The Moonshine Still

A village farmstead · distilling day · whoever was in the Still is lying · Difficulty: Inspector 8 · 12×12

Distilling day on Ambrus’s farmstead at the edge of the village: the plum mash has been ready for weeks, and the copper pot in the shed behind the yard has been hot since dawn – without a licence, as every year. Vajk, the excise officer, came to find the still; by noon he lay dead in the Barn, beside the ladder to the hayloft. Eleven people were on the farm: the four hosts, four neighbours and three travellers who had stopped for the day. Nobody admits to having been near the copper pot – so whoever was in the Still lied in every sentence, and exactly three people were there. The liars are only hiding the brandy: the murderer was not in the Still and told the truth. Read every statement both ways, find everyone’s square on the plan and unmask the murderer – alone with Vajk in the Barn.

Rules

1. Whoever was in the Still lied in every sentence; everyone else told the truth.
2. Exactly three people were in the Still.
3. Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
4. “Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. Squares with objects (the copper pot, the barrels, the woodpiles, the plum trees, the planters, the crates, the water troughs, the stove, the wardrobe, the table, the well, the hen coop, the ladder, the cart, the shelf, the scarecrow, the wheelbarrow) cannot be occupied; the chairs, the bed, the benches and the hay bales 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.
5. Directions refer to rows and columns, not to the same line: “exactly one row north of her was a woman” = the person in the row directly above is a woman, in any column.
6. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

• Ambrus (the farmer): He was lying on the bed.
• Boróka (Ambrus’s wife): She was in the House. There was another host in her area.
• Csilla (their daughter): Exactly one row north of her was a woman. A crate was somewhere in her row.
• Dezső (the grandfather): He was the only man beside a woodpile.
• Emese (midwife): She was sitting on a hay bale. She was alone in her area.
• Frigyes (blacksmith): He was in the Orchard.
• Gáspár (cooper): He was beside a barrel. There was another neighbour in his area.
• Hajnalka (shopkeeper): She was beside a bench that nobody was sitting on. A barrel was somewhere in her column.
• Ignác (tinker): He was not in a corner of his area.
• Jolán (market woman): A woodpile was somewhere in her column.
• Kornél (wandering student): There was another traveller in his area.
• Vajk (the excise officer): The victim. He was found in the Barn, beside the ladder – alone with the murderer.

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