You have nine clues and a dead lord. Clue one says Dr. Pryce wasn’t seen at 9:45. Fine. Clue three says he wasn’t seen at 9:30 either. Two ✕s later, the doctor’s row in the Time block has only two squares left, and clue eight is already whispering about which one. That narrowing is the reason people have been doing these on train rides for sixty years.
This one is a classic logic grid: every guest was in exactly one room, holding exactly one object, at exactly one time. Nothing is shared and nothing is left over. The clues never lie, and they’re enough to pin down every pairing without a single guess. The generator that built this puzzle rejected every clue set that needed trial and error.
The case
How the grid works
Each small square crosses one item against another, so the square where Colonel Ashby meets Library asks “was the Colonel in the Library?”
- Tap once for ✕ when a clue rules a pairing out.
- Tap twice for ● when you’re certain two things go together. The rest of that row and column inside the same block fills with faded ✕s for you, because each guest can only be in one room.
- Tap a third time to clear the square. Any faded ✕s that only existed because of it disappear too.
Tap a clue to strike it through once you’ve squeezed everything out of it. Your marks save on this device automatically, so you can close the tab mid-case and come back later.
Stuck?
Try these before you reach for the hint button. Each one is a technique, not a spoiler.
- Work the “one of these two” clues first. “Of A and B, one was X and the other was Y” rules out four pairings and links two guests at once. They do more work than any other clue type here.
- Read the time clues as a ladder. “Exactly fifteen minutes before” means neither guest can be at the ends of the ladder in the wrong direction. The guest seen earlier can’t be at 9:45, and the later one can’t be at 9:00.
- Cross-reference blocks. Once you know Lady Vane held a certain object, everything you know about that object’s time or room now applies to her too. Copy those marks across.
The Check Solution button outlines any mark that contradicts the evidence, including faded ✕s caused by a wrong ●. It counts as a mistake on your final score, so use it when you’re sure, not when you’re curious.
Sources
- Zebra Puzzle — Wikipedia: the 1962 Life International grid puzzle that most modern logic grids descend from.
- Logic puzzle — Wikipedia: background on grid-style deduction puzzles and how they’re solved.
- Logic & Math puzzles — Penny Dell Puzzles: long-running publisher of printed logic problems if you want more on paper.
- Cluedo — Wikipedia: the 1949 board game behind the guests, rooms and objects format.