Scenedoku

Crime-scene logic cases

The Eve of Vulcanalia

Pompeii · 23 August AD 79 · the money-lender’s tablets are gone · Difficulty: Inspector 7 · 10×10

Pompeii, 23 August AD 79, the Vulcanalia. In the house of two wealthy freedmen brothers the steward has laid on a festive dinner for the town’s merchants; the guests dine reclining on couches in the Roman way. Among them is Vivia, the money-lender, whose wax tablets record every debt in Pompeii. Late in the evening she is found dead, her tablets gone. The debts died with her.

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 table, the fountains, the household shrine, the staircase, the fireplace, the amphora, the pillars, the statues, the hedges, the ladders, the rain basin and the chests) cannot be occupied; the dining couches and the benches can.
  3. Directions refer to rows, not to the same column: “exactly one row north of her was a woman” = a woman was in the next row up, in any column.
  4. “Right beside an area where nobody was” = on a square that touches an empty area directly – left, right, above or below, across the wall.
  5. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

  • Albinus (the steward): The amphora was somewhere in his row.
  • Benigna (the cook): She was beside the fireplace.
  • Caecilia (the lady’s maid): A hedge was somewhere in her row. Exactly one row north of her was a woman.
  • Decimus (the fresco painter): He was alone in his area. A bench was somewhere in his row.
  • Epidius (the wine merchant): There was exactly one other person in his area.
  • Faustina (the priestess of Venus): She was lying on a dining couch.
  • Gaius (the gladiator): He was the only man beside a hedge.
  • Hilaria (the perfume seller): She was right beside an area where nobody was.
  • Iulius (the young poet): He was beside a pillar.
  • Vivia (the money-lender): The victim. She was found beside a chest – alone with the murderer.

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