This is a classic deduction in its purest form. Your pleasure does not depend on a single brilliant track, but on seeing how a well-ridden board turns many small certainties into a single inevitable response.
Who has the fish?
Riddle statement
There are five houses in a row, each one a different color. A person of different nationality lives in each house. Each one drinks a different drink, smokes a different brand and has a different pet.
With these clues, find out who has the fish:
- The British man lives in the red house.
- The Swede has a dog.
- The Dane drinks tea.
- The green house is immediately to the left of the white one.
- In the green house we drink coffee.
- Who smokes Pall Mall raises birds.
- Dunhill is smoked in the yellow house.
- Milk is drunk at the headquarters.
- The Norwegian lives in the first house.
- Who smokes Blends lives next to someone who has cats.
- He who owns horses lives next to he who smokes Dunhill.
- Who smokes BlueMaster drinks beer.
- The German smokes Prince.
- The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
- Whoever smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.
Who has the fish?
Show solution
Solution
Answer: The German has the fish.
Explanation:
This riddle is not solved by intuition, but by orderly deduction. The clean way to approach it is to build a table with five columns—one per house—and five attribute blocks: color, nationality, drink, tobacco and pet.
1. First fixations
Clue 9 says that the Norwegian lives in the first house.
Clue 8 places the milk in the central house, that is, in the third.
By clue 14, the Norwegian lives next to the blue house, so the second house is blue.
2. Colors
Clue 4 says that the green is immediately to the left of the white. Since the second house is already blue, that couple cannot be \(1,2\) or \(2,3\). It also cannot be \(3,4\), because in the third one you drink milk and in the green one you must drink coffee. So the only possibility is:
- house 4: green
- house 5: white
And on clue 5, in house 4 you drink coffee.
Red and yellow remain to be distributed between houses 1 and 3. The red one must be the British one (clue 1). Since the first house is occupied by the Norwegian, the red one cannot be the 1st. Therefore:
- house 3: red, and the British lives in it
- house 1: yellow
Clue 7 then adds that Dunhill is smoked in house 1.
3. Drinks
We already have:
- house 3: milk
- house 4: coffee
Clue 3 says that the Dane drinks tea. Since house 1 belongs to the Norwegian and house 3 to the British, the Dane can only be in house 2 or 5.
4. Neighborhood relations
Clue 11 states that someone who has horses lives next to someone who smokes Dunhill. Since Dunhill is in house 1, the horses have to be in house 2.
Clue 10 says that someone who smokes Blends lives next to someone who has cats. Clue 15 adds that whoever smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.
These two conditions, combined with what has already been established, end up forcing that Blends cannot be in either 1 or 5 and allow the central block of the table to be closed.
5. Tobacco and nationalities
The clue 13 says that German smokes Prince. Clue 12 says that whoever smokes BlueMaster drinks beer. Clue 6 says that who smokes Pall Mall raises birds.
When these three clues are crossed with the colors already set, the drinks placed and the neighborhood restrictions, the only compatible assignment turns out to be this:
- House 1: yellow — Norwegian — water — Dunhill — cats
- House 2: blue — Danish — tea — Blends — horses
- House 3: red — British — milk — Pall Mall — birds
- House 4: green — German — brown — Prince — fish
- House 5: white — Swedish — beer — BlueMaster — dog
The complete table satisfies all the clues and leaves no alternative.
Therefore, the German is the one who has the fish.