Chapter 226 - Solving Mr Roger's Murder (1)

Scarlet was impressed with Edward's ability to form a map in his head based on Alex's description. They had been going on for a minute with no sign of stopping so she let him focus on that. Instead, she read up on the case files.

The game master must have put in a lot of effort to craft the story and Scarlet found herself slowly slipping into sleuth mode as she read the file.

Introduction:

The party at the Roger Family's ended with a horrible incident when a guest who had woken up in the middle of the night found Mr Roger's body in the middle of the main room by the fireplace. The chief inspector found that he was poisoned to death with a glass of wine near him.

Here are the four suspects that you must talk to in order to gain more clues and evidence to find the true murderer among them. The scene will change twice for you to talk to them in their respective rooms during the day and to find the required evidence in the evening when they have left their rooms. Throughout the undercover mission, you should try to avoid the patrol guards.

When you meet the suspects, you may ask them questions with the guideline questions given to you on page three. Some of these questions will make them like you enough to change their answers for other questions while others will make them not want to speak to you. There is no limit to how many questions you may ask them during the day and you may revisit their rooms at any moment before the scene changes.

In certain circ.u.mstances when a character allows you to search the room, you may gather the relevant evidence that will be tagged for further questioning. If a character does not allow you to search the room and you have tagged evidence that you need, please find a way to retrieve it without violating the rules.

Once you have decided that you have all the information you need in the day, you may proceed to ask the lawyer/game master in the main room to progress you to the evening scene to search for clues and evidence. You may not revert time back to question suspects once the scene is over.

To start the game, please find and talk to the lawyer/game master in the game room to begin.

"Which door should we take?" she asked Edward who closed his eyes to take in all the information. She held onto the case file and waited.

"The door to the right," he told her and held her by the hand, strolling towards it as if they were on a date instead of an escape room mission.

"What's the position of the patrol officers?" he asked through the walkie talkie before they left. The ring of master keys worked so Edward assumed that they would use this to get to the suspect's room.

"No patrols guards sighted yet, I think they will only appear after the game master officially begins the stage. Get to the main room, it's two doors right and a left turn after that short corridor."

Edward wasted no time and Scarlet followed quickly. As they walked, the couple shared information with each other.

"I've read the file," she told him. "Four suspects, a list of scripted questions and many samples to look at with tags. We have to look out for them. Yellow means items that can be used in the game and blue means items that are meant to be collected only."

Edward nodded and took a look at the mission file briefly with the profiles of each suspect and the questions they could ask. He memorised them all within the minute that they took to walk to the main room and Scarlet held onto the walkie talkie, looking out for patrol officers and admiring the interior decoration along the way.

The four suspects were given a backstory and Edward raised a brow. He had his guesses on who the real mastermind was but he would wait to see Scarlet's reaction to it. Besides, they didn't have any evidence so he wouldn't be too hasty about it.

The first suspect was the chef. As all horror stories go, your worst nightmare is usually hidden in the kitchen. The chef would be an obvious suspect as well because Mr Roger's death happened at a party and was killed by poison in the food or drinks. Even if he was innocent, he couldn't be ruled out as a suspect.

The second suspect was a maid. As someone who tended to Mr Roger's needs daily and moved around the estate a lot, she would be the one with the most chances of killing him. There was nothing unusual about her backstory but there were some rather interesting question choices that he couldn't wait to see how the game master scripted this.

The third suspect was the dead man's daughter. In so many cases of homicide, wives killed husbands for their inheritance, children killed parents for their inheritance, husbands killed wives and children or even siblings and relatives all for the sake of inheritance. If the game proceeded in such a manner, Edward would be very bored. Then again, he was already bored with the game. The only thing making him enjoy all these was Scarlet.

The last suspect in Edward's opinion was the least suspicious. It was just a guest from the party. Her backstory gave her a very unfamiliar and uninvolved vibe who just happened to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. This person was just here to confuse the players but Edward knew better. He didn't think that Scarlet would be fooled either but they still had to prove her innocence to nail the culprit.

With that, they approached the main room that reminded Scarlet a little about the penthouse back in Singapore. The furniture style was very similar and had a mid-nineteenth-century European style concept. The fireplace was obviously fake because it was just a gif playing on repeat on a huge screen. They really couldn't afford to install a real fireplace in such a tiny room.

Mr Roger was lying on the floor with his eyes closed. He was a very good actor but Scarlet knew better than to think he was actually dead or sleeping. The man was in his mid-thirties but was dressed to look like he was in his sixties.

Like all crime scenes, a white chalk outline was drawn where Mr Roger's dead body lay. There were some wine stains on the carpet. Scarlet had to give it to the stagehands for creating such a wonderful ambience that didn't pale in comparison to movie sets. The person they were meant to meet was waiting for them and greeted them with a smile.

"Good day, I am the lawyer as well as the game master. You may call me Nook."

The writer laughed. "You don't have to tell us that twice, Nook. We remember your face from ten minutes ago. So, what do we have to do to clear this new stage?"

Nook couldn't help but feel slightly bitter that it only took them ten minutes to settle one of the more complicated parts of the game. He only hoped that the second part of this game proved to be more mentally stimulating and challenging. With the overload of information going around, many people will falter and spend way too much time making sure that they didn't miss anything before going to the next stage. The average time taken to clear this stage was forty minutes and the passing rate isn't a lot. Ultimately, the game ends when the detectives fail to get the right murderer, fail to rescue their teammates or fail to return to the elevator on time and close the doors.

"I assume you've read the mission file. Your job is to find the murder and gain clues during the day mission by talking to the suspects. Some items like the ones I will give you now will be tagged. Yellow for usable items and blue for collection only. This is a bag that you can use to place all your blue collectable items and evidence," he handed a small sling bag to Scarlet and showed them a fingerprint dusting kit.

"There will be some places that will be marked out in red. Those are items that contain fingerprints and you have to use the dusting kit here to obtain them. I have an object here and will demonstrate it to you how to use it. This is the wine glass that Mr Roger was drinking from. You can match the obtained fingerprints to the suspects in the second scenario when dusting their room for personal items."

Scarlet was fascinated by the fingerprint dusting kit but Edward grimaced at how sloppy Nook demonstrated it. The man was unprofessional and took way too long to get a single fingerprint. The way he blew on the powder made Edward cringe. Then, he used sticky tape to collect the dusted fingerprint and taped it to a clear plastic slot booklet that he handed to Scarlet or safekeeping.

"This is how it is done," he told them proudly. "You can write on the clear slots the names of the identified fingerprints with a marker. Any questions? There is no further evidence in this room so if you have no questions you may start the game, we will resume the timer."

Team B shook their head and Nook wished them luck and waved to them with a smile although he was crying inside his heart. This couple was simply too powerful and even the couple in the prison cell was too much! How could anyone be cuddled on the mattress under a blanket in this sort of situation? If he didn't know they were watching the cameras, he would have thought it was date night.

"Actors get into position, patrol guards, start patrolling. Stagehands, help me clear this room. I have a feeling we need to pull ourselves together, this couple works fast. Get the props needed for the evening scene."