The rules in one minute
The board is the palace. Every square belongs to a room. The black king is the victim. The white pieces are the suspects, except the white king (you, Inspector Rao) and the white pawns (guards, none tonight).
The killer acts alone. Exactly one white piece moves and gives mate in the number of moves stated. Several suspects can usually manage it. That is the point.
The witnesses. “X never left the Library”: every square X passed through or landed on is in the Library. “Nobody set foot in the Stepwell”: no suspect passed through or landed on it. “Somebody went through the Kitchens”: the killer crossed it or landed there. The square a suspect stood on before the murder never counts, and knights only count their landing square.
Your verdict. Who gave mate, the room where the mating move landed, and how: back-rank mate, smothered mate, queen's kiss (the queen mates from a square touching the king), or a mate named after the piece.
00 The Free Sample
The victim: Mr Horace Tibbs, gramophone salesman from Birmingham. Mr Tibbs arrived with the rain and three crates of records. At dinner he gave every guest a free sample, one song each, and promised the rest of the collection to anyone who signed on the dotted line. Nobody signed. By ten he was playing the same waltz for the fourth time. By eleven he was dead in the Durbar Hall, one hand still on the crank.
Black: Mr Tibbs (king), his assistant (bishop), and three crates of records nobody ordered (pawns).
Try your theories on the board: tap a piece, then a square. You play both sides. There is no engine.
The palace
The suspects
- 1 · Lady Devika, the Raja's sister
Queen, c4, Durbar Hall - 2 · Captain Arjun, head of the palace guard
Rook, a6, Monsoon Courtyard - 3 · Dr Edmund Hale, the British physician
Bishop, d8, Mirror Hall - 4 · Mr Rustom Irani, a horse dealer from Bombay
Knight, d4, Durbar Hall - The victim
Mr Horace Tibbs, gramophone salesman from Birmingham. King, a3, Durbar Hall - You, Inspector Rao
King, c8, Library. Not a suspect, never moves.
The testimonies
Nobody set foot in the Durbar Hall.I was up the ladder all evening polishing crystals. From up there, you notice feet.
Somebody went through the Monsoon Courtyard.There are fresh footprints in the gravel, and for once they are not the Inspector's.
Mr Irani never left the Durbar Hall.He spent the whole evening haggling with Mr Tibbs over a crate of records. He was losing.
Rao's notebook: the gramophone is still going. Nobody has the heart to stop it. Or the courage.
Your verdict
Who gave mate?
Where did the mating move land?
How?
Case closed.
Lady Devika, in the Monsoon Courtyard, with a queen's mate. That was the easiest case in the house. The book has forty more, up to mate in three with a lying witness.
See Murder Mate: India October 2026The solution
Four guests can give mate in one. The testimonies clear them one at a time.
Captain Arjun has only Rxa4#, and a4 is in the Durbar Hall, where nobody set foot.
Dr Hale has only Be7#, which never leaves the Mirror Hall. Then nobody would have gone through the Courtyard.
Mr Irani could play Nb5# or Nc2#, but both take him out of the Durbar Hall, and he never left it.
That leaves Lady Devika, who had two ways to do it. Qxa4# crosses the Durbar Hall, so it is ruled out. Qc5# lands in the Monsoon Courtyard. The queen does not touch the king from c5, so it is not a kiss: it is a plain Queen's mate.
40 more cases in Murder Mate: India
Udaipur, 1932. Four levels, from your first mate to mate in three with a lying witness. A QR code on every case sets the board up on your phone. Paperback, October 2026.
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