Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask Puzzle 079: The Shopkeepers Hints and Answer

Puzzle 079 is The Shopkeepers, a 45-picarat Draw Line puzzle at the City Monument in Monte d'Or, during Chapter 5. Murphy, the accountant for Dalston and the Ledores, gives it to Professor Layton at night, when your objective reads "Go to the Scorpion Casino!". Five people, A to E, each run one of five businesses: a baker's, a cake shop, a bookshop, a grocer's and a café. Each of them says one thing about who works near, visits or never runs which business, and you have to work out who runs which. You answer by drawing a line from each person to their business on the touch screen. The story needs this puzzle: you can't go on to the casino until it's solved.

Video: The Shopkeepers solved. It shows the answer, so skip it if you only want the hints.

This page covers story Puzzle 079 in Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask on Nintendo 3DS (US and UK English), using the North American text. If you're after Daily Puzzle 079 or Puzzle 79 from another Layton game, see Wrong Puzzle 079? below.

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask Puzzle 079 The Shopkeepers: on the top, five customers in a café with a pipe along the ceiling, a shelf of jars and books, an alarm clock on a small shelf, lit windows, a green chalkboard menu and yellow chairs; A has long brown hair and a dark grey cap and holds a cup, B has a grey-green bob and sits side-on with a cup, C has rounded dark green hair and a yellow top and holds a cup, D is a standing man with a big brown quiff and a white jacket over red, and E has curly greenish hair and black glasses and holds a cup. Below, a wooden board with the five heads in a row, each with a small green dot under it, and a second row of five green dots above a loaf of bread, a green book, a coffee cup, a strawberry cake and a red apple — Illustration of the five customers on the top screen and the board you draw on, with the five heads above the five businesses.

What Puzzle 079 is

Puzzle 079 at a glance
Name	The Shopkeepers
Type	Draw Line (match each person to a business)
Picarats	45
Location	City Monument, Monte d'Or
Chapter	Chapter 5
Given by	Murphy, the accountant for Dalston and the Ledores
When it's there	At night in Chapter 5, once your objective reads "Go to the Scorpion Casino!"
Needed for the story	Yes
Reward	None
Previous puzzle number	Puzzle 078, Three Clowns (Merchant District)
Next puzzle number	Puzzle 080, Sharing the Burden 2 (Dromedary Lobby)

The question reads: "A, B, C, D, and E run a baker's, a cake shop, a bookshop, a grocer's, and a café. Which person runs which business?" Then each of the five speaks:

A: "C and I both work close to the baker's and the cake shop."
B: "C and I haven't dropped by the café for ages!"
C: "D and I never bake bread. Neither A nor B run the bookshop."
D: "E and I often visit the café and the grocer's."
E: "C and I both work near the grocer's."

The objective bar at the top of the touch screen says "What do A, B, C, D & E do?" On the touch screen, the five heads A to E run along the top, in the same order as on the top screen, each with a small dot under it. Along the bottom are five more dots, each above a business: a loaf of bread for the baker's, a book for the bookshop, a coffee cup for the café, a strawberry cake for the cake shop and an apple for the grocer's. You answer by drawing a line from each person's dot to the dot of the business they run. Each person runs exactly one business, and no two people run the same one.

Puzzle names

Puzzle 079 names
Version	Puzzle name
North America	The Shopkeepers
UK	The Shopkeepers
Japanese	うちのお店は (Uchi no O-mise wa, "our shop is...")

The UK version uses the same name. Its text calls the cake shop a patisserie, and the UK wording of Hint 1 is slightly different. The people, the statements and the answer are the same.

Wrong Puzzle 079?

Daily Puzzle 079 is Train 01, from the Trains and Train Spotters set.
Puzzle 79 in another Layton game is a different puzzle. If yours isn't about five people and a baker's, a cake shop, a bookshop, a grocer's and a café, you're in the wrong game.

Where you get it

Puzzle 079 comes in Chapter 5, after night has fallen. Once you've followed the officer to Carnival Square and your objective reads "Go to the Scorpion Casino!", Murphy is at the City Monument, the small square with the stone monument on a patch of grass. He's on the street to the left of the monument, fretting to himself: "Oh no, oh no... How could this happen? What can I do? Are my shoes untied?" Emmy suggests, "Maybe we should just move on, Professor." Layton answers, "Let's just see if we can help out here." Murphy introduces himself ("I'm the accountant for Dalston and the Ledores."), and the puzzle starts when he says, "Look at this!"

You can't skip him. If you try to leave the City Monument before speaking to him, Emmy stops you: "I'm not sure we'll be able to get inside the casino without speaking to that man. Let's see what he has to say." Layton answers, "Agreed, Emmy." Solving the puzzle is what lets the story go on toward the casino.

The City Monument at night in Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask: a stone monument on a lawn in the middle, arcades with statues and a lit neon sign on the left, a blue and white checked banner in the distance and a brick building on the right. A gold ring with the name plate Murphy, Puzzle 079 marks a spot on the street left of the monument, and four hint coin spots are numbered 1 at the pointing-hand sign on the far left, 2 at the top of the monument, 3 at the door at the back on the right and 4 at the head of the statue on the left — Illustration of the City Monument at night. The gold ring marks where Murphy stands, and the numbers mark the four hint coins in the list below.

The City Monument has four hint coins, all in the normal view.

The pointing-hand sign on the far left.
The top of the monument.
The door at the back on the right.
The head of the statue on the left.

Each coin can be collected only once. These are the same four coins as on your Chapter 1 visit for Puzzle 011, your Chapter 3 visit for Puzzle 037 and your earlier Chapter 5 visit for Puzzle 066, so if you tapped them then, there's nothing left to pick up here.

Hints, one at a time

These are the game's own hints, word for word from the North American version and in the same order. Open only the next one you need. In the game, Hints 1 to 3 cost one hint coin each and the Super Hint costs two.

Hint 1

If you read carefully, you'll work out which jobs A through E don't do.

For example, according to A, neither A nor C run the baker's or cake shop. Try narrowing it down for each person in the same way.

Hint 2

C comes up quite a lot, doesn't she? Let's start with C, then.

Summing up what A, B, C, and E said, we can work out that C doesn't work at the baker's, cake shop, café, or grocer's.

That just leaves the bookshop, and so the answer for C is clear.

Hint 3

Let's narrow down D's job next. According to C and D, D isn't the baker, café owner, or grocer. We know that C runs the bookshop already, so that means that D must run the cake shop.

And what about E? According to D, he doesn't run the café, nor is he the grocer. What does that leave?

Super Hint

E isn't the café owner or the grocer, and he doesn't run the bookshop or cake shop either. That means he has to be the baker, which just leaves A and B. How can you tell which one runs the café and which one is the grocer?

Oh, didn't B say that she hasn't been to the café in ages? She can't be the one running the café, then! The solution should be clear now.

Answer and full solution

The answer below covers every step, with a picture of the lines to draw and of the solved puzzle. Open it when you're ready.

Show the answer

Answer: A runs the café, B the grocer's, C the bookshop, D the cake shop and E the baker's. On the touch screen, draw a line from A to the coffee cup, from B to the apple, from C to the book, from D to the cake and from E to the bread, then submit.

Who runs which business
Person	Business	Picture on the touch screen
A	Café	Coffee cup (middle)
B	Grocer's	Apple (far right)
C	Bookshop	Book (second from left)
D	Cake shop	Cake (second from right)
E	Baker's	Bread (far left)

Step by step:

Turn every statement into "doesn't run". If you work close to a shop, visit it or haven't been there for ages, you don't run it. A's line rules out the baker's and the cake shop for A and C. B's rules out the café for B and C. C's rules out the baker's for C and D, and the bookshop for A and B. D's rules out the café and the grocer's for D and E. E's rules out the grocer's for C and E.
C runs the bookshop. C isn't the baker (A and C both rule it out), the cake shop (A), the café (B) or the grocer's (E). Only the bookshop is left.
D runs the cake shop. D isn't the baker (C), the café or the grocer's (D's own line), and the bookshop is C's. Only the cake shop is left.
E runs the baker's. E isn't the café or the grocer's (D), and the bookshop and cake shop are taken. Only the baker's is left.
B runs the grocer's and A the café. The café and the grocer's are left for A and B, and B hasn't dropped by the café for ages, so B isn't the café owner. B runs the grocer's and A runs the café.

The touch screen with five orange lines drawn: from the first head, A, to the coffee cup; from B to the red apple; from C to the green book; from D straight down to the strawberry cake; and from E to the loaf of bread — Illustration of how to enter the answer: one line from each person to their business.

The game confirms it: "A runs the café, B the grocer's, C the bookshop, D the cake shop, and E the baker's. By paying close attention, you can rule out which jobs they don't do."

The top screen after the puzzle is solved: the café is empty except for A, the person with long brown hair and a dark grey cap, standing by a table with a cup and saucer in hand, with the shelf, the alarm clock, the chalkboard menu, the counter and the yellow chairs around — Illustration of the top screen after a correct answer: A alone in the café.

If your answer keeps failing:

You read "work close to" or "visit" as a clue that someone runs that shop. It's the other way round: anyone who works near a shop or visits it doesn't run it.
You gave the café to B. B says, "C and I haven't dropped by the café for ages!", so B can't be the café owner.
You mixed up the pictures. From left to right, the bottom row is bread (baker's), book (bookshop), coffee cup (café), cake (cake shop) and apple (grocer's). It isn't in the same order as the question's list.
You left someone without a line. All five pairs have to be drawn.

Picarats, hints and hint coins

The Shopkeepers shows 45 picarats when it starts. The puzzle can award 45, 40 or 35 picarats. Wrong answers may reduce the picarat value. A wrong answer gets "Too bad. Try taking notes for each person." If you leave the puzzle without solving it, Murphy says, "You can't understand my critical information unless you have a basic understanding of accountancy!" Talk to him again and he says, "Not everyone has a head for numbers, so I've set up this example with little pictures. Please solve it." before the puzzle starts again.

Hints cost hint coins, not picarats. Hints 1 to 3 cost one hint coin each and the Super Hint costs two, five in total. The City Monument's four coins cover Hints 1 to 3 but not the Super Hint, and only if you didn't already collect them on an earlier visit. Or use the free hints on this page and save your coins.

What it unlocks

No item or minigame. Solving it adds the journal entry "Murphy Blocks the Way" and lets the story go on toward the Scorpion Casino. The puzzle's picarats still go to your total, and it counts toward the puzzles you've solved.

Versions

Nintendo 3DS family: this page covers the 3DS game. You draw the lines on the touch screen with the stylus.
US and UK English versions: the puzzle is the same in the US and UK English versions: same name, same statements and the same answer. The UK text calls the cake shop a patisserie, as described under Puzzle names.

The scene around the puzzle

Before the puzzle, Murphy finally catches up with the Professor: "PROFESSOR?! Professor Layton?! Oh, am I glad to see you! I've been looking all over town for you! It is you, right?" He wants to share some background on Monte d'Or first: "The city was founded by Henry Ledore, but a big part of its expansion came from his competition with Alphonse Dalston." Only then does he add, "Hi. My name is Murphy, by the way. Sorry."

Once the puzzle is solved, Murphy asks, "Now you understand the complexity and beauty of our local economy, yes?" He explains, "This spot we're standing on was just a small desert oasis. The town kind of begins here." Layton replies, "Yes, I can see that it's a central point of the whole city." Murphy then lets slip how well Mr. Ledore is doing since Dalston's arrest: "See, without competition from Mr. Dalston, Mr. Ledore can just kick back and still make a fortune!" When Layton asks, "Isn't that information confidential?", Murphy panics: "Oh no. Oh no! I've done it again!" Emmy sums it up: "Professor, it seems that Mr. Ledore has the motive and the opportunity." Layton agrees: "It certainly does, Emmy."

Talk to him again and he's still lost in his numbers: "...Adjusted profits, year over year, minus shareholder dividends, carry the two... It's... It's just mind blowing! Financially speaking." Emmy's verdict: "Yes, it sounds very exciting...for some."

FAQ

Where is the answer to Puzzle 079?

It's in the Answer and full solution section above, hidden until you open it. If you only want a push, open the hints one at a time first.

What is Puzzle 079 called?

The Shopkeepers, in both the North American and UK English versions. In Japanese it's うちのお店は.

Where is Puzzle 079?

At the City Monument in Monte d'Or, at night in Chapter 5, once your objective reads "Go to the Scorpion Casino!". Talk to Murphy on the street to the left of the monument.

Do I have to solve Puzzle 079?

Yes. You can't leave the City Monument toward the casino until you've spoken to Murphy, and the story goes on only once his puzzle is solved.

Are there hint coins at the City Monument?

Four, all in the normal view: the pointing-hand sign on the far left, the top of the monument, the door at the back on the right and the head of the statue on the left. They're the same coins as on your earlier visits, so they're gone if you collected them then.

How many picarats is Puzzle 079 worth?

It shows 45 picarats when it starts. The puzzle can award 45, 40 or 35 picarats. Wrong answers may reduce the picarat value.

Is Daily Puzzle 079 the same as Puzzle 079?

No. It's a different puzzle, listed under Wrong Puzzle 079?.

More Miracle Mask puzzles

For the rest of the game's puzzles, see the Miracle Mask puzzle index.