Moon over the Courtyard

A Beijing courtyard house · Mid-Autumn night · the estate agent who brought mooncakes · Difficulty: Detective 5 · 8×8

Mid-Autumn Festival night in an old Beijing hutong. The family’s courtyard house has stood behind its red gate for four generations; the street is marked for redevelopment, and a developer’s agent has been knocking at the gate for months. Viona came uninvited tonight, “to bring mooncakes”, and when the moon rose above the roof of the Main Hall, she was found dead beside the fish jar.

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 table, the cabinet, the bookcase, the birdcage, the wardrobe, the trees, the desk, the fish jar, the tea tray, the chest, the screen wall, the bicycle and the red lantern) cannot be occupied; the armchairs, the beds and the drum stools can.
3. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

• An (grandfather, plays the erhu): He was beside the table.
• Bao (grandmother): She was the westernmost person in her area. Exactly one person was sitting in an armchair – not her, but somebody in her area.
• Chun (granddaughter, university student): She was beside the red lantern.
• Dong (son of An and Bao): The bicycle was somewhere in his column.
• Enlai (calligrapher – writes the festival couplets): He was in the last row. He was the easternmost person in his area.
• Fang (neighbour from across the hutong): She was not in a corner of her area. There was no bed in her area.
• Grant (exchange student, the family's lodger): He was not in the Main Hall.
• Viona (a property developer's estate agent): The victim. She was found in the Inner Courtyard, beside the fish jar – alone with the murderer.

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