Love Journal – As Told By An Emotionally Constipated Half-Genius - Chapter 230

Nook’s heart fell. Team B only took thirty minutes to get to this point and Team A was overly comfortable in their little prison cell. He had never seen anyone strolling through the game arena like it was their home. Team A was too cosy and the handcuffs didn’t even hinder them. Team B took every opportunity when avoiding patrol officers to flirt. Nook regretted agreeing to a double date format.

When Team B announced that they were ready to proceed to the next stage, the game master thanked them and called the stagehands and actors to prepare for the third scene with a heavy heart. How could any couple be this good? Were these kids regular university students? This was simply too unbelievable.

“Will you tell me now?” Scarlet asked and Edward grinned. They were seated in the initial office after they escaped the elevator and Edward went through Scarlet’s notes again.

“Let’s put aside the fact that Mr Roger is a cheating sc.u.m and think carefully about the maid’s reply to my questions. Although it wasn’t scripted, the actress handled it rather well. There’s just this one factor that made me very certain that she was the murderer.”

Scarlet thought back carefully. Edward wouldn’t make his guesses without evidence and the writer pushed her feelings aside to think it through.

“Every murderer will have a motive. The one who murdered Mr Roger would probably be the beneficiary after his death or know the beneficiary.”

Edward smiled. He knew that his girlfriend was smart. She was only inexperienced but with him around, it was a joy watching her learn and grow.

Slowly, Scarlet put the pieces together and pried them apart logically.

“As of now, we have three very suspicious people. The daughter has no alibi, the guest wasn’t on the invitation list and the chef’s fingerprints on the wine bottle matched the wine glass indicating that he served it and might have poisoned it. However, I feel that this case would be too simply resolved.”

Edward nodded. Scarlet’s judgement was on point, In fact, it was because the maid’s alibi and support were too flawless that Edward had doubts. “Do you remember what the maid said last? She didn’t actually answer our question about why she was in a relationship with a married man.”

Scarlet frowned. “Regardless, she shouldn’t be in one in the first place! It’s still odd. I can understand if Mrs Roger doesn’t know about the relationship but does Miss Roger really not know about it? I mean, they live under the same roof. Also, why did she start a relationship with Mr Roger? She could easily lose her position if the daughter found out. No, that’s not right. The timing is too coincidental.”

Seeing that Scarlet had finally caught on, Edward grinned. “Right? Her reply to why she became his mistress struck me odd too despite the perfect alibi. She asked if there was any use now that he was dead. Normally if you were someone’s lover or in love with them, you would be saddened by their passing. I highly doubt that an illegitimate mistress has much to gain from the death of her master unless… she does.”

Nook couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Are these students discussing criminal psychology to come to their conclusion? This was ridiculous even if they were on the right track. He didn’t design the game to be played in such a way! It’s almost cheating but he couldn’t say it. All the game master could do was to bite his handkerchief in frustration and hope that they wouldn’t solve the case too easily.

The stagehands were moving as quickly as they could behind the scene but for Nook, it wasn’t fast enough.

“They blanked out our screens,” Alex’s voice crackled over the walkie talkie.

Edward raised a brow and looked at a nearby CCTV. Nook was really not going to let the other team watch the changing of the layout and scenes? Is this for real?

“Do you have any other maps of the new layout?” he asked, hopeful.

Jasper looked at the map and flipped it, shaking his head. “No new layout. However, I have something that might interest you. I have a new map about the later stage. It’s for the prison escape portion.”

With nothing better to do, Edward told him to read the map out for him so that Edward had a better idea of the map. According to Alex, it wasn’t the same side that they were in. He had a hunch that this was what lay on the other side of that elevator door. It was a very nice plan and Edward had to give it to the game master for coming up with such a detailed floor layout.

Scarlet chose to look through her notes again. Now that they had a primary suspect, they had to find out what she used to murder Mr Roger and how she did it. They had to find evidence of the poison somehow. As for the others, they would only need to prove that they were innocent.

Scarlet studied the chef’s story once more. It was very detailed and had many foreshadowing for what they should expect to find in the evening scene. Scarlet wanted to find that secret letter first because it would provide an alibi for Miss Roger’s movement during the time of the murder. At the same time, the chef’s words could be proven and give more credibility to his claims.

As for Miss Katherine, Scarlet had to look for a letter that she claimed she exchanged with her ex-student. She might not be on the invitation list but Scarlet had no reason to doubt that her invitation was real. Miss Katherine was the least suspicious because she had little motive to kill Mr Roger.

The trickiest name to clear would be Mr Moreau. He was in the least favourable circ.u.mstances with the direct accusation of murder to his name. He had indeed been the last person to serve Mr Roger wine that killed the host. In addition, he would have an objective for the murder. His romantic relationship with Miss Roger is one that might instigate him to kill Mr Roger so that he could marry Miss Roger instead of watching her get betrothed to another noble. Without evidence that Mr Moreau was innocent, he would most likely be the one charged for murder.

Scarlet tapped her pen against the case file. How did they know that the wine was poisoned? Thinking back carefully, Scarlet tried to recall if Nook mentioned anything about poisoned wine. She flipped to the first page at the introduction and read it again.

“The chief inspector found that he was poisoned to death with a glass of wine near him… they didn’t say that the poison was in the wine!” Scarlet’s eyes widened. They’d been misled this entire time from some tricky phrasing. From the very beginning, Nook never said that Mr Roger died from drinking poisoned wine! He merely said that Mr Roger died and a glass of wine was found near him.

“Where could the poison come from?” Scarlet started to wonder. Now that she knew the truth, she could say for sure that the wine wasn’t poisoned. The storyline put the wine and poison together purposely to mislead them but thankfully, Scarlet was sharp.

Now, they had a new problem – discovering the motive of the murderer and the method they used to kill Mr Roger.

When the stagehands were almost ready, Nook made his way to the office where the Team B couple was. So far, the couple was making good progress in general and he hoped that finding the necessary evidence and combing every room for them would take the couple a longer time than they previously did. The number of fingerprints that needed dusting increased and they cleverly hid the most crucial evidence in the safe behind the painting. Most teams who played this game never found the safe and even if they did, many spent too long figuring out how to open that safe to escape in time.

“Congratulations on making it this far,” Nook began and Edward swiftly concluded his call with Jasper. He had gotten most information he needed about that map for the second part. Scarlet should also have derived to the same conclusion as him about what they needed to find and who the main suspect was.

“For this stage, you need to find and gather the evidence needed to prove our suspects innocent or guilty. As usual, avoid the patrol guards. Red tags are for fingerprint collection. Bue tags are for collectable items useful for proving your case whether a suspect is innocent or guilty. Yellow tags are usable items. Any questions?”

Edward raised his hand. “Can we work separately?”

Nook smiled. “You could but you will only be given one torchlight to work with. For this evening scene stage, we will be turning the lights off. It makes patrol guards easier to spot but also easier for you to get caught.”

Looking smug at himself for thinking of this handicap, Nook presented the flashlight to the couple and wished them luck.