Imao, this means this gameboard is literally just a “Labyrinth” gameboard! XD
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worst part is this is as legit of a theory as i can come up with at the moment
and hell i did the ‘change the rooms keep the doors’ trick once myself
Well… it’s definitely not that much of a stretch. Although using specific words like that to clue it would have been pretty brilliant.
The crime scene is located on Earth. The rooms weren’t moved.
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alright cool
back to crying
ACTUALLY WAIT
It’s true there are no accomplices - but you don’t need an accomplice if there are two killers! ‘V’ is a serial killer, therefore ‘the culprit is V’. Therefore, ‘V has killed multiple people’. So, what if ‘V’ IS multiple people himself? What if it’s, say, two? And what if both of these people have killed at least once? If that’s the case, they are both culprits. If they are both culprits helping each other out, then what if I define accomplice as ‘someone who assists the culprit, but has not killed themselves’? And if that’s the case, I propose the following: ‘V’ is the maid and her twin sister! The maid’s sister took her place and thus, the person with the butler at the time the butler was in the bathroom was not ‘the maid’, it was ‘person X’. Therefore, ‘person X’ could’ve gone into the study and locked the window! If you don’t like that, then: while the butler was in the bathroom,
the maid let in her twin sister into the room. While the maid kept watch making sure the butler was still throwing up, the sister went into the study, locked the window, and left the same ways she came in - through the broken door! That’s the meaning of ‘V’! It’s symmetry! Two identical people! Two streams joining at the same source! AND IF YOU DON’T LIKE EVEN THAT, THEN I SAY: (er, spoilers for Umineko probably to some extent so just don’t open this up m’kay) The maid has a split personality that took over while the butler was in the bathroom, thus she was no longer the maid, and thus able to enter the study and lock the window, switching back after it was done.
Well, noticed that I never said there was only one culprit myself a while back, but figured it probably wouldn’t be needed since there’s only one murder to explain. Alas…
The definition of culprit in this case is ‘the person who killed Dr. Henry Pahmeyer’.
There is only one culprit.
After the chain was broken, absolutely nobody entered the study until the police did.
This is getting confusing but I think that should rule all of that out.
Th…
The other personality is also a police officer…?
2 Likes
…
No.
Please be so kind to repeat, if at all possible:
‘The chain cannot be set from outside of the room.’
Also, repetition request:
The chain had been set when the maid and butler met at the front door to the waiting area, and remained set until the butler cut the chain in front of the maid, after which they entered the room together.
I know I said I’d be generous, but that one I’m afraid I shouldn’t give, at least not for free. 
This one’s fine I guess, since it’s fairly obvious how things fall apart if it wasn’t the case.
The chain had been set when the maid and butler met at the front door to the waiting area, and remained set until the butler cut the chain in front of the maid, after which they entered the room together.
The crude spear actually goes through the floor. From the floor below (like basement or something if all of this is ground floor), the culprit took the bottom end of the spear and, with the victim still pierced on it, tilted it just enough to reach the chain and set it.
i dont know anymore okay
I’m trying to think of some Rube Goldberg-esque string trick to set the chain from the outside with string or something, but that’s hard to do without knowing exactly what the chain lock looks like…
Using some method X involving a tool, the butler set the chain from the outside. The tool was such that they could remove and retrieve the evidence of it before cutting the chain, through the crack in the door (say, some string that they could cut and palm). The butler then ran to the bathroom and disposed of the evidence via the toilet.
There are no additional relevant gaps in these rooms except the established doors and windows.
Heey, I said no method X.
Isn’t there a red against using the gap in the door already?
I suppose I’ll just put an end to these devices like this:
The chain can only be set by a human hand directly handling it.
Told you it’s all really simple.
Hmmm, I guess I’ll try something different:
When the butler told the maid he was going to get something to cut the chain, he snuck into the closed room via a window in the study that he left open. He locked it behind him and closed the study door. He cut the chain from the inside and let the maid in, telling her he had broken one of the windows in the study to get in. She never entered the study to verify his story.
Now, now…Only the culprit is allowed to give intentionally inaccurate testimony.
If she knew he cut it from inside and just left that kind of thing stand without clarifying it, I’d certainly consider that misleading on her part.
Besides, I have already confirmed nobody was inside the room when the chain got cut, which would certainly be contradicted if he cut it from inside.
This red is confusing me now - is there a “gap” if the chain hasn’t been set yet? Or did you mean the gap in a locked door? Would it be possible to fit your hand through the “gap” if the door wasn’t locked at all?
There’s still some technicalities around the chain. It’s definitely possible to set/unset a lock like this with some string, but the red about needing a human hand touching it directly only partially denies this - does it count if the person keeps their hand on the chain, but uses the string to do the actual setting? To get us off the chain angle, I’d like a red that’s something like anytime the chain was set or unset, it was solely by a human using their hand, with no tools or tricks involved (cutting the chain of course doesn’t count as “unsetting” it).
EDIT: Alright new theory. Since most of the reds deal specifically with setting the chain anyway.
The culprit is the butler. After killing his employer, he locked every relevant window, left the key inside the closed room, and set the chain from the inside. Then, he used a screwdriver to unscrew the fastener on the door frame side. He then left through that door, and through the gap, screwed the fastener back on. This way, he hasn’t “set” the chain via a trick or tool. He never actually locked the front door, as it’s unlikely he had the strength to bash it open later, but instead lied to the maid about the door being locked.
Depending on the chain lock’s make, it would be pretty feasible to do this: 
I meant the gap that exists if you try to close the door far enough to be able to set the chain.
Hope that’s not too confusing, not really meant to be.
As for your theory…
This was very much meant to include any part of the lock attached to the door. (yeah, yeah, wouldn’t be broken in the traditional sense, but in the abstract sense of no longer performing the intended function)
And let’s upgrade my red truth about the hand I guess.
The chain was only ever set or unset by a human hand directly handling it and without any other tools influencing it.
Hmm… I believe it’s been confirmed in red that the maid would have noticed if the butler tried to lock any windows or touch anything after they broke in, but I don’t believe it’s quite been confirmed that the reverse is true. So, I’d like to confirm:
Right before the pair entered the room, every window in the waiting area was already locked.
This doesn’t necessarily include the study, literally just the waiting area. I want to confirm that we’re not missing something like the maid being free to stealthily lock the window closest to the door. Because, if this is the case, I’d say:
The maid is the culprit, and she set the chain through the open window on the east wall of the house. Then, she closed the window without locking it, and later locked it without the butler noticing when they broke into the room.
…and if planting the key is a problem:
She tossed the key in through the gap in the door when the butler went to go get a tool to break the chain. This would be after he broke the door, so the door should open a crack.
Now, now, I wouldn’t pull something like making that whole window check entirely meaningless due to arbitrary stealth.
Right before the pair entered the room, every window in the waiting area was already locked.
(Non-)Hint time. Now kill me.
Part 2: The darkest hour
God… damn it
It was midnight. Everyone had gone home.
Except me, of course, refusing to leave this place until I’d found an explanation.
One of my worse ideas.
The victim’s body had been replaced with the usual white outline.
They’d taken him together with the spear sticking through him, both because the murder weapon needed to be analyzed anyway and because… well, it turned out difficult to remove.
Not as difficult as figuring out how this locked room made any sense, of course.
I’d checked all the windows, but no dice. Sure, I’d confirmed that you could indeed leave through the study windows, but so what?
Everyone told me - those windows were locked when they stepped into the study.
Not that I would doubt any of them, although in my desperation I’d even had a sliver of suspicion that Hertway hadn’t been entirely straight with me.
The other windows… I’d thought they might just be big enough at first. As I said, the view was probably great during the day, but I noticed why I couldn’t count on them once I actually opened them.
As I opened them, they came to a sudden stop, leaving only a moderate gap. I tried sticking my arms through… sure, fair enough.
My head and shoulders… getting tricky.
The rest of my chest… no. I tried several times, but it wouldn’t open any further, only making some creaking sounds.
I’m glad nobody was there to see me as I tried to pull myself back out.
I didn’t bother to try this with any other window. Why were there so many damn windows in the first place?
The chain. I knew it would spell trouble, but this was more than expected.
I had glued it back together to do some testing. (it was pretty easy to tell, unlikely the culprit would have managed to fool anyone like that.)
The first thing of note is that the cut looked authentic - those pieces really went together and no part of the chain was missing.
There were no - absolutely zero - traces of tampering. But even if there were- if you just removed the entire lock somehow you’d still have faced the problem of somehow reattaching it from the outside.
I tried setting it through the gap in the door. No dice. My fingers got through the gap, but the base of my palm was too think.
I couldn’t think of anything else that could have been done through the door.
Which left me with really setting the chain proper. So I did.
Alright, what was the next step? Leaving through the door was out.
Leaving through the study windows? But I could not think of a way to close them from the other side.
There’s one other way I’d considered. I tried locking the chain through the window nearest to it. It worked.
I got thrilled for a moment, but… this window had been found locked, just like the rest.
Of course it’s not that simple…
Those were the only ways I could think of to lock it properly. Of course, either would have forced the culprit to leave a window open which was definitely found locked.
Maybe some kind of contraption closed them? I tried letting the spear fall on the latch (desperate, I’ll admit), but the latches required more force than that to be moved.
Again, I couldn’t think of anything except locking it properly with a hand. Some detective I was…
Was there another angle to approach this from? Determining who the killer is and working from there?
The crime resembled those of the serial killer ‘Vlad’. It must have been him, right?
…both the butler and the maid had been working here for several years. The butler in particular had pretty much worked here his entire life.
If he was secretly a serial killer… would it really make sense for him to go for someone that close to him? That was guaranteed to get him on the list of suspects.
Unless he was that confident in his crime or liked to live dangerously, of course. Or maybe the other victims were just a distraction and this was the only real target in the first place.
…No, there were too many victims. Nobody… surely nobody would go to such lengths just to…
The same was true for the maid, Vanessa. She’d only been working here for two years. Vlad’s activity began roughly one year and a half ago.
Could this have been a longterm plan? Her name started with V… I had to stop my thoughts there. If that was enough to put someone on the list of suspects, it would be quite long indeed.
Still, she was the one who supposedly found the key. I had considered she’d just pretended to find it… but if she was the killer, wouldn’t it have been smarter to just… drop it and let others find it?
Instead of drawing attention to yourself? A double bluff? My thoughts were beginning to spin in circles. With a twisted and elusive individual like Vlad, it was just impossible to know their thought process.
But then… what if it HADN’T been Vlad? What if this was a copycat crime? One to distract from the real culprit?
Still, anyone should know better than to think we’d rule them out just because the crime looked like that of an established serial killer.
Well, I say ‘anyone’, but human thought processes are all very different.
Was there some other reason to make the crime look like this, perhaps? Making the crime scene look as disturbing as possible to make sure the witnesses don’t stay there too long?
I’d considered it, but they ended up unexpectedly going in deeper, to the bathroom. No culprit could have predicted this, so either it ended up not interfering with their plan, or… that just wasn’t it.
Besides, the only reason I could think of to do that was to hide somewhere and leave after the disturbed witnesses… but there were just no hiding places in that waiting room.
The only thing large enough to hide in was the couch, but it was pressed firmly against the wall and impossible to move on your own.
It was also undamaged, so no chance of hiding inside it somehow.
And if they’d hidden in any other room, well, the maid would have seen them leave from the study, and the butler would have seen them in the bathroom.
Heck, the bathroom wasn’t big enough for more than one person to be inside in the first place.
Which meant there… was no reason to just pretend to be Vlad, right?
What’s worse was that I really couldn’t picture the maid or the old butler being strong enough to just… thrust a spear through someone like that.
But again… when humans get serious there’s often more strength in them than we assume.
The visitor… well, it could have been anyone judging by the description of their disguise.
By now I’d figured that if they were the murderer they probably didn’t do it then because they weren’t ready or didn’t want to be looked into too much.
It’s possible they had to scout out the place first.
Besides, it’s not exactly possible to smuggle in a long weapon like that without the butler noticing, so chances are they didn’t have the spear with them yet.
And if the victim was expecting them… well, probably hard to catch him unaware from behind, anyway.
If it was the butler himself, that becomes a moot point, of course.
I got desperate. What if Hertway was in on it?
Could he have fudged some detail during the investigation? He’d acted a little strange earlier, I think.
No… no… that was just the stress getting to him.
Besides, while he may have been the one in command, there should have always been other officers nearby.
It’s not like he could have made an excuse like checking the study all by himself and then locking the window.
And it was impossible for him to be Vlad, anyway. The two of us had been on that killer’s trail since the very beginning.
The serial killer himself conveniently getting assigned to his own case? Yeah right… not happening outside of movies.
…
I couldn’t believe I’d go that far in my suspicions. Clearly I needed sleep or a drink.
…
…
…
It must have been three hours later.
It was still engaged in desperate attempts to explain the events.
In my desperation, I’d started considering things that seemed utterly pointless at first glance, even.
No, that doesn’t work.
If this happened, you’d still be left with the problem of…
No, doesn’t change anything
…
The sun was going up in the distance.
That’s when I hit on it.
“N-No way, if they…”
Pointless, but if I expand the context…
…I knew I’d finally found the explanation for it.
In a way, I had been both right and wrong about it being the hardest part to explain.
I’d figured it out.
The chain.
The answer.