Deduce #23: The flats — the solution

The Deduce puzzle from September 6, 2026, worked through clue by clue: 6 clues, 3 rounds of crossing off, and no guessing anywhere.

The puzzle

Four people — Hugo, Wes, Jonah and Cleo — and three things to work out about each: their pet, instrument and floor. The clues only ever rule things out.

1. Hugo is the drums player.
2. The drums player is exactly 2 floors after the gerbil owner.
3. The piano player is on a lower floor than Wes.
4. The parrot owner is the banjo player.
5. The cat owner is not the drums player.
6. Jonah is the one on floor 4.

The walkthrough

A round is one pass over the clues. Each round applies what the last one settled; every step below is an elimination the clues force, in the order a solver would take them.

Round 1

Start with every possibility open, and take the clues in order.

Clue 1, “Hugo is the drums player”: drums comes off Wes, Jonah and Cleo. That settles it: Hugo’s instrument is drums.

Clue 2, “The drums player is exactly 2 floors after the gerbil owner”: gerbil comes off Hugo; floor 2 and floor 3 come off Hugo.

Clue 3, “The piano player is on a lower floor than Wes”: piano comes off Wes; floor 2 comes off Wes.

Clue 4, “The parrot owner is the banjo player”: parrot comes off Hugo.

Clue 5, “The cat owner is not the drums player”: cat comes off Hugo. That settles it: Hugo’s pet is dog.

Clue 6, “Jonah is the one on floor 4”: floor 4 comes off Hugo, Wes and Cleo. That settles it: Hugo is on floor 5 and Jonah is on floor 4.

Round 2

Go back over the clues with the new facts in hand.

Dog is Hugo’s, so it comes off Wes, Jonah and Cleo.

floor 5 is Hugo’s, so it comes off Wes and Cleo. That settles it: Wes is on floor 3.

floor 3 is Wes’s, so it comes off Cleo. That settles it: Cleo is on floor 2.

Clue 2, “The drums player is exactly 2 floors after the gerbil owner”: gerbil comes off Jonah and Cleo.

Clue 3, “The piano player is on a lower floor than Wes”: piano comes off Jonah.

Round 3

Go back over the clues with the new facts in hand.

Nobody but Wes can still have gerbil, so Wes’s pet is gerbil.

Nobody but Cleo can still have piano, so Cleo’s instrument is piano.

Clue 4, “The parrot owner is the banjo player”: parrot comes off Cleo; banjo comes off Wes. That settles it: Jonah’s pet is parrot, Cleo’s pet is cat, Wes’s instrument is harp and Jonah’s instrument is banjo.

The answer

Previous: Deduce #22 (Sat, Sep 5) · Next: Deduce #24 (Mon, Sep 7)

About Deduce

Deduce is Noggin’s daily logic grid: four people, three things to work out about each, and clues that never hand you an answer. Every puzzle has exactly one solution and can be finished by crossing off alone. How to play Deduce, or play today’s.