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No. 11943
THIRD DAY : 22nd JUNE
By habit, Kanon and Shannon woke up around 6:00 in the morning. Only one day until the boat would arrive and they could leave. Shannon went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast and opened it with her key, while Kanon went to check if everything was alright. As she opened the kitchen door, she let out a huge scream, which echoed once again through the mansion. A scenery of hell was before her eyes. Half of the kitchen was burnt, and in the middle of it laid another corpse, burnt to a crisp. It seemed almost unidentifiable, but the bits of half-burnt clothes gave it away : This was the corpse of Eva Ushiromiya. Next to her was the fire extinguisher, the one that had been stolen previously, and her own old key in her pocket.
She also had the same two bits of a letter than Krauss, only it was her name on the top half instead of Krauss's.
Kanon ran full-force as soon as he hear the scream. He checked the window and the backdoor. The backdoor was closed and locked, and the window was simply closed. He then checked the fire extinguisher : It was completely full.
Having heard the scream, the others began to rise from their slumbers. Jessica and Natsuhi were the first to arrive. Rosa and Maria soon followed after them.
Natsuhi came up to Kanon, visibly nervous.
“Were the doors locked when you came in ?”
“Yes Madam.”
“So that's it. You were the ones who did it !” she shouted angrily.
She pulled out a knife and threatened them with barely-contained anger.
“You murderers ! You were the only ones who had the keys to the kitchen. No one else than you could have done this !
...In fact it was obvious from the start... it's obvious it would be the servants who would be the murderers ! Give my husband back ! We sheltered you, gave you a job and this is how you thank the Ushiromiya family ? You do not deserve to live. You do... not... After what you did !”
She was shaking heavily, and could not hold her knife straight. Kanon stayed silent, biting his lips. He had nothing to retort, the facts were against them. Shannon was shaking too, and she tried to defend herself with weak conviction.
“We.. we.. we did not. We never left the servant room for the whole night !” She mumbled in her usually unassertive voice.
“Shut it !” Natsuhi was breaking down. Rosa intervened, taking Natsuhi's hands and lowering them.
“Stop.. stop it ! Natsuhi, stop it ! We can't do justice ourselves. I agree that they're likely the culprits, but we can't kill them.” She turned towards the servants.
“Give us the three master keys.” She ordered
They complied.
“Good. Now, we should be safe. All that's left to do is to find somewhere to lock you..” she stopped, looked at the group.
“...Where are the others ? Eva should have been sleeping in her room... Then what about Hideyoshi and George ? Why didn't the others wake up ? We need to find them !” she ran off to room 2 first, and urged the others to check up on the group in room 3.
She found the door to room 2 closed, and used a master key to open it. Inside she found George and Hideyoshi, sleeping soundly. She tried her best to wake them up, but they didn't move in the slightest. She filled a bucket with the water from the bathroom and splashed them with it.
With difficulty, they woke up, and were informed of the situation.
She joined the other group and opened them the door which was also closed. Only Kyrie and Battler were there, and in the same state as Hideyoshi and George were. They woke them up the same way.
They then searched for Rudolf. And found him, in room 1. The door was locked and the chain had been set, the windows also closed and locked. His corpse was face against the ground in the center of the room, a knife in his heart and a cut on his neck, his old key found in his pocket. On the bed was the lost axe, bloodied. The same bits of letter beside him.
Rosa and Natsuhi were confused . They hadn't left the servants for more than 1min, and they weren't the ones holding the master keys, Natsuhi was holding the only other key to her room. It seemed impossible. The place was cleaned up once again, and the corpse moved in the storehouse, Kyrie took upon the key, and Eva's key was given to Hideyoshi.
As the tears of Kyrie, Battler, Hideyoshi and George filled the air, they ate the meager breakfast Kanon and Shannon had prepared.
Natsuhi and Rosa had stopped watching over them since Rudolf's corpse had been discovered. Natsuhi had hidden her knife and no one brought up the incident again. It seemed wholly pointless now.
Rosa however, didn't feel this way. She was riddled with fear, the pattern was clear, “I'm next” she thought. She stood up, taking Maria by the hand.
“I won't let anyone here kill me you hear ? Never !” she was sweating heavily. She ran off to her room along with Maria, locked herself and moved furniture in front of the windows. She was holding the three master keys, her own old key and Maria had hers. She was safe, or so she thought.
The rest of the group didn't react. They understood well the situation, and nothing they could do would change it. It was 9:00. They had finished eating breakfast, so they gathered in the parlor.
The children, wanting to get some peace of mind and escape the horror that had happened, started a pool game. However, as Battler crouched to get the balls, he saw that a letter had been put in the space where the balls fell down. He opened it and read it aloud for everyone. It said simply the following :
“Be wary of your neighbour. As you think yourself safe, he comes in by the backdoor to stab you from behind.
If sloth is a sin, carefreeness is a death flag.
Yours truly, Beatrice, the witch in gold.”
Havoc broke among the group of the parlor. Natsuhi said she was sure Shannon had put the letter there, that she saw her. George stood up for her. Things got heated, Hideyoshi tried to calm things down, but Natsuhi accused him too, and Kyrie joined in the chaos. Soon enough, it ended up as a shouting match, almost everyone pointing fingers at each other. Finally, Natsuhi broke off to her own room and so did Hideyoshi. George and Shannon left for the servant room, since they didn't have the key anymore, George rammed the door to get in. Only Jessica, Battler and Kanon who had stayed silent while things went down stayed in the parlor.
Two hour passed. Mumbled crying could be heard in the corridor. Hideyoshi, Natsuhi, Kyrie and the parlor group came out to check what was the cause of the commotion : it was Maria, all alone.
“Uuu-Uuu. Mama is gone... uUuuu.. She said I needed to wait in the room, that she'd be back soon. UuUUU. Mama... you liar..”
Indeed, she wasn't in her room. They then checked room 1 and found nothing, they went looking for Shannon and George, they were alright and had heard nothing. Finally they tried to open the dining room. It was closed. Natsuhi tried to open it with Krauss's old key, but the lock wouldn't budge.
“What now... I think this lock is broken.”
Hideyoshi and Battler rammed the door to get in. Rosa was sitting on a chair on the windows row, a huge slash on her neck and blood dripping all over. The windows were closed and locked, the other door was also closed and locked.
Her old key was, as expected, in her pocket. This time, Natsuhi took it.
The same two half of a letter were on the table, and beside it there was another letter. It indicated some sort of manoeuver to execute on one of the side-tables of the corridor.
They got out of the room and Hideyoshi tried to execute what was described on the letter, and to the group's surprise, an opening appeared in the eastern wall of the main corridor.
It led downstairs, to some sort of basement. The basement was rather large but empty. It only contained a stone table in the middle, some torches on the walls, a safe on the farthest wall from the entrance, and the same painting of Beatrice that was in the Rokkenjima mansion. The painting seemed to have been hiding the safe, but it was now detached from the wall and put aside.
The safe was open. It had four keyholes, each one with a roman number written on it. It went from 1 to 4. Hideyoshi tried to insert Eva's key in the keyhole marked with II, and it did fit.
Inside the safe, they found the stolen wielding torch, the stolen hacksaw, a knife, a handgun, a bloodied raincoat and a key. The key looked like the others old keys, only it had no number engraved on it. Kanon recognized it as the key Genji had for a suitcase he had brought on the island.
On the table in the center of the basement, they found another letter.
Last edited at 13/06/10(Mon)07:17:58
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