week 2 - trial

[productions]

week two trial



[At 9 AM precisely, the old grandfather clock chimes once again, and the doors to the drawing room are opened. They will remain open until everyone has come inside, after which they will shut behind them. It is not possible to leave on your own, although perhaps if you have a specific purpose the hostess will allow you to go, as long as you are accompanied by a partner.

The room is set up comfortably, with several tables by the fireplace set out to assist with the trial. The Hostess will also remain in a seat near the fireplace, next to the scales on the mantle. At lunch, the doors will open to bring in a large meal on an automatically rolling buffet, and at 3 PM, tea and finger sandwiches will be served. You'll be able to enjoy the trial in comfort, of course, but the information cards set out on tables will not allow you to forget your true purpose here.

At 7 PM, the trial will adjourn for the day. Players will be escorted by the Hostess to the ballroom, where dinner and wine will be served until 10 PM, at which point players will be required to return to their wings in groups with their wingmates and will be locked in their bedrooms until 8:30 AM the following morning.]

victim



suspects



Character Statuses
Setting
Manor Rules
Cheat Sheet
Voting

Comments

[humanic]

A couple of problems.

One - I don't think Minatsuki was actually killed with a pitchfork. Cleaning it aside, since Ukraine's the only one that can attest to how easy it is to wash, it doesn't explain all of the stab wounds. She could have made them herself to hide the pitchfork marks, but then we're back to the problem as to how she got away without getting any blood on her or the bruises on her neck.

Two...okay, actually I don't have a second one. We can't say for sure she wouldn't kill someone for immunity or that she wasn't lying about her secret, so motivation doesn't come into play here. But that one is still a pretty big one. It doesn't make her less suspicious than you or Annie, since all of you would have equal opportunities to kill Minatsuki, but it doesn't make her more either.

[speakveryclearly]

...I guess there are some flaws in the theory the pitchfork was the weapon. Still, the sapphire placement makes her more suspicious than Leonhardt.

[humanic]

I dunno about that. If you can climb up to one window, you can probably climb to another.

Susan brought up a theory that I think might explain everything - the killer poisoned Minatsuki, which caused her to become disoriented enough that when she tried attacking them, she only wound up hurting herself. It could also explain the vomit and the eye dilation, and why our killer got away cleanly - they didn't need to wound her at all.

The question is...how do we prove who did it?

[speakveryclearly]

...

We don't. There's no fingerprinting kit and there are too many bottles of poison to check for prints in the time we have anyway.

[humanic]

There's got to be some way.

Beat said he couldn't figure out if any of the poison had been used, which means none of them was significantly emptier than the rest. Probably. I mean, it's Beat, but whatever, let's assume he's secretly a genius or at least not a total moron. So if they did poison her, they probably didn't make her drink it or anything like that.

[vytis]

They could have stabbed her with it, I suppose?

[humanic]

Yeah, Susan suggested that too, but it doesn't help us narrow it down to anyone. I guess we can have Gundam's hamsters sniff people's knives and see which has been poisoned? Is that even a thing people can do?

[inthebones]

If they've washed off the blood, the poison would have washed off as well. If it were that simple, the hamsters - or Kanaya - could have sniffed it out long ago.

What about inhalation? Inhalation of a powder? There would be respiratory damage instead of gastrointestinal. Minatsuki liked primroses - the killer could have known this and it wouldn't matter at all who was in the garden first. Only Minatsuki would be likely to pick them and sniff them.

[humanic]

What powder? Did Beat say the pesticide was in powder form? Because otherwise I don't know how they would have gotten hold of a poisonous powder.

[inthebones]

I don't know! Surely powdered poisons exist in this time! You can powder anything if you have half a mind to; I've powdered collagen in science lectures.

[humanic]

Yeah, but not in the murder mansion! Or at least I hope not!

Uggggh, I don't know. We don't have any time left. Who are you voting for?

[speakveryclearly]

Are we going to have to enact science again...? --the time is definitely prohibitively short for that.

[humanic]

We don't have time for it.

I think we're just going to have to guess.

[tsarcasm]

Stiles has a point about the window thing. I was thinking about this when I was investigating. The culprit could have left the dirt on the Sapphire bathroom window and climbed in to throw suspicion on someone living there. After all, it's not like you need a key to get out, only to get in though the door.

[humanic]

Yeah, that's been bugging me too. Speed or not, it shouldn't take that long to wipe dirt off a window sill, so unless our killer didn't notice it or couldn't wipe it away for some reason....

Still, it'd be pretty risky having someone in the Sapphire wing catch you coming out of the bathroom in a wing you didn't live in.

[inthebones]

Less risky than waiting for Minatsuki to stand under a window and leaping out of it?! How are you even making these distinctions?!

Are the windows able to be opened from outside? Anastasia, you checked them, didn't you?

[humanic]

Well yeah, because if you lived in Sapphire or Opal and someone tried to come into the bathroom while you were waiting, you could just clear out without anyone even thinking you were up to something! No harm, no foul! Sure, you wouldn't have been able to kill her, but you wouldn't be caught doing anything weird either!

Whereas if you left a bathroom that didn't belong to you after someone was already murdered and someone saw you doing it, that would pretty much put you right on the executed list!

[tsarcasm]

... Wait. Could someone have climbed up to the Sapphire ledge, knocked dirt off their shoes there to divert suspicion, then climbed back down to go into Opal, which they could have had previously unlocked the window due to having regular access...?

[ Yes, she's aware this points to a certain suspect, but no, she won't say it directly. ]

[humanic]

...Opal's above Sapphire.

But that could still work.

[tsarcasm]

Up, down -- yeah, my bad. Doesn't mean it still couldn't have happened.

Lithuania didn't find any dirt around the Opal wing, right...

[humanic]

No, he didn't. And if they climbed up, they couldn't have cleaned the dirt off.

That just leaves one person though. To execute someone based off of such flimsy evidence....

[inthebones]

Opal is above Sapphire. Do you mean they continued climbing up?

[tsarcasm]

Yeah, okay, I mixed them up, but that is absolutely what I meant. If they could get up one story who's to say they couldn't go another?

[inthebones]

But that's not evidence of anything! It's just a theory...! What else sets Annie apart from the others?

[tsarcasm]

Nothing... all three are strong enough to possibly overpower minatsuki or climb a wall. There's only the question of why the Sapphire residents would knowingly leave dirt on their own bathroom sill -- and I say knowingly because it definitely looks like it was stamped off on purpose.