Chapter 233 - Solving Mr Roger's Murder (8)

Team B's couple made it safely to the next location thanks to Team A's cooperation and Nook chewed his thumb nervously. They were progressing too smoothly! He checked the timer and noted that only forty minutes had gone by. Most people who played this game wouldn't make such quick progress. Who exactly were these people?!

Scarlet and Edward went straight to the number one suspect's room - the maid's quarters. Scarlet suspected that the key to the safe would be found here and Edward agreed. If everything was as they suspected, they would find damning evidence here that would nail her crimes.

Swiftly dodging two officers thanks to Jasper's navigation, the couple made it safely to the maid's room. Again, some things had been shifted and the couple decided to work separately even though they only had one flashlight. Edward wedged the flashlight on the cupboard so that they could act separately and save some time. He checked the desk and drawers while Scarlet went through the bed and clothing.

Nook couldn't believe how quickly the couple searched. Even with that speed, they didn't miss a single spot. Edward found a blue tagged item in the drawer and Scarlet quickly confirmed that it was the missing newspaper page. The page was folded into an envelope with some dried tea leaves in it. They smelled funny again and Scarlet compared it to the tea leaves she had.

Edward pulled out some older copies of newspapers found in the maid's side desk drawer and found that certain pages were torn and missing. That was certainly odd. The spy also found a red tag on a pen in the maid's desk and Scarlet passed him the fingerprint dusting kit. Her search on the maid's bed and clothes proved futile. There was no safe key hidden anywhere. According to Edward, the Victorian safe design required a key and the right combination of turning on that knob to undo the complex mechanical lock. However, he didn't think it was needed for the game because he checked the model of the safe and it was only modified to look like an antique safe. The safe used electromagnetic locks so if Scarlet and Edward fund the key, it wouldn't be hard to unlock it.

The key that Scarlet saved from the elevator didn't work but they gave Scarlet a rough idea about the size of the key they were looking for. None of Edward's master keys worked earlier and she was hoping to find something in the maid's room but after rummaging through everything, she was dejected at not finding anything useful.

"No keys," she told him.

Edward frowned. "That's strange. The fingerprint on the maid's pen matched the one on the teapot but to the one on the safe. Also, now that I think about it, I think I recognise some strange things in that tea mix. It's not pure tea."

Scarlet's eyes widened. "How do you know?"

Edward grinned. "Why would someone hide a tea mix in newspaper wrapping if it was pure tea? Don't tea leaves come in tins or boxes?"

According to Scarlet's knowledge, they usually came in tin cans. "Boxed tea leaves aren't good quality tea. They absorb moisture too much and don't seal the air in. Tea leaves lose freshness very quickly that way. Normally good loose leaves come in tins because they are usually airtight and cool. Sunlight damages tea so we usually store them in cool and dark places that are dry. Why would anyone store them in newspaper wrapping?"

The question made Edward pause and re-examine the tea. Of the many kinds of poison that could be used, Edward wondered what kind of poison the murderer used. If it wasn't in the food, it would be in the drinks. So far, that teapot and the tea struck him as the most suspicious. They didn't check the kitchen yet but Edward thought about Scarlet's question.

"You said the tea smelled odd?"

Scarlet nodded. "I can't tell if it's Darjeeling or Assam but it smells like neither. Usually, I would know for sure what sort of tea it is, we've been taught by Jenna to differentiate them. The tea smells stale and odd in a way I cannot describe. Something else was mixed in it."

Edward didn't know much about tea. "What will happen to tea stored in paper or newspaper? Do you think that would affect the smell?"

Scarlet thought about it. "I guess it would affect the smell of tea a little but tea leaves should overpower the smell of ink or paper even if it was kept for a long time. The tea dredges smelled something closer to a bitterish sort of herb. Reminds me of Chinese medicinal tea from the time I was back in China."

That's it! Edward asked Scarlet to pour the tea out again. Many medicinal herbs were poisonous and if Edward was correct, they had to be stored in paper or newspapers to preserve the herb's effectiveness because some herbs reacted with metal and couldn't be stored together. Back in the nineteenth century, plastic wasn't a common product.

"I think we know what method the murderer used to kill Mr Roger," he smiled. "You're a genius!"

Scarlet blinked, not following Edward's train of thought. Thankfully, Edward explained quickly.

"Medicinal herbs! Some medicinal herbs are poisonous and can act as a slow-acting poison in small but consistent amounts. The one person capable of doing this is either the maid, chef or daughter. If we found this in the maid's room, we can be 90% certain that the murderer is her. Let's keep this as well," he told her and went through the possible herbs that could be used as poison. He thought that arsenic or mercury would be the materials used for poisoning but seeing as this was a game and it had to be made safe for the participants, the company wouldn't use something so dangerous.

"I have a feeling they used aconite here. A small amount is good for home remedy and often is used in tea in very small amounts as a relaxant. Overdose of this will kill a person and during the victorian era, not many people knew that this was poisonous. It's a similar case of lead and mercury in the victorian face powders. Little people knew about it and those who knew about it used it to kill."

Suddenly, things started to make sense for Scarlet. "If we can find the original tea somewhere, we might be able to prove that the tea served was tampered with and we can link it to the maid because we have matching fingerprints. Still, whose fingerprint is that on the safe? Did she have an accomplice?"

Edward shrugged. "Only one way to find out," he told her. "We're done here and getting closer to the truth but we don't have enough evidence yet to know if she's the only one behind the murder. Where do you want to go next?"

Scarlet thought about it. "Where do you think we can find the key or the tea leaves?"

Edward thought about it. Technically, the tea would be in the kitchen but he had no clue who was hiding the key. "Tea leaves should be kept in the kitchen but I don't know who has the key. My best guess would be Miss Roger seeing that she is her father's daughter. He wouldn't give the key to her mistress and the fingerprint at the safe didn't belong to the maid. No matter what Mr Roger did, I doubt that he would entrust the future of his family to a mistress."

Scarlet agreed with it. "What if the daughter was the accomplice?"

Edward shook his head. "I doubt it. She might have argued with her father about the arranged marriage but she wouldn't plot to kill him. Besides, someone served tea with poison to her. I doubt they have the same objective. If she poisoned her father, she wouldn't be drinking the tea she poisoned herself. Besides, the mixed tea was found in the maid's room. If anyone was an accomplice, it would be her lover. If the maid and the chef plotted together to kill both father and daughter to swindle the inheritance before the overseas mother came back, I would believe it."

Scarlet groaned. Why was this getting so complicated? Edward made sense. The chef could be lying too so unless they could prove the chef's innocence, he was also high on the suspect list now.

"Do you think Mr Moreau could be poisoning his lover if they were together? We've established that the one who stored and served the poison was the maid but the one who served the wine was the chef."

Edward shook his head. "If they were together, she would be poisoned before it and not after. The timeline doesn't match with the story. The maid usually doesn't work after the master has gone to bed. In this case, she wouldn't be able to poison anyone after bedtime and she would be able to clear the evidence of her poisoning before the next day. The fingerprint on the safe must be either the guest's or Miss Roger's who entered after the maid left because we're investigating this in the evening. The guests are not here and the place is cordoned off. Assuming that the tea and morning papers were brought in and not cleared, I can estimate that they were chased away in the afternoon after our interrogation in the morning. Hence, the props placed by the game master must be in between the time after our interrogation and before our investigation. The culprit doesn't have time to get rid of all the evidence and the ones trying to protect the evidence for us must have hidden it somewhere."

Scarlet took some time to let the information sink in and Edward didn't rush her. 90 minutes was more than enough time. Even without him helping Scarlet, he knew that his capable girlfriend would eventually link the dots together. He was simply guiding her not the right direction because he made some inspections briefly while he was unlocking doors. 

"Understood. Let's head to the guest room to confirm if Mr Moreau's story about meeting up with his lover is accurate. They usually leave each other secret letters so if he was truly in a relationship with her, we will be seeing her leave a letter for him in panic after she discovers the murderer's motive. Assuming that she owns the key to the safe and doesn't suspect her lover for being the murderer's accomplice, that's what she would do."

Edward smiled and led the way, steering clear of the patrol officers.