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Scenedoku

Crime-scene logic cases

The Pottery

The old riverside pottery · Saturday afternoon · the kiln was firing · Difficulty: Detective 5 · 8×8

Saturday afternoon at the old pottery on the riverbank, the last day of the glazing course. The big wood-fired kiln had been burning since dawn, and by four o’clock the whole workshop smelled of smoke and wet clay. That is when Vilmos, the master potter, was found dead in the Kiln Hall, beside his kiln. Eight people were on the premises: the four students of the course, the apprentice, the kiln man and a gallery owner who had come to collect an order. One of them is the killer. Read every statement, find everyone’s square on the plan and unmask the murderer – alone with Vilmos in the Kiln Hall.

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 kiln, the potter’s wheels, the shelves, the counter, the trolley, the firewood, the sink, the cart, the table, the crate, the tree) cannot be occupied; the stools, the chairs, the bench and the doormat can. 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.
  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; “north of Annika” = in a row further up, in any column; “the northernmost person in his area” = nobody else in his area was in a row further up.
  4. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

  • Annika (retired teacher): She was alone in her area. The firewood was somewhere in her row.
  • Bertram (restaurateur): He was sitting on a stool. He was the northernmost person in his area.
  • Corinna (sculptor): She was with Bertram.
  • Dietrich (antiques dealer): The firewood was somewhere in his column.
  • Elodie (the apprentice): Made no statement.
  • Fergal (the kiln man): He was beside the bench.
  • Gwendolyn (gallery owner, collecting an order): She was in the Yard.
  • Vilmos (the master potter): The victim. He was found in the Kiln Hall, beside the kiln – alone with the murderer.

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