Scenedoku

Crime-scene logic cases

Someone Else in the Room

A seaside pension · a rainy evening · nine answers to one question · Difficulty: Inspector 8 · 10×10

Rain lashed the Seagull Pension all evening, and nobody set foot outside. Shortly before ten, Vartan, a travelling salesman, was found dead in the armchair of the Reading Room. The inspector from town asked everyone one question: who else was in the room with you, and what were they doing? Everyone told the truth – the murderer too, whose only company was the victim.

Rules

  1. Every statement is about another person in the speaker's own area.
  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 stove, the sink, the counter, the table, the grandfather clock, the cabinet, the bookcase, the lamp, the desk, the potted plant, the fountain, the statue, the staircase, the coat rack, the mirror, the barrel, the fireplace, the piano, the gramophone, the card table, the billiard table and the painting) cannot be occupied; the armchairs, the chairs, the stools, the sofa, the bench, the swing 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.
  4. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

  • Alison (the landlady): A guest in her area was beside the fireplace. There were exactly three other people in her area.
  • Ben (the porter): There was another man in his area.
  • Caroline (the cook): Another member of staff in her area was beside the gramophone. Of the people in her area, exactly one was a man.
  • Daniel (a retired sea captain): There was another guest in his area.
  • Eileen (a crime novelist): There was another guest in her area.
  • Frederick (a landscape painter): Somebody else in his area was beside the fireplace. Exactly one person was sitting on the sofa – not him, but somebody in his area.
  • Ginny (a schoolteacher on holiday): She was alone with Henry, and he was on the doormat.
  • Henry (a birdwatcher): A woman in his area was in a corner of it.
  • Inessa (a violinist): A man in her area was beside the cabinet.
  • Vartan (a travelling salesman): The victim. He was found in the Reading Room, sitting in an armchair – alone with the murderer.

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