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

[respecting]

Yeah. Though, if we can figure out when he died, that'll do something for it! And I think I got a hint... when we was on the crime scene, that blood pooled round the body was still sticky. So how long's it take blood to dry?

[inthebones]

Did he have hemophilia?

[Har har and so on and so forth.]

It depends on the volume of blood, of course. A few smears would dry within a half hour or so. Large puddles... I think they could conceivably last much longer. Tens of hours, even.

[respecting]

Oh. It covered a lot of the elevator, so I guess that won't help much.

[inthebones]

...Well. Stiles has pointed out something else of note - if the body was quite cold, it could have happened eight or nine hours prior.

Would you say it was about room temperature?

[respecting]

I dunno, that makes it sound kinda cozy. This body was cold, yo!

[inthebones]

...Well, it wouldn't be much colder than anything else in the elevator shaft. But I'll take that to mean it had already cooled as much as it was going to.

[respecting]

[well, she didn't say which room.]

Yeah, tha's what I think.

[humanic]

[so, so dryly]

I actually looked this up in the library after last week's fiasco. Who knew it'd come in handy again this fast? Anyway, a drop takes about twenty minutes. A pool that big with more of it constantly leaking out of the body? Ten hours or more sounds about right.

I also looked up how long it'd take for a body to cool - again, after last week's fiasco and all - and it's a little more exact for that. The body temp goes down around 1.5 degrees Celsius per hour, which means absolutely nothing to me as someone who lives in one of the very few countries in the world that doesn't use the metric system because America hates its students, but evidently that translates to like eight to twelve hours or so.

[inthebones]

I don't see how you manage to find all the useful books while I only ever manage to lay eyes on ones with titles like 'The Mysterious Incident With the Pickled Herring'.

In any case, it seems he must have been dead for quite some time, then. Eight to twelve hours - just after midnight, then?

[humanic]

Experience. Lots of experience in reading useless, and sometimes disturbing sexual in a not-fun-oh-god-my-eyes way, material in order to find something that might actually possibly be helpful one day.

...didn't you say you noticed him still alive around then?

[inthebones]

Yes.

I wish they wouldn't stay up so late, but I didn't want to go to bed with any of the people on the lists still wandering around. He went to his room after stopping in the kitchen around midnight, after which I retired as well.

...It's possible he left it again, of course.

[humanic]

Okay. Just making sure there wasn't anyone else...with him then.

What, for a two AM snack? Or a post-midnight murder run? I dunno if I buy into the whole self-defense theory yet, but you'd have to be a special kind of suicidal to go running around at ideal-murder-o'clock for no reason even if you aren't deadweight.

[inthebones]

...Perhaps he was very conscientious about dirty plates and wanted to return his as soon as he was finished.

[stiles not having seen dave's room he probably wouldn't find that too funny]

If we assume that Dave was the aggressor, he would have a reason to be wandering about. If we believe that he was always the intended victim, the murderer should have just entered his room while he was asleep and stabbed him in bed. There wouldn't be an ounce of evidence to work off.

[humanic]

[Stiles' room is also a pigsty stop the prejudice okay]

Maybe our showrunners decided being stabbed in bed would be way too boring and hard a mystery to solve and refused to hand over the tools until the killer came up with something more exciting.

We did find a little blood in his room though, yeah? So something probably happened in there. Unless he gave himself a papercut and we're looking at a red, no pun intended, herring here.

[inthebones]

The blood on the comic seems to indicate a spray as well. Not a drip from a papercut or a nosebleed.

...What could have happened in his room that would result in so little blood? If they had fought in the room, there would have been more signs of disturbance - and surely he would tried to call for help.

[humanic]

...is there any chance we're looking at chloroform again here? I'm pretty sure Belarus emptied hers, but I don't know about the rest of them.

[souredsweet]

[because they can't have any solid theories without a random wrench being thrown in:]

Ah... one of our potential suspects has the ability to manipulate ice. Puddles might have to be taken into consideration, but if not, would it be conceivable for such an ability to be used in order to manipulate the time of death by making it appear as though Mr. Strider was dead for much longer than he truly was? I would think that eight to twelve hours would leave the blood in a drier state, for example, but I have heard that it was still tacky to the touch.

[herpreciousrival]

I hardly think the elevator shaft is the warmest place in the house.

[souredsweet]

Indeed, and the cellar is chilly as well. [a small, apologetic nod.]

I would not wish to falsely implicate you, after all; but any small discrepancy ought to be brought to light. I apologize for putting additional stress upon your shoulders should you be cleared. ...It is also possible, I suppose, that our attacker left the body in the elevator shaft purposely with the same intent. Surely even without aid, it would cool faster there.

[herpreciousrival]

[Siren nods apologetically back.] I apologize for being so flippant. You're only trying to help. [Sigh.]

It's just stressful thinking that it's simpler for people to pin these things on my abilities when they could also be achieved through more natural means by anyone.

[souredsweet]

There is no need to apologize. I understand how stressful the situation is... [having just been a suspect the week prior and all. IT'S NOT FUN, clearly they need to start a commiseration club.]

Mm, and I would not think that anyone would be foolish enough to use a method that could implicate them through their card. Suspecting the same is what lead us to unjustly executing Miss Ukraine the last week. I only intended for it to be one piece to take into consideration - no one should take it as the correct answer without further corresponding evidence.

[herpreciousrival]

[She would join that club in a heartbeat.]

Stressful barely begins to describe it. [Is it lunch time yet? Eating is a healthy way to deal with all stress isn't it?]

I appreciate your dedication to unearthing the true culprit Miss Nagumo. I only hope that you are able to do so as swiftly and accurately as you are able.

[souredsweet]

[stress eating can be the national pastime of Innocent Suspects Island.]

Thank you, Miss Siren. I hope that this ordeal will soon be over and that we do not have a repeat of the previous week. [Kaoru offers a respectful bow!] For what it is worth, your cooperation thus far is surely appreciated by all. With luck, your innocence will have you exonerated shortly.

[humanic]

Huh...yeah, that's definitely possible. So he could have actually been killed later than we think he was.

...but what'd be the point? She doesn't have an alibi from nine PM Tuesday until 8:30 AM Wednesday, and that's when Dave had to have been killed if we take his cold body at face value. You'd think if she wanted to alter the temperature, she'd make it so that it seemed like he'd been killed while she did have an absolute alibi.

[souredsweet]

That is certainly true, though I would think that having a perfect alibi during those hours would only make one look more suspicious.

But I do believe that at this point, with the temperature of the elevator shaft taken into consideration, this would be a speculation best followed if all else fails.