Thursday 10 September 2026

How it works

Every witness is either honest or a liar. An honest witness only says true things, and a liar only says false ones, like the knights and knaves in Raymond Smullyan's puzzles. Each of them makes one statement below. Your job is to mark every witness honest or liar so that all the statements hold up together. Exactly one way of doing that works, and you can reach it by reasoning alone: try a guess, follow what it forces, and drop it the moment two statements clash.

The statements

1. The SurveyorThe Night Clerk and the Baker are different kinds.
2. The BellhopThe Baker is a liar, or the Surveyor is, or both.
3. The ButcherExactly one of us is a liar.
4. The Night ClerkThe Butcher and the Bellhop are the same kind.
5. The BakerThe Butcher is a liar.