Table Company

The Grand Hotel · New Year's Eve 1912 · twelve tables in seven rooms · Difficulty: Chief 10 · 16×16

New Year’s Eve 1912 in the restaurant of the Grand Hotel. Valentina, the proprietress, has filled every room: family, opera company, press and regulars. Twelve tables stand in seven rooms, and everyone sat down at one. At midnight the lights were dimmed for the toast – when they came back on, Valentina lay slumped over her table in the Great Hall, and only one person had sat there with her.

Rules

1. Everyone sat at a table. Company means the table, not the room: whatever someone says about their company is true of the people at their own table. The victim was alone with the murderer at her table, just the two of them.
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 tables, the piano, the harp, the double bass, the pillars, the palms, the fountain, the statue, the champagne towers, the mirrors, the paintings, the counter…) cannot be occupied; the chairs, the armchairs, the benches, the stools, the sofas and the deckchairs can. Every seat stands directly beside one table: whoever sits on it sits at that table. “A chair” is one of the plain chairs: an armchair is not a chair, a stool is not a chair, and a deckchair is not a chair.
4. Directions refer to rows, not to the same column: “exactly one row north of her was a man” = the person in the row directly above is a man, in any column.
5. “An armchair was somewhere in her column” = an armchair is on one of the squares of her column, in any area; the same goes for rows. “She was the only woman beside a palm” counts everybody on the board, not only the people at her table.

Statements

• Alfonso (Valentina's brother-in-law): He was in the first row.
• Beth (Valentina's niece): She was sitting in an armchair.
• Carson (Valentina's nephew): He was beside a mirror.
• Donatella (soprano): She was sitting in a deckchair.
• Eros (tenor): He was the only man beside a champagne tower.
• Fédra (mezzo-soprano): There was exactly one other person at her table, and that person was sitting in a chair. An armchair was somewhere in her row.
• Guy (conductor): He was beside a stool. There was another man at his table.
• Holland (reporter): An armchair was somewhere in his column.
• Izolda (reporter): She was the only woman beside a palm.
• Jill (reporter): There was a member of the family at her table. An armchair was somewhere in her column.
• Kalvin (banker): There was exactly one other person at his table. There was another regular at his table.
• Leona (poet): She was beside a chair that nobody was sitting in.
• Matthias (doctor): He was the only man beside a painting.
• Norma (actress): Exactly one row north of her was a man. She was the only woman beside a pillar.
• Orlando (lawyer): He was not sitting in an armchair. There was exactly one other person at his table.
• Valentina (the proprietress): The victim. She was found in the Great Hall, in a chair – alone with the murderer at her table.

← Cases