The Truth Lies in Velvet (EP8 Spoilers) [Solved]

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#14

Step by step.

If we assume someone lied about the state of the passageway, then Kinzo is not the culprit because someone else is.
If everyone told the truth, then we have a passageway with only two exits. The key to the tower isn’t inside the passageway and the other exit can clearly only be locked from the outside.
Therefore one of two things happened: Either the culprit left through the door to the mansion and locked it from there, or they went into the tower and used the key to lock it from there.
In either case, Kinzo cannot be the culprit. I’ll trust my logic on this.
…
Just in case someone wouldn’t put it past him to jam a knife into his own forehead.

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#15

Cracked the letter to R, it’s in ASCII:

“Tower is 13m high not 9m
Ceiling at 9m cen be removed
Push 34th stone from right of
door 3rd one from the bottom”

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#16

blessed typo

#17

Theory: Rosa, who had previously been to the tower, knew about the ceiling secret and hid a letter inside Rudolf’s backpack. She planned on Rudolf escaping the tower, and it was all a part of her conspiracy to kill him. (none of this explains the latter murders but fuck it)

Bonus points: Rosa’s room is directly above the servants’ room and she kinda had access to the top of the passage from it.

#18

Nanjo is mentioned to have lived there all his life, probably including when the tower was built. His chances to know might be better than the children, who were explicitly said to have been away when it was built.

#19

I’m thinking that the vents are a big clue to solving this mystery, as well as Krauss’s useage of the storage room.

We know from the room layout, that the storage room is connected to the cousins room. The wound on George’s hand supports that theory as he stuck his arm into the vent below and got a gash for his troubles.

Krauss has the weakest alibi as he was in the storage room looking for something. What that something is isn’t brought up by him in White or Purple text as nobody questions him on what he was looking for exactly.

Then there’s the bruising on Rudolf’s body as well as his clothes not being soaked. The bruises could be explained by someone punching him hard enough to create the bruises. The clothes not being wet may be from using the hidden passage hinted in the letter, in which the weather outside wouldn’t affect the clothes.

I’m aware that this theory may have a few decent sized holes, but that’s the best I have for now.

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#20

Very likely what Krauss went to the storage room to retrieve is what cut George’s hand - i.e. the knife that killed Kinzo, stashed away in the vent. This means that Kinzo was still alive when the knife was in the vent, at ~9:31. So, let’s begin:

[color=blue] The culprit is Krauss. The only window he’d have to kill Nanjo is before the discovery of either Rudolf or Nanjo’s bodies. He has no alibi (in purple) for his time in the parlor, so lets go with the easy solution and say he snuck into Nanjo’s room shortly after Rudolf is locked up, suffocates him, takes the key, and leaves. He drops it back into the room via the vent in the medical office. This could all be accomplished under the guise of a bathroom break or the like during his time in the parlor with the other siblings. [/color]

[color=blue] Next, Rudolf sneaks out of the tower with the intent to find the will, now that Kinzo is out of the study. He accomplishes this using some sort of climbing equipment he had hidden in the fake ceiling of the tower, which would drop down when he removes the stone noted in O’s note. He also prepared the trenchcoat and hat to shield himself from the rain. Rudolf falls from the window, sustaining minor injuries. He sneaks into the mansion, enters Kinzo’s study and ransacks it, finding the will. He then evades Kanon and jumps out of the hallway window down into the dining room window. He is knocked out by Krauss, who spots him on his way to the storage room. Krauss carries him back to the study, and kills him there. This route evades Natsuhi’s vision. [/color]

[color=blue]Krauss retrieves the knife from the storage room and hides it on his person. He also hides the trenchcoat and hat he took from Rudolf’s corpse. In between the time when Jessica screams and when the entire group gathers at the study, Krauss slips away and kills Kinzo, entering the passage via the servant’s room (after Gohda is lured away by Jessica’s scream). This is before his alibi in purple is valid. [/color]

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#21

I don’t think that’s how his alibi works. He was clearly already with them when Jessica screamed.

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#22

Umm…guys, the knife was sticking out of Kinzo’s forehead when they found Kinzo.

#23

Correct, hence why he was getting the knife from the storage room, not stashing it. That’s why I’m thinking Kinzo had to have been alive at 9:31.

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#24

Unfortunately, Rune is entirely correct on this point. He’s clearly shown up with the others directly before Jessica screams and is very clearly present in the discovery on the body, giving lines of dialogue. The narration makes very little implication any sort of significant time passed in that time.

There’d be very little point if we could pick some arbitrary time and decide that his alibi just didn’t count during that time, yes?

I would also like to direct your attention to the fact that the part about Rudolf simply preparing tools to be in the ceiling should strike you as strange. He had shown up for the conference for the first time in six years and nobody could’ve really predicted Kinzo’s challenge, so it’s not as if he would’ve been suffciently prepared with any equipment. Besides, I mean, if you can’t reach the window from the outside, logically it doesn’t pan out that there should be a way to reach the top, no?

And doing it from the inside without Kinzo knowing, given that he was in the possession of the only key leading to it, seems odd, as well.

#25

Very well. Let’s try to ask some questions to clear some things up. I have some doubts anyway.

The Mystery Man’s identity and actions
If the man is Rudolf, then his actions in my theory are a bit strange. If Rudolf’s goal is to get back to the tower, and he jumps out of the window on 2F, why wouldn’t he go straight from there? Instead, he elects to re-enter the mansion. This could only mean the mystery man is someone who is expected to be in the mansion. Therefore, [color=blue]the mystery man that Kanon sees is actually Krauss.[/color] It is possible Rudolf still snuck in using that outfit to find the will, and Krauss simply takes it from him. The reason Krauss takes such a roundabout route back into the mansion is that since he was spotted by Kanon, he can’t simply go to the storage room and pop back out again acting like nothing happened. Indeed, there are no windows out of it, so it would be incredibly clear to Kanon what happened there.

This means, Rudolf was already dead when the mystery man was stepping out of Kinzo’s study at ~9:30. Once in the storage room, Krauss stashes the outfit and retrieves the knife. It is possible that when Krauss was seen returning from “the direction of the storage room”, he was actually returning from the servant’s room. The only issue with this logic is that Krauss returned before Gohda. So one open question is, how did Krauss get past Gohda?

To clarify something about my theory, I’m not sure how the “ceiling” removal would work. I imagined it would retract or something, allowing anything stored above it to just fall down. that doesn’t seem to be what DWaM is suggesting anymore though, since he claims you’d have to actually reach the fake ceiling to retrieve anything there. So, how Rudolf escape the tower?

However, it wouldn’t strike me as too strange that Rudolf would have a man on the inside (O?) that could do some preparations on the island for him ahead of time. Wouldn’t count as an accomplice or anything obviously since Rudolf didn’t kill or ever intend to kill.

#26

"At around 9:30, Kanon ran upstairs. Krauss left up around five minutes later.”

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#27

You misunderstand. What I’m saying is you’d have to reach it to plant anything there in preperation for the escape which, given the conditions, doesn’t work out.

Rudolf couldn’t have just asked someone to come to the island beforehand and make any preperations, either because nobody but Kinzo could’ve known the challenge would be announced. If any preperations were done they would’ve had to be done that night after the challenge was announced, and given what you know, that’s not possible.

If you claim that Rudolf just got lucky and Kinzo just happened to have things there, your line of reasoning is weakened because it means Rudolf walked in there with no guarantee of any sort of escape. So what would’ve the plan been in that case? Why not just wait the challenge out like intended?

And Kinzo having shit one could use to escape doesn’t make much sense either, no? Why make sure the challenger has nothing to escape but then have some means of escape? It’s hardly a test of any kind if they know about the ceiling or just stumble up on the secret by accident. It would’ve had no real purpose to be there.

And suggesting “Kinzo put things there but forgot lel” pushes things to a bit of a stretch, I’d say.

#28

This could be resolved by saying again that Krauss has no real alibi in purple for the time before Rudolf’s body was discovered. Maybe he stepped out of the room for a bit to do the mystery man bit, returned, then left again at 9:35 to go “to the storage room”.

#29

I would assume that if Krauss had stepped out for a moment, Natsuhi would have mentioned it. Going by DWaM’s established rules, Natsuhi not mentioning that would make her an accomplice and there are no accomplices.

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#30

You could potentially get away with someone slipping away in a crowd and not having anyone notice (assuming it doesn’t go against any of the purple, of course), but yeah, in this case with just the two of them, it’s… unlikely. Not only in terms of Natsuhi not mentioning it, but Kanon not seeing him leave either, despite him mentioning other people he’d seen leave the parlor (in terms of both actual mentioning and the narration itself showing it).

#31

Theory

Rudolf was cooperating with another person (the mysterious O from the coded letter), but then that person likely changed their mind and killed Rudolf. Either that, or Rudolf himself is the culprit.

I assume the masked man is the mysterious ‘O’.

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#32

It would be pretty weird if Rudolf were the culprit I think, since it would be pretty weird to commit suicide by bashing your own head in with a metal box. That would mean his death was an accident in the study, and there’s not really any evidence that would point towards that theory. I think it’s safe to rule him out. It’s also pretty safe to rule out Kinzo, as Rune outlined above - I thought it over, and even if the door to the tower is unlocked, Kinzo wouldn’t have been able to move Rudolf’s body or get out of the passage/tower area himself and still return to the passage to die.

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#33

I think it would be beneficial if we made a list of people who are 100% not the mystery man:

  • Maria
  • Jessica
  • George
  • Kanon
  • Battler
  • Krauss
  • Natsuhi
  • Genji (provided an alibi for Kumasawa)
  • Kumasawa (provided an alibi for Genji)
  • Gohda (if we’re to assume the mystery man is the culprit)

We are left with:

  • Rosa
  • Eva and Hideyoshi
  • Nanjo

All of whom were in their respective rooms at the time, unless they somehow managed to sneak into Kinzo’s study either by sneaking past Kanon or taking an alternate route.

Feel free to add more or correct me.

Of course, there are also Rudolf and Kinzo, though I kinda doubt it’s them.

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