Old Married Couples

The Ferry Inn · a June evening · a silver wedding and seven old marriages · Difficulty: Chief 9 · 16×16

The Ferry Inn stands on the riverbank below the old crossing, on a warm Saturday evening in June. Alfonso and Beth are celebrating their silver wedding with the family, three couples of old friends and the neighbours; after the cake the party scattered over the house, the garden and the jetty. Vicente, the innkeeper, went down for another bottle: he was found in the Wine Cellar, beside a barrel.

Rules

Spouses did not count each other as company: whatever someone says about company leaves their spouse out.
Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
“Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. Squares with objects (the water, the trees, the tables, the barrels, the cabinet, the shelves, the counter, the fireplace, the piano, the beehive, the birdcage, the tiered cake…) cannot be occupied; the chairs, the armchairs, the benches, the sofa, the stools, the boat and the hammock can. “A chair” is one of the plain chairs: an armchair is not a chair, and a stool is not a chair.
Directions refer to rows, not to the same column: “exactly one row north of him was a woman” = the person in the row directly above is a woman, in any column.
“An armchair was somewhere in his row” = an armchair is on one of the squares of his row, in any area; the same goes for columns, and “somewhere in his area” = on a square of the area he was in. “Somebody else in his area was beside the cabinet” = another person in his area was directly beside it.
The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

Alfonso (Beth's husband): He was alone in his area. An armchair was somewhere in his row.
Beth (Alfonso's wife): She was beside a bench. She was alone in her area.
Celine (Donnie's wife): The beehive was somewhere in her area.
Donnie (Celine's husband): The beehive was somewhere in his area. A barrel was somewhere in his column.
Eustace (Faline's husband): He was alone in his area. He was on the Terrace.
Faline (Eustace's wife): The birdcage was somewhere in her column.
Geraldine (Holland's wife): The cabinet was somewhere in her area.
Holland (Geraldine's husband): Exactly one row north of him was a woman. The anchor was somewhere in his column.
Ilyas (Joyce's husband): He was alone in his area.
Joyce (Ilyas's wife): A chair was somewhere in her area. She was alone in her area.
Kristen (Lewis's wife): There was exactly one other person in her area.
Lewis (Kristen's husband): Somebody else in his area was beside the cabinet. The tiered cake was somewhere in his area.
Matthias (Norma's husband): Somebody else in his area was lying in the hammock. He was sitting.
Norma (Matthias's wife): She was the only woman beside a chair.
Ornella (unmarried): The candelabrum was somewhere in her column.
Vicente (the innkeeper, a widower): The victim. He was found in the Wine Cellar, beside a barrel – alone with the murderer.

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