WEEK 3 - TRIAL

[productions]

week three 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

[pasodoble]

I'm sure everyone here will do their best to catch the real murderer so let's have faith, hm?

[throe]

The culprit would have to go through a lot of work to push him down the shaft, stab him, and manage to make it back up considering the elevator doesn't move. Unless this is another case like last week, only one person on the suspect list could really pull that off.

[ She motions toward Beat, wether he's paying attention or not. ]

Unless he was stabbed first, pushed second, but there would be blood around the elevator entrance and not just on his desk.

Notes on the Movement of the Victim

[inthebones]

Dave Strider was still alive Tuesday night when I retired for bed. After entering the kitchen a little before midnight, he returned to his room. Beginning Wednesday morning, his whereabouts were unable to be ascertained and at 10:30, I discovered that he was missing from his room.

He was not normally an early riser.

[throe]

But it's clear he's been stabbed, wether it's from the katana or not. What other reason would there be to explain it?

[inthebones]

I'll trust you two to handle it without me. Be careful not to damage the body any more than it already has been.

[Susan had sacrificed enough cloaks for the sake of murder mysteries already.]

/2

[terriblesister]

I meant it's unnecessary, so there's got to be a reason! Would you just stab up a dead...

[terriblesister]

[...oh. Right. You probably would, wouldn't you.]

[inthebones]

I suppose there could be a secret passage absolutely drenched with blood that we don't know about. But that doesn't seem like a very satisfactory solution.

[throe]

The area could always be searched again for evidence of blood outside the shaft, but if was stabbed first, then pushed, the killer would have to be extremely fast to not get blood anywhere except the shaft.

[terriblesister]

[...THAT WAS NOT AN IMAGE SHE NEEDED TO HEAR ABOUT]

P-please don't joke about that...

[inthebones]

Personally, I would have taken the map.

But I think we can rule out the storage compartment. They wouldn't have left behind the murder weapon if they could have concealed it easily. A gonne wouldn't be useful without ammunition and vice-versa, and I don't see what a murderer would need with the other kits - unless they took it just for the future.

[throe]

[ Rapture just waves her hand through the air, tossing off the comment as if it's nothing to be concerned about. Her lips do curl into a smile though. ]

Think of it this way: the culprit pushes the victim — wether down the shaft or down the stairs — maybe they hear signs that the victim isn't dead. Trying to make sounds to catch someone's attention or just normal sounds of pain. The culprit realizes the victim isn't dead, so he has to finish him off somehow. For his efforts, they have been given two items: a katana and something else.

The culprit, realizing that if the victim is alive it means the chance of getting caught and losing their bonus prize, uses the katana to finish the job. Maybe they've thrown him down the elevator so they climb into it to stab him, maybe they pull him from the stairs and stab him, before pushing him into the shaft. Perhaps they discarded the katana because they knew it would have been impossible to hide?

[terriblesister]

You wouldn't need the key though.

It could have been chloroform if they've handed theirs over already. No-one on the list is Popular or Immune, so we can rule the refilling ones out. Poison wouldn't make sense given the detection kit this week...

...of course, we don't know anything about the box...

[inthebones]

The injuries described seem consistent with a fairly long fall. Not just one or two flights.

I think it's worth seeing if there's anything on the rooftop.

[vytis]

The storage compartment might still be useful depending on how large it is. If you could hide a bloody outfit in there, then it wouldn't be found when we search the rooms.

[terriblesister]

...Multiple times though?

If he was injured and... helpless [CAN WE MENTION HOW DISTRESSING THIS CONVERSATION IS RIGHT NOW] he'd be... easy to finish off...

[throe]

Would it have been better to let him lie there in misery, trapped in a small box with no one to hear his anguished cries?

[inthebones]

Unless they took one of the refilling chloroform bottles. We should ask our Populars if they kept a close watch on their during the week.

I think it's unlikely chloroform was involved, though, given the amount of violence required for the deed.

[inthebones]

...True. Perhaps the katana simply didn't fit.

I wonder if the Hostess would be willing to provide details on the potential prizes. I assume she would if someone were planning a murder.

[terriblesister]

It would have explained how he was taken from his room to the elevator silently but... you're probably right.

[vytis]

Would you be willing to tell us how large the hidden bedroom storage compartment is? Would the katana have fit into it, at least?

[humanic]

But even if he was pushed down something else and then stabbed, how did the killer get him into the shaft without getting blood everywhere anyway? I mean, there aren't that many high enough areas in this place that he could fall from, and none of them are close enough to an elevator door that his body wouldn't drip blood everywhere.

[terriblesister]

[RAPTURE...

Yuzu shivers slightly.]

I-It's not- I meant they could have killed him quickly! He was stabbed a lot wasn't he! It's too much!

[throe]

Maybe he was pushed down the stairs, then dragged to the elevator entrance, stabbed, then pushed once again?

I do have to agree with the blood though... unless the culprit managed to stab him quickly before dropping him into the shaft. There was even blood in his room and that weird picture he drew, but not anywhere else.

We could always manage to try and find any traces of blood that might have seeped over onto the walls of the shaft.

Body

[vytis]

[Lithuania and Kanaya have brought in Dave's body for examination, if anyone wishes to do so.]