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Crime-scene logic cases

The Eve of the Song Festival

Song Festival Grounds in Tallinn · the night before the festival · the flame was lit and the director was gone · Difficulty: Inspector 7 · 10×10

Every five years twenty thousand singers walk up onto the huge arched stage of the Song Festival Grounds in Tallinn, and the whole country sings with them. On the eve of the festival the dress rehearsal ran late. At midnight Vello, the festival director, was nowhere to be found. Nine other people were still on the grounds. Vello was found dead. The closing song never happened.

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 lantern, the ladder, the mirror, the coat rack, the piano, the double bass, the kettledrum, the harp, the music stands, the loudspeakers, the flagpole, the drum kit, the microphone, the spotlight, the mixing desk, the trees, the parasol, the bicycle, the sign, the ticket booth, the stove, the cooler box and the table) cannot be occupied; the chairs, the armchair, the stools, the benches, the conductor's podium and the log can. An armchair is not a chair.
  3. Directions refer to rows and columns, not to the same line: “exactly one row north of him was a singer” = the person in the row directly above was a singer, in any column; “the southernmost person in her area” = nobody else in her area was in a row further down.
  4. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area. The victim made no statement – his square, too, follows from the others’.

Statements

  • Aino (soprano soloist): A stool was somewhere in her area.
  • Benno (bass of the men's choir): He was beside the harp. The ticket booth was somewhere in his column.
  • Carmen (alto of the youth choir): She was on the West Choir Steps.
  • Danel (the stage manager): The table was somewhere in his column. He was the southernmost person in his area.
  • Eha (the sound engineer): She was the southernmost person in her area. The double bass was somewhere in her column.
  • Feliks (keeper of the flame): He was north of Eha. He was the only one beside the spotlight.
  • Grete (TV producer): A chair was somewhere in her area.
  • Heino (retired chief conductor): The double bass was somewhere in his row. There was exactly one other person in his area.
  • Imbi (music journalist): Somebody else in her area was beside a stool.
  • Vello (the festival director): The victim. He was alone with the murderer.

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