Third Trial

[stagemanagers]

[Once again, the sound of opening doors echoes through the opera house as the investigation draws to a close.

Time for your third trial.

The courtroom looks the same as ever, save that Darla and Eliza's podiums are now arranged in the same funerary fashion as the other deceased cast members. The lights from the bulbs standing in their places seem to cast the rest of the house even more in shadow, even as the crystal chandeliers still glitter dimly above. The Balladeer is hidden backstage once more, somewhere behind the red curtain drawn shut across the stage. Once everyone's taken their places, he speaks up.]

Alright. Let's do this.

Comments

[dontfeedplants]

[Seymour doesn't know if he's getting numb to all of this or if he's just getting more confidence to speak out. If their "lives" weren't at stake right now he would me more concerned about his uncertainty.]

I'm pretty sure they were both poisoned, if this frosting was anything to go by.

[He pulls out a frosting container, but he's not going to open it unless anyone else desperately wants him to.]

I just have no idea why they would eat it. This stuff is so strong that they had to have known that there was something off with the cookies.

[catliketread]

It was most certainly poison!

[The Pirate King holds up a bottle that definitely looks very toxic. Don't worry, he's wearing gloves!!]

There is also a strange smear on the bottle. I'm not sure what it could be from, though it isn't paint.

[dontfeedplants]

At least we know how they died already.

[He looks at the frosting and compares it to the smear, is the color similar at all?]

[stagemanagers]

[It is not - the smear is beige, and the frosting is pink.]

[robitussin]

Poisoned... Was one of them injured, though? Because I checked in cold storage and found a frozen puddle of blood with some pieces of ceramic in it.

[trettende]

[ Hans is starting to feel the pressure, with those empty seats beside him. Poison? Where could they have gotten such a thing? And putting them in cookies... that's just cold. ]

Maybe the chef was someone who wasn't a very good cook? Or someone who the victims trusted? Miss Eliza was a very kind woman, perhaps she didn't want the chef to be insulted, so she tried it despite the smell?

[robitussin]

I could buy that from Eliza, but what about Darla?

[dontfeedplants]

Ceramic? Wait a minute...

[He pulls out a shard of ceramic.]

I found one of these near one of the tables. You think maybe this is the same ceramic?

[trettende]

That's a good point. There must have been some reason she didn't suspect foul play.

[ He pauses. It's just a theory but... ]

What if they didn't smell strange at the time? Maybe the poison only turned bitter after enough time passed.

[dontfeedplants]

But it smells like garlic. Wouldn't even the worst baker know that you don't put garlic in cookies?

[Seymour knows next to nothing about baking, but even he knows you don't put garlic in sweet things.]

[trettende]

Well, I can't cook but even I'd know better than to put garlic in cookies.

[ He shrugs. ]

Still, if someone you trusted offered you cookies, wouldn't you at least try them before saying they smelled awful?

[robitussin]

[She walks over to get a better look, nodding when she does.]

Yeah, it's the same. I wonder why there were shards in both places...

[dontfeedplants]

Maybe after they were hit with the ceramic, they tried running to the cold storage and some shards fell off of them?

[robitussin]

If that were the case, wouldn't there have been a trail of blood rather than just the one puddle I found?

[trettende]

Is it perhaps, some kind of make-up? Like the kind women use to powder their noses?

[ Hans totally doesn't wear makeup, no way. ]

[dontfeedplants]

I don't know, but maybe I'm just paranoid.

[Maybe if Audrey made them, but she would never try poisoning him.]

[allicareabout]

So. Eliza.

[Don't mind the fact that he sounds a little clipped; Billy has been in A Mood for the entirety of the day and people turning up dead are doing the opposite of helping.

Either way. Feelings are mostly off. Feelings have been mostly off for the majority of his time here, no need to change that now.]

I found her in the library, first thing in the morning; she was sitting in the dark without any of the lamps on and she was cold to the touch - so by the time morning rolled around, she'd probably been there for a while, and it's safe to say that she probably wasn't getting much reading done beforehand.

Probably because she was a little busy getting in some sort of altercation.

[...jesus, billy.]

Eliza had a good-sized gash on her head, and small shards of ceramic in her hair – I'm not a coroner so don't quote me on this, but I don't know whether the hit alone would have been enough to kill her. At the same time, she was definitely whacked in the head with something.

Furthermore, she had shallow scratches on her, both on the backs of her hands and on her forearms, under her sleeves - the sleeves are loose, so it's possible they folded back during whatever fight she got in. The scratches were also small, and were more like raised welts than actual cuts – nothing that broke skin. She also had a large bruise on her left wrist - recent-looking, too – and her knuckles were bruised.

[...Also, uh, how do you - ]

She also smelled a lot like vanilla, of all things. I've got no idea why she smelled like cake, but she smelled like cake.

[...Yep.

Anyway, he'll pull out his pocketsquare – it's a white one that has decidedly not been in his jacket pocket this morning; it's stained with a watery, pale brown color that...very definitely also smells like vanilla.]

This came off of both her shoulder and the chair she was sitting on, there was more of it on her than there was on the chair.

And that's what I've got.

[allicareabout]

Oh, trust me. One of them was definitely injured.

[robitussin]

I guess that's possible. I don't know anything about poison. But if that's the case, I don't think it narrows it down much. Eliza was super nice, and Darla was a kid. Either of them would have taken cookies from anyone, not just someone they trusted, right?

[catliketread]

Make-up...? Well, I suppose that is possible, though I certainly can't confirm.

[If anyone wants to compare it to the bottle you can come look, but the Pirate King sure isn't going to be useful here.]

[trettende]

Me either. [ Who here would actually know about poison, though? ]

At least we know they were likely both killed by the same thing. I suppose we can assume it's one killer, for now.

[dontfeedplants]

She smelled like vanilla? Maybe she was the one baking the cookies then.

[He looked thoughtful. He had a really hard time believing Eliza would poison anyone, especially a child. So why would she smell like...?]

... Maybe she put the frosting on the cookies without realizing they were poisoned?

[inforapenny]

...Garlic?

[Uh-oh.]

[onthebusagain]

The book that Eliza was reading-- it was a recipe book on baking. Could she have been making something? That would explain the vanilla.

[dontfeedplants]

Yeah, why? Do you know what it is?

[Really all of his knowledge of poison only covers plant-based ones so he could use help here.]