The Toy Shop

An old toy shop in Vienna · Christmas Eve 1895 · the last present was never wrapped · Difficulty: Officer 3 · 7×7

Vienna, Christmas Eve 1895. Snow was falling on the courtyard, the Christmas tree glittered in the middle of the old toy shop, and the last customers crowded in front of the shop window, where two rocking horses stood guard beside a dollhouse. In the back, Veit, the toymaker, was finishing a music box that had been ordered for that very evening. When his wife went to fetch it, she found him dead in the workshop, beside the workbench. Everyone who was in the house gives a statement – find the one who was alone with him.

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 shelves, the workbench, the crate, the fir tree, the toy chest, the counter, the snowman, the Christmas tree, the giant teddy bear and the dollhouse) cannot be occupied; the stool, the sled and the rocking horses can.
3. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

• Adelheid (the toymaker's wife): The workbench was somewhere in her column.
• Benno (his nephew and apprentice): He was in the Storeroom.
• Charlotte (a governess buying presents): She was in the Shop Window.
• Detlef (a baron from the Ringstrasse): He was with Frieda. The dollhouse was somewhere in his row.
• Emmerich (the clockmaker next door): A shelf was somewhere in his area.
• Frieda (a flower girl): She was in a corner of her area. She was not in the Workshop.
• Veit (the toymaker): The victim. He was found in the Workshop, beside the workbench – alone with the murderer.

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