Mr. and Mrs. Astor, Mr. and Mrs. Blake, Mr. and Mrs. Crane, and Mr. and Mrs. Davis were seated around a table as shown:
+---+
| 1 |
+---+ +---+ +---+
| 8 | | 2 |
+---+ +---+
+---+ +---+
| 7 | o | 3 |
+---+ +---+
+---+ +---+
| 6 | | 4 |
+---+ +---+ +---+
| 5 |
+---+1) Mrs. Astor was insulted by Mr. Blake who sat next to her on her left.
2) Mr. Blake was insulted by Mrs. Crane who sat opposite him across the center of the table.
3) Mrs. Crane was insulted by the hostess who was the only person who sat between a married couple.
4) The hostess was insulted by the only person who sat between two men.
Who insulted the hostess?
(In reply to
Agree with Jacki by goFish)
The trick is in minding the gender of the persons mentioned, e.g. "hostess" (F) and "person" (M/F). It's easy to assume that "person" also refers to a woman.
Where X=Husband, x=Wife, h=Hostess, I/i= insulter,
There are two groups defined by the text:
The insulter "I/i" must be between two men:XiX, XIX. There cannot be more than three men together, because that would give too many persons between pairs of men, violating statement 4.
The hostess splits a married couple: Xhx
So we have two possibilities:
XhxXiX+ (Xx or xX)*
XhxXIX+ (xx)*
(*This assume there is no overlap between groups.)
XhxXiXXx and XhxXiXxX both violate statement 4. Therefore the insulter cannot be a woman.
That leaves this: XhxXIXxx.
When you overlay this on the known seating arrangement
_ _ a B _ _ _ c
and it's permutations, and bear in mind that c cannot be h, you get: A d a B C D b c , where d=h and C=I.
Mr. Crane insulted the Hostess, Mrs. Davis, probably because,
1) He was feeling chivalrous toward his wife, who was insulted
2) The potatoes were cold
3) Mrs. Davis was acting like a catty, intoxicated bitch, and he would stand for it no longer.
re: Agree with Jacki
