The Smart Home

A new villa on the edge of town · the housewarming night · every footstep flipped a light · Difficulty: Inspector 7 · 10×10

Vittoria, an architect, had finally moved into the villa she had designed herself, and every lamp in it obeyed her home-made smart system. On the night of the housewarming party the system went haywire: whenever somebody walked into a room, its light flipped – on if it had been off, off if it had been on. When the evening began every room was empty and dark; later the party scattered through the house, and nobody left a room once they had walked in. Shortly before midnight Vittoria was found dead on the beanbag of the dark Home Cinema. The lamps still remember how many people walked into each room – the shaded rooms on the plan are the ones where the light was off.

Rules

1. Where the light was on, the number of people was odd; where it was off, it was even or zero.
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 desk, the bookcase, the server, the wardrobe, the dressing table, the shower, the toilet, the coat rack, the mirror, the TV, the projection screen, the projector, the speaker, the piano, plants, the stove, the counter, the sink, the dining table) cannot be occupied; the chairs, the bed, the doormat, the beanbag, the cinema seat, the sofa, the armchair and the stool can. A corner of an area is a square of that area with two outer sides.
4. Directions refer to rows, not to the same column: “somebody in his area was south of him” = somebody in his area was in a row further down, in any column.
5. The shaded rooms of the plan were dark; in all the other rooms the light was on.
6. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

• Adeline (Vittoria’s sister): The server was somewhere in her column.
• Benedikt (Vittoria’s husband): He was not in the Bedroom.
• Camille (Vittoria’s daughter): She was the only woman beside the dining table.
• Darius (Vittoria’s son): The bed was somewhere in his area.
• Emeric (the electrician who wired the house): Somebody else in his area was beside a chair. A plant was somewhere in his row.
• Fletcher (the programmer of the smart system): The bookcase was somewhere in his row.
• Gilda (the neighbour): There was a man in her area. She was not in a corner of her area.
• Horace (the property developer): Somebody in his area was south of him.
• Irene (the interior designer): She was with Fletcher. She was beside a chair.
• Vittoria (the architect of the villa): The victim. She was found in the Home Cinema, sitting on the beanbag – alone with the murderer.

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