Death sighed in exasperation. He had been in the ballroom for almost an hour now trying to figure out how that woman got out of the room without him seeing. But as hard as he tried, Death was still clueless to how she did it. There was only one door to the room and that was the one that Death entered in. There was no way she could have gotten out through that door.
Of course there was always the windows, but Death had ruled that out very quickly. For some odd reason all the windows where nailed shut in the ballroom. There was no way that someone could have gotten out through there unless they spent a couple minutes pulling up nails with a hammer.
"Gah this frustrating!" Death muttered under his breath. He went to double check around some of the furniture and ended up slipping on the floor and landing flat on his back.
Hallas was still wondering around the mansion trying to find out where Death was. Currently Hallas was in Mr. Boddy's famous laboratory.
Normally this large but somewhat dark lab was usually locked under key with only Mr. Boddy himself being able to get in. But since Mr. Boddy's murder, almost every locked room was left unlocked for the investigation.
Hallas was starting to let his mind get the best of him and was freaking himself out by being in the dark lab alone. He was seeing and hearing things. Hallas would see shadows move and he'd hear voices whispering at him. Of course this was all in his mind and there were no voices or moving shadows.
Gotta calm down a bit. I shouldn't get myself so freaked out like this. Hallas took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a few minutes. I'm in this room alone there is no one else here.
"@#$$@$^T!^%!^&*#^$(Q%^*#@%&^$%#@^%(*!!!!"
Hallas jumped and crashed into one of the lab's tables. He very slowly got up glancing around the room suspiciously. He had been startled by someone yelling a long string of curses. Needless to say that spooked him. And he almost jumped again when he heard the same swearing, but then he realized whose voice it was.
Hallas walked over to a corner of the lab and listened very carefully. What he heard was the faint pain evoked muttering of Officer Death Noir.
Now why am I hearing Death? Where is it coming from? Hallas wondered leaning against the wall. Unknowingly Hallas pushed in a switch, which caused the wall to move. Unfortunately for Hallas the wall that moved was the one that he was leaning against. Therefore he fell flat on his face.
"Owwwy... Hmm... a secret passage? I didn't know this place had any of those." Hallas mused but then remembered Death's voice and followed the sound of it down the long dark passage. Damn I wish I had a flashlight, or even a match. Hallas miserably thought. If there was one thing he hated the most, it was walking around blindly in a dark place.
Death still grumbling about his back got up into a sitting position. Now how the hell did I fall down?! He looked over to the floor and saw that the floor was actually wet. He shook his head and got up just to hear a blood-curling scream.
Suddenly one of the walls before Death moved to reveal a passage. And from that passage Hallas leaped out screaming in a hysterical manor.
"AHHHHH!!!! A RAT!!!! A RAT!!!! AHHH!!!! GET IT AWAY!!!!!" Hallas screamed and leaped into Death's arms.
Death sweatdropped. "Hallas you can let go of me? You scared off the rat." Death said very dryly.
Hallas was still shrieking for a few moments before he took in what Death said and regained his composure. "Um sorry, Death..."
"Yeah well whatever... Grrr... you mean there was a secret passage here! AHHHH!!! Here I've been going nuts trying to figure out how she got out of here and this passage was here the whole time right under my nose!" Death grumbled.
"What woman are you talking about?"
"Huh? Oh yeah. Well here's what happened. I was looking around the manor when I heard this woman talking on a phone in room. She was talking to someone about Mr. Boddy's money and how she was trying to get her hands on it."
"Oh really? Did you know who it was?"
"No I didn't get a chance to see her, nor did I get to hear who it really was."
"Did she see you?"
"No I made sure that she didn't see me. But I couldn't get a good look at her and she went down the halls. I followed her to this room but when I got in here she was gone and I couldn't figure out how she managed to escape. Only now I can see how she managed to. Where does that passage lead to?"
"It's leads to Mr. Boddy's laboratory."
"Hmm... we should go and see Detective Tealson."
De Tanga after talking with Martina Rose went searching around for one of the people he wanted to talk to. He finally found Sylphiel but upon finding her he decided to talk to her later. De Tanga didn't want to disturb Sylphiel while she was having a delightful conversation with Colonel Gourry Mustard.
So that left De Tanga still searching for one of the other suspects. He found one of them when he went into study. He found Mr. Boddy's accountant, Carbunkle Green, looking through Mr. Boddy's personal papers and information.
"Ahem." De Tanga cleared his throat rather loudly.
Carbunkle freezes in a statue like state. He slightly turns his face to look at De Tanga who is standing in the doorway staring at him. "Hello Detective Tealson."
"Hello Mr. Green. So... what exactly are you doing?"
"Um... I was just... looking over... these um papers... to find out why some of Mr. Boddy's money has seemed to have gone missing."
"That's funny. I was told you were the one embezzling money out of Mr. Boddy."
"What?! Who told you that?"
"Well that's what I was told by Mr. Boddy's ex-secretary Martina Rose. Should I have a reason to suspect what she says as a lie?"
"Damn right you do! That woman is a compulsive liar! She'd lie about anything as long as it benefited her. I mean look at what she said when you were talking to everyone! She said that she quit. Now that was a lie. I damned well that she was fired! And she was stealing from Mr. Boddy too!" Carbunkle fumed out but soon mentally kicked himself for his slip of the tongue.
"So she was stealing from Mr. Boddy... too?" De Tanga put emphases on word 'too'.
"Alright, alright. I was stealing from him. Well you can't blame me. Mr. Boddy was one stingy bastard. He'd never pay me enough even though he had so much money. Plus he'd bother me all the time about his financial statements. I swear that guy never slept!"
"Hmm... well I'm not here to investigate any financial crimes, I'm here to solve a murder. Though I have to say I do find all this a bit suspicious with hearing about you stealing money and finding you in Mr. Boddy's study looking through his papers..."
"No seriously I was just checking Mr. Boddy's papers. Or rather trying to find them."
"What do you mean?"
"Well normally Mr. Boddy keeps them in this room, but they are missing. And that's weird because they were here right after we found out that Mr. Boddy was killed."
"So are you saying that someone might have gone in here and stole the papers?"
"I'm not saying that someone may I have, I'm saying that someone has gone in. They aren't in this room anywhere I checked the whole room. Someone else has definitely been here and took the papers."
"Hmm... got any ideas who it might have been?"
"Well... it could have been one of many people. Basically any person in this place. Everyone here is so greedy for money. Like Mr. Boddy's so-called relative Filia Peach."
"So you don't think she's really related to Mr. Boddy?"
"No I don't. In fact I know she isn't. I mean you'd have to be stupid to believe she is. It's so obvious that the only reason she's here is because she's trying to get at Mr. Boddy's money. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if she was the one who came in her and took the papers."
"Interesting. Tell me Mr. Green who do you think might have killed Mr. Boddy?"
"I really don't know. Personally even though there are some people here who might not seem likely to have done it but I wouldn't assume so. I think every person here might have been capable of killing Mr. Boddy."
"Well you might be right about that. Thank you Mr. Green for your time, but I must go now to deal with other matters. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to leave now."
"Sure, hope you have good luck on the case."
De Tanga nodded and both him and Carbunkle went separate ways.
Hallas and Death were running around the mansion left and right trying to find where De Tanga was. They asked everyone they saw if they knew where the detective was and one was sure where he was.
"One of the great things about looking for someone in a place like this, it's so hard because the place is damn big." Death muttered shaking his head.
"Who are you two looking for?" Carbunkle asked coming up behind them.
"Hello Mr. Green. Right now we are looking for Detective Tealson, but we can't seem to find him."
"Well I was just talking to him so he's probably somewhere down that hall." Carbunkle pointed to a hall to their left.
Both officers thanked Carbunkle and they headed off in search of De Tanga. Moments later they finally caught up with him.
"Detective Tealson!" Hallas yelled from down the hall.
De Tanga turned around and headed towards the two. "What's up you two find anything useful?"
"Yes Detective I think we may have. I'll explain on the way there."
De Tanga raised an eyebrow as he followed Death to the ballroom.
"... And then that's when Hallas came through the passage." Death finished explaining the story to De Tanga as the three of them stood in the ballroom. The passage that Hallas had opened was now closed and wasn't visible at all.
"So you say that this passage leads to the laboratory?"
"Yes it does."
"I want to go in the passage. How about we try opening it?"
The Hallas and Death shrugged and the two of the them went to try to re-open the passage without success.
"Now how the hell does this work?"
"Well the one I opened from the laboratory all I did was push a part of the wall."
"But I guess it must matter which spot you push. So it almost looks like unless you do it by accident like Hallas did, you'd have to know the passage very well to do it. I wonder are there any more passages in the manor..."