five Reds, and between them four independents and Velda, the county clerk. For fun somebody held a straw poll with the two parties’ flags: wherever one party had more people in a room than the other, its flag went up – and where neither had more, no flag hung at all. The independents counted for nobody. Shortly before midnight Velda, the only one who knew the first returns, was found dead in her office, beside a desk; nobody but her murderer had been in the room with her. Read every statement, read the flags, find everyone’s square – and unmask the murderer.

Rules

The flag of an area shows whether the Blues or the Reds had more people in it; in an area without a flag neither had more.
Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
“Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. Squares with objects (the flags, desks, tables, bookcases, filing cabinets, pillars, potted plants, the camera…) cannot be occupied; the chairs, the armchairs, the benches, the sofa, the stools and the carpet can – whoever is on a seat was sitting. 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.
“A bookcase was somewhere in her row” = a bookcase is on one of the squares of her row, in any area; “A desk was somewhere in her area” = a desk is on one of the squares of her area.
Directions refer to rows and columns, not to the same line: “Exactly one row north of her was a woman” = the person in the row directly above hers is a woman, in any column.
“Right beside an area where nobody was” = on a square that touches an empty area directly – left, right, above or below, across the wall.
“Beside the same table” = both beside one and the same table; the long table of the Counting Room, which covers two squares, is one table. The same goes for chairs and filing cabinets.
The cards are grouped by party: the Blues, the Reds and the independents, who belong to neither party – the victim was an independent.
The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

Arlene (schoolteacher): Made no statement.
Bernice (campaign secretary): She was beside the carpet, and so was a man. Exactly one row north of her was a woman.
Clarice (pharmacist): She was with Elwood.
Delbert (sheriff’s deputy): There was another Blue in his area. He was in a corner of his area.
Elwood (banker): Another man was beside the same chair as him.
Floyd (the Blue candidate): He was in a corner of his area.
Gladys (telephone operator): A desk was somewhere in her area.
Hiram (the Red candidate): There was no Blue in his area. He was right beside an area where nobody was.
Inez (union organiser): A bookcase was somewhere in her row. Another woman was beside the same table as her.
Judson (farmer): He was in a corner of his area.
Kermit (mill foreman): Made no statement.
Lucille (teller of the count): Somebody else was beside the same filing cabinet as her.
Milton (newspaper reporter): He was the only man beside the camera.
Nettie (stenographer): She was the only woman sitting in an armchair.
Orville (caretaker): A filing cabinet was somewhere in his area.
Velda (the county clerk): The victim. She was found in the Clerk’s Office, beside a desk – alone with the murderer.

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