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

[irreprochable]

If there was blood in the storage, why was there also poison on the chair? Surely she was killed before she was moved, like you suggested. Otherwise, how would the killer have positioned her like that?

[trettende]

Perhaps it was leftover from the altercation in the bakery?

The cold storage was cold enough to freeze blood, maybe it froze that as well, only to have it melt once she was moved to the library.

[irreprochable]

I suppose that's possible. But I'd expect to see blood staining the chair. The killer went to all the trouble to put her in the library to start with, how do we know it wasn't placed there as part of the set up?

[trettende]

But why set it up in the first place? To draw our attention away from the bakery?

[irreprochable]

We've already had trouble with trials in the past. If there were conflicting evidence, we might not meet the deadline.

[allicareabout]

...Why was Eliza in the library at all?

[Now that the setup has been mentioned, this has kind of been bothering him.]

Darla was hidden somewhere that most people wouldn't think to try to find a corpse. Why put Eliza out somewhere that she'd be easily found?

[irreprochable]

Hiding in plain sight. Someone mentioned she was reading and you said she was in the dark. A passerby would've assumed she was just enjoying her book or fell asleep in the night.

[allicareabout]

She had a book next to her, that much is right, but she wouldn't have fallen asleep there - not without there being some sort of punishment. There are rules against that, if I'm not mistaken - was she the sort to be careless about that?

[irreprochable]

No. What I'm saying is, that when the killer moved the body he staged it to look like she had. I don't think a passerby's first assumption seeing a dark shadow in the distance would be "Well Madame Eliza wouldn't be sleeping in here so I'll go check."