Chapter 234 - Solving Mr Roger's Murder (9)

After entering the guest room, Scarlet immediately noticed that there was a nice citrus fragrance in the air. Edward wanted to laugh at how his girlfriend was sniffing at the air like a curious cat.

Scarlet remembered what Mr Moreau said about the citrus writing and scanned the room for the paper he talked about. It wasn't difficult to find what they had to do. With the flashlight, she easily found some tagged items. There were two wine glasses by the table side and one of the glasses had a red tag.

"Darling, do you have that lighter with you? This paper smells the nicest, it might be the secret letter we're looking for."

Instead of giving her the lighter, Edward decided to hold the torch and flick the lighter on for her. He didn't want her to get burned in the process. Scarlet thanked him and marvelled at how the invisible orange juice turned brownish on the paper when she brought it close to the lighter. It took them about a minute to get all the words to appear and Scarlet barely breathed the whole time, too afraid that it might disturb the steady flame and burn their only evidence. If Mr Moreau hadn't read this and burned it, that meant he hasn't been here yet. They were in luck.

"There we go," Scarlet rejoiced and offered to help hold the flashlight while Edward dusted the glass for a new fingerprint. They worked separately with Edward getting new clues and Scarlet reading the letter aloud.

"Maurice my love, after you read this letter, pack your things and come quickly to meet me at the place we said we would meet to elope. I fear that the longer I remain in this house, the shorter my lifespan will be. My father should be blamed for cheating on my mother and for his foolishness in trusting the wrong woman but now that his foolishness has caught up with him, she will come for me next. Today I found out the horrible truth and the identity of the murderer but luckily, she doesn't know that I realised the truth. I made preparations to leave but we mustn't be hasty or she will find out. Meet me with a bottle of wine after you place the key I hid in your secret storage in the kitchen inside the wine. I told the murderer to bring us two wine glasses because I would be meeting you tonight so that she doesn't suspect anything. She will search my room when I'm gone so we should take this time to flee together! Whatever you do, please be safe! I love you."

Edward got the fingerprint just in time and compared it to the booklet of confirmed suspects.

"Guess we now have confirmation of who it was," he smiled and showed Scarlet the fingerprint obtained.

Scarlet blinked. "So it really was her!"

The spy laughed quietly. "Indeed. I guess it's obvious where we're going after this. If the letter was still unread, it means that we have the chance of finding that key. It's the key that we need to open that safe. Also, we have to find evidence that the fingerprint on the safe belongs to Miss Roger."

Scarlet was excited. Things were finally coming together. "You know, I don't think Mr Moreau is an accomplice."

Edward raised a brow. "What makes you think that?"

Scarlet put a finger to his lip as the patrol officer walked by them. Then, she continued their conversation. "Think about it. If he was an accomplice, he would have known that the murderer's next target would be Miss Roger. The person closest to Miss Roger is him. There would be plenty of chances for him to get to her."

Edward disagreed. "People can work together for many different motives. Who is to say that the maid and the chef worked together to kill Mr Roger for different purposes at first then had a falling out when the maid wanted to kill Miss Roger? They could have a change of heart and backstab each other."

The new angle made Scarlet more confused. "I still want to believe that the chef is innocent. Compared to the relationship that the maid had with Mr Roger and the relationship that the chef had with Miss Roger, it is very obvious who is in it for love and who is in it for materialistic gains. From the perspective of someone who is truly in love, no matter how horrible my future parent-in-law is, I could never harm them knowing that it would make my lover sad. They planned to elope if things go south so why would he participate in murder and break his lover's heart? She obviously doesn't want her father dead even if she couldn't agree with him."

Edward stopped walking. "Really?"

Scarlet looked at him. "Why not? Would you murder my biological parents if I wasn't adopted by the Wildes and if they didn't agree with our relationship after mistreating me?"

At the back of his mind, Edward had his answer but he couldn't tell her the truth. In reality, he was capable of murder. The way he snapped when her sister told him to break up with Scarlet made him realise how different the worlds they lived in was. If Claire wasn't there and didn't knock him out, Alex would be dead by now.

Taking Edward's silence as a defeated agreement, Scarlet smiled and walked away. Edward didn't want to correct her or explain his darker thoughts but now that she mentioned it, he wondered how sane or twisted the scriptwriter for this game really was. If they were anything as dark and twisted as he was, they would write a collaborated murder and a falling out. If they weren't as twisted as him, they would simply go with the cliche Hollywood plot that Scarlet was expecting. For now, he would go along with Scarlet's conjuncture instead of his personal feelings of what this would be if he was the chef.

The kitchen was as messy as he remembered it to be but the couple didn't spend too long in it. they had a murder to apprehend. Scarlet worked on finding the secret compartment and Edward started dusting for fingerprints that he found tagged on one of the wine glasses further to the back.

"The secret compartment should be near the wine glasses seeing that the fingerprint is here," he told her and Scarlet got to work, carefully removing the wine glasses in the way, noting that two were missing.

Edward compared the fingerprints after he got another one successfully. This fingerprint matched the one on the safe and although Edward couldn't confirm the identity of this person, he highly doubted that this was the tutor. Now that his task was done, he searched the rest of the kitchen while Scarlet worked on getting to the secret compartment.

Nook watched the couple breeze through the rooms quickly and looked at the timer. Not a lot of time had passed and he was starting to get nervous. Once they found the secret compartment and the key to the safe, it was as good as game over.

Finding nothing of interest in the kitchen, Edward finally came over to help Scarlet find that secret compartment. With the limit of her short arms, Scarlet left the searching of the inner racks to Edward and offered to hold up the flashlight instead, much to Alex's amus.e.m.e.nt from the prison cell.

While searching for the secret compartment, Edward accidentally knocked over the condiment rack and the couple froze at the clatter. Edward was about to tell Scarlet to turn the flashlight off and hide for a little when he heard one of the cutest sounds in the world in the worst possible situation.

Scarlet tried her best to hold her breath with the pepper getting to her nose but it was no use, the sneezes kept coming despite her best efforts to suppress them. Edward acted fast and opened an empty cabinet before telling Scarlet to get in, throwing her the flashlight and making a run for it. The patrol officers were close and Edward risked it.

"Two men closing in on you from behind and one from the right!" Jasper hissed into the walkie talkie and Edward darted to a shortcut, slamming the door behind him to divert attention while he hid behind a thick curtain and turned the walkie talkie off for a while until the search party passed. He didn't know how long the patrol officers spent looking for him in the same area before they finally left but he hoped Scarlet would be fine. If they locked the door in the kitchen without leaving, there was a chance for officers to wait for them outside the kitchen. There was no other exit and if they were both caught, it would be terrible news.

Nook groaned when the patrol officers left the scene after not being able to find Edward who used the same trick twice in a row now. As the game master, he couldn't interfere with the game but seriously, this hiding behind curtain trick was too ingenious. He made a mental note to have the curtains removed for subsequent games.

Scarlet waited till the patrol officers dispersed before peeking from her hiding spot and holding her breath. The paper should have settled by now and Scarlet quickly got out, careful not to kick the spices up again or trip over the condiment bottles. Edward did the easy part and the hidden compartment was in sight. The only problem was her short arms and Scarlet held the flashlight in her mouth while climbing onto the counter to pull out the wooden box.

Inside the box was a key and Scarlet put it safely in her small bag provided by the game master together with the fingerprint dusting kit that Edward left behind. They were split up right now so she didn't know where he was but she turned to the camera that she hoped Alex was watching and started clicking the light on and off.

Alex was confused at first why Scarlet was paying with the flashlight but after her brain kicked in, she started to pay more attention. Scarlet was communicating to her in morse and she told Japer to relay the message to Edward.

"She says to meet her in Miss Roger's room, she has the key."

Jasper nodded and relayed the message to an unhappy Edward who grumbled a little but stealthily made his way over while distracting the guards from Scarlet so that she could make it safely to the daughter's room with the help of Team A's eagle eyes.