"I can't repeat that, Harley. Take that for what you will." He responded to his brother before turning to Verrier. "And unfortunately not, Doctor. People were constantly moving out and about, so I suppose you can consider them part of the suspect pool. For now at least. I almost forgot but here's the refresher for those who need it."

[Link to Scene]

"If that weren't the case, Edna would be the only suspect, so perhaps it's fortunate after all," Verrier said with a bland smile. "That being said, it seems as though it could have been anyone outside the dining room. You said yourself that someone could simply fetch the key from the servant's quarters, unlock the door and then return the key without being spotted."

"Right. And we already know it's not the impossible crime, so there's really no need for blue unless you want to narrow down suspects. Still, we need something to get started and I'm excited to reach the whodunnit. The only people who existed in the mansion at midnight were Heinrich, Ingrid, Fritz, Harley, Cici, Mia, Verrier, Meta, Julia, Edna, and Albrecht." Gideon smiled deviously. "I think that narrows things down significantly if you immediately dismiss everyone in the dining room as suspects."

"Hold on!" Raphael shouted indignantly, standing up. "That's it? That's all you're saying about my friend's death? Finding out the truth behind that is the only reason I've been playing along with your stupid game, and now you're dropping it after one wrong answer?! Ingrid basically got you to admit there was someone living in the tomb, and we're just going to ignore that to solve a ding dong ditch?!"

---

“Fine, fine. We can cover that simultaneously, not like we have anything but time.” Gideon shrugged. “Anybody can feel free to speak up—but seems like you have an idea of that already, Raphy.”

"Ding, dong, ding, dong," Angelo said, appearing from the void. "Where did you think I lived for years and years? The bunker? The tomb was much more suited for me."

"You always did prefer the tomb, you even would stay further into the fall than I ever would have expected! For that, your dedication to Gideon's legacy and My Tomb, I thank you ever so much." Lynde said with a sincere smile for Angelo.

“When Ingrid pressed the truth of that tomb out of Gideon, I thought it might be you. I suppose it’s nice confirmation.”

Raphael then turned to Gideon and asked after a pause, “...Are we still playing sudden death for the tomb?”

---

"...What," was all the response Mia could manage.

---

Fritz stared incredulously at the floor of the courtroom, tuning out the discussion of the mysteries as he took ragged, panicked breaths.

“We’re all stuck here?” He mumbled tremulously. “And Ingrid’s gone?! Just yanked deep into the floor? What the hell was the point of all this?

---

"I appreciate it deeply." Gideon said to Lynde and Angelo. "I'm sure you'll have to face the Board of Mystery for some dubious mystery tricks, Lynde--but I'm sure you can find a way to justify it. In the end, I was satisfied."

"Well you can ask questions, I guess. I don't have another tomb to eternally lock people in though, and locking two people in kinda makes the trick to escape simple..."

"Hmph." Raphael sat back down.

"You obviously know something," his mask was turned towards Angelo and Lynde, "But I assume you're too deranged to just give it up, even now. Fine."

He turned back towards Gideon. "Let's rule out a few more possibilities. Please confirm that there is only one relevant tomb, consisting of a single unpartitioned room. Please confirm that each time the crossbar was locked, it was put in place directly by a human hand."

---

"You're too cruel, Raphy." Gideon shook his head, mockingly crying. "Here I am trying to get everyone to figure out who's actually behind this, and you're focused on distracting everyone with a subplot. And for what? To ruin my hardest mystery. But fine--there is only one relevant tomb, consisting of a single unpartitioned room. It has always been unpartitioned, and has never had a mirror or anything of the sort inside. You like that? I gave you even more than you asked for. Each time the crossbar was set in the brackets, it was put in place directly by a human hand. And guess what? If you say 'please' I might even tell you 'it's impossible to lock the tomb from the outside'."

"Tell me who killed my friend and I'll let you go back to taunting the others in peace," Raphael spat.

---

“Hmmm... I don’t think so! But nice try.”

"Then stop fucking complaining," Raphael snapped back.

He settled deeper into his chair, and rested his face in a hand.

"...More reds," He eventually declared. "'When the tomb was broken into, the imposter was the only person in the tomb, alive or dead.' 'Nobody has ever died within the tomb.' And 'From the moment the final wall was sealed shortly after Gideon's funeral, no entry or exit to the tomb has ever existed other than the crossbarred door.'"

---

"... how interesting."

[Scene Music]

"I refuse, I refuse, and I declare that from the moment the final wall was sealed shortly after Gideon's funeral, no entry or exit to the tomb has ever existed other than the crossbarred door."

"Jesus fucking Christ..." Raphael swore under his breath.

He sat back up in his chair. "Repeat in read: The person who killed the imposter is still alive."

---

"That one I'll give you." Gideon nodded, "To keep things interesting. The person who killed the imposter is still alive at this point of the story."

Raphael stared down at Gideon for a long moment. Finally, he said, "Repeat in red: The last person to lock the tomb was alive at the end of Chapter 4."

---

"Now really, Raphy. You're making me feel like a dick for not repeating these." Gideon sighed. "Truly, I can't see what the chessboard looks like from your side. I could repeat that if I wanted to, honest. But I don't want to make a losing move."

'Losing'... again, this was unlike Gideon. The real success would be if the mystery were solved. "If you truly want me to repeat something, then the next words out of your mouth should be blue ones."

"FUCK YOU!" Raphael screamed. He was standing again. "What kind of fucked up psycho would go through that to kill the wrong, completely unrelated person?! Hell, it wasn't even to fucking kill them, just to put their corpse in a more 'mysterious' location! And all to set up your twin sister to fail? What the hell kind of psychotic, twisted, fucked up game is this?"

---

"Honestly, Raphy--I could ask you the same thing! What kind of fucked up psycho sends his best friend into a pack of murderers? What kind of psycho lets his best friend get punished for his sins?" Gideon laughed darkly. "I can return serve and compare sins all day. But you knew exactly what the imposter was getting into--and even now, you're running away! Frankly, it doesn't seem to me you cared for him at all. After all, why would you? He offered you nothing, and gave you nothing."

Raphael dropped back down into his chair.

"He was..." Raphael's voice was trembling. "He was the only person who saw my face when he looked at me."

Raphael leaned forward, so that the hood of his cloak totally obscured his head. He brought one hand to his mask, removed it, wiped his face with his other sleeve, returned the mask and sat back up.

"They... They weren't murderers until you came along," Raphael replied, although whatever had enflamed his passion before was clearly now down to embers. "Even if I say it, it doesn't get me closer to his killer. Stay locked the fuck up in your perfect closed room for all eternity."

---

"Hmph." Gideon clicked his tongue, "I suppose you've made things suitably dramatic with your self-pity. I'll give you one of the reds you asked for. Nobody has ever died within the tomb. And I suppose since I can say that, it's trivial to say The last person to lock the tomb was alive at the end of Chapter 4."

"It's not self-pity," Raphael said, and then added with a joyless laugh, "For once.

"Fine." Raphael shuddered. "If my Hell is seeing this through to the bitter end, so be it. If you want me to draw the reds out of you, I will. The last person to lock the tomb was still inside the tomb when the group broke into it. Maybe they were in a dark corner, maybe they held up a piece of gray fabric, maybe they hid under my friend's corpse, maybe an accomplice was able to ferret them out without the group noticing. I doesn't matter, there are plenty of ridiculous variations."

---

"There was no dark corner, there was no gray fabric, nobody hid under the imposter's corpse, and of course nobody could've escaped from the tomb without everybody in the group noticing. And if you think I'm being vague or disingenuous there's no place to hide in the tomb. The last person to lock the tomb could not have escaped the group's attention if they were still in the tomb."

"Then they did not escape the group's attention," Raphael simply replied. "But the group did not perceive that this person had been in the tomb, since they looked exactly like someone else in the group, who quietly slinked away as the others entered."

---

“There is not a single body double or identical twin among the cast. Of course Lynde isn’t bad at making an authentic mask of sorts, as he did for Angelo in the coffin at the funeral. It’s much like his dolls but upscaled. But it would be distinguishable from the real genuine person, and would certainly be noticed, as it was at the funeral.”

"Then someone from the group ran ahead of the others into the tomb. Their absence was covered by the blizzard," Raphael said.

---

“Nobody ran ahead. In fact none of Jolina, Edna, Agnes, Fritz, or Ingrid have anything to do with this trick, or are lying to cover for someone else leaving the tomb.”

"They didn't lie, they merely never mentioned it," Raphael said. "They all found someone in the tomb and let them leave, and just never said anything about it.

"Just give me the red I want, and this silliness can be over," he sighed.

---

“As I said, the five of them have NOTHING to do with the trick.”

"Tch. Another tacky mystery. It's always just another way for you to express your heinous doors fetish. It's so repulsive," Edelfäule says, picking rot from her blackened teeth. "But if destroying your mystique will finally wipe your legacy off the ass of history, then I am the lady who can indulge."

"Valiant effort, Raphael, but why don't you crack open a bull and relax for a second? I'll take this next theory:"

"When the door is open, the bar can sit in one of the two braces and lean against the door. The door can then be closed, and the cross bar will drop down to the other brace. Of course, I know for a fact that I could do this if I took a couple tries, but your killer may have been too much of a cheesebrain to do something like that."

“It’s impossible to lock the tomb from the outside.”

"Don't say it's impossible just because you can't. The last person to exit the tomb had broke out through the door. The door was then replaced in such a way that those visiting the tomb would not notice. The crossbar of course, could stay in place while the door was replaced without needing to be touched."

“I believe I already said in red that the tomb was never broken into or out of. You will have to do better than that.” Gideon’s web of red was tightening.

"I'm going to need to go over all the events leading up to the story to understand this tomb discussion, I think," Verrier said, glancing between Raphael and Edelfäule uncertainly.

"So... 2 years before the events of the story, Angelo was playing dead inside the guest room, wearing a mask Lynde made that made him look like a Gideon with his face bashed in. Now that I say it, this must be the answer to Ingrid's tape: Angelo had been hiding in the bunker before Ingrid put the tape up, so he simply moved into the room proper when it was time, bypassing the need to 'enter' the locked room. Gideon, meanwhile... I suppose he simply never left his bedroom until the coast was clear, it's the only way to explain the unbroken tape on the bedroom door. Maybe Edna was in on it? We moved past it before I had a chance to comment, but it rather sounds like Edna was the one who opened the dining room door, which would... also make her the one who killed Julia and Erik.

"In any case, we found Angelo in the guest room, pretending to be a dead Gideon. He had taken a drug to appear dead, and when doctors came to do an 'autopsy', they had already been paid off by Gideon to fake it. We found evidence of both in Gideon's room. He knew what he was doing, taunting us like that, leaving the evidence right there for us to see.

"When it was time for the funeral, Angelo took the drug again and got in the coffin, which we later watched get locked into the tomb. All that song and dance to set up the closed room tomb, yet the whole time the person in the coffin was alive and well. Like a magician, using misdirection to hide the trivial solution. Over the next two years, Angelo lived out his life from that tomb, periodically opening it from the inside to get food from Julia before locking himself in again, thus maintaining the illusion that it was sealed whenever someone got curious and examined it. Perhaps this is why Julia had to be killed? She knew too much: if she talked she would ruin... whatever madness it is that Gideon has set up here.

"That brings us to the events of the story. Angelo stayed in the tomb for a little longer, allowing us to 'confirm' that the tomb was still sealed, but at some point afterwards he left. From here... well, I forget when Ingrid placed the tape, but that limits things. I can only conclude Raphael's friend was already dead by the time the tape was placed there. Angelo might have impersonated Raphael in his place afterwards, until he 'disappeared' on us: this is when he went back to the guest room, and sequestered himself into the secret bunker. While I'm unclear on the specifics, I think my conclusion is valid: Raphael's friend was killed far earlier than we'd thought, and Angelo took his place, using the cloak and mask from Gideon's bedroom. The time Ingrid placed the tape will narrow that down. It doesn't answer the final part, how the tomb was locked again with Raphael's friend's body inside, but otherwise I think what I've said accounts for much of the evidence."

He took a deep breath, having spoken for much longer than he'd anticipated. He then continued, "I suppose at this point I may as well tie the other things from Gideon's bedroom into this. The actor profiles for Gideon lookalikes were how Gideon found Angelo. The half-burnt blackmail letters were how he 'won' the headship. The poison was used to kill Mia, as we found. I thought most of it was just junk being used to mock us, blatant red herrings, but perhaps every bit of it was relevant."

[Scene Music]

"Well done, Verrier. You got a lot right, and this should certainly make things easier to follow. Not that I think people are going to bother anyway ha!"


"I'm guessing you misspoke and meant 'Harley'. Anyway, I'll give you a few reds for a valiant effort." Gideon mockingly clapped. "The tape on Edna's bedroom was the last relevant tape to be broken that morning. At the time the master bedroom tape was broken, Gideon was not in the room. And remember that Heinrich, Raphael, and Fritz also saw Gideon in that bedroom. They of course didn't mistake him for somebody or something else.

"I'm not going to give red about the vacant guest room just yet. The story is about to 'spoil' the answer to the master bedroom, so I'd prefer to cover that first. Don't worry though... you're close." He added sinisterly. "As for Edna and the dining room lock, here's another hint--Edna believes she's telling the truth about not unlocking the door."


"All that about why Julia died is wrong, but the rest is very close. Angelo did indeed traverse between the tomb and bunker for two years. It was all about legacy, to be a part of something special even without getting credit for it. What a guy! I'm truly lucky to have a friend like him."

"I'll also explain the tape on the tomb, because I think people are getting too distracted by it. The tape was broken, which doesn't necessarily mean anything. It could be because of the weather. But it was in fact because Angelo left the tomb. He wanted to grab a meal from the bunker, or maybe a deck of cards to play solitaire. At this time, the tomb was unlocked. And unexpectedly, Fritz knocked over the bookshelf and trapped him inside. This posed a major problem for someone--the tomb was unlocked, and Angelo had no way of getting back to it. If the tomb were found opened and unlocked, it would be a disappointing and trivial mystery to solve. Certainly not worth all the effort behind it.

"I thought the scene with Juna on the cliffside implied this answer, but Juna shot the imposter shortly before Mia's body was discovered, using the gun Mia threw out the window. But I will add that beyond that she had no intentional involvement with the tomb trick. This entire tomb trick with the imposter was made on the fly, for the express purpose of creating an impossible mystery."

"Oh--and I suppose I can give one more freebie to help with solving the mystery of 2 years ago--Agnes and Gideon did not interact at all on March 1st or 2nd--the day of the birthday party and the day Gideon's body was discovered."