LogFAQs > #957118859

Van Zieks helpfully informs us that all we need to do to continue the trial is show who and how the victim was stabbed. That sounds simple enough. Ryunosuke manages to bring up the possibility that the window was open because of the fire and Joan admits that he's right. She also confirms she was throwing flaming books at the time of the incident. Juror No. 5 remembers a story where he accidentally lost the money he earned that day and his wife threw a knife at him. So it seems like I might have been right and Joan threw a knife out the open window. That's what Ryunosuke thinks might have happened as well. This is also enough to get four jurors on board to let the trial continue. Susato wants to call Joan to the stand! But, it gets rejected. That's unfortunate. Usually assistants don't get to do stuff like that so it's a shame it got turned down. We do get more testimony from Roly and Patricia, though.

Roly and Patricia pretty much kill our theory dead. The windows don't open enough to toss an item to the other side of the street. Items would just fall straight down outside the Garridebs place at best. With that said, it means we still don't know how the book got the other side of the road. Ryunosuke wants to push to get Susato's idea accepted since they need Joan to testify but, they need to find a way to do this. After reading Roly's warrant card again, an idea suddenly hit me. Roly didn't move the body out of his area so he could go to dinner, did he? He wouldn't, right? Patricia said she dropped her bouquet when she saw the victim but after she came back from going to the police box, the bouquet was nowhere near the victim. Roly moved the body, didn't he? The bouquet was found just outside the window of the Garrideb household. Sounds like Roly moved the body. I totally thought these two witness would be trustworthy but Roly betrays me! Ryunosuke accuses Roly of tampering with the scene of the crime and Roly finally admits to it.

I sort of feel bad for Roly. He seems like a normally good guy who cut corners at just the wrong time to protect his wedding anniversary plans. He all but saw Soseki commit the crime. How much of an issue could it really have been to move the body from one side of the street to the other? It turns out, a lot! But, with this information, we finally know how the burning book made its way to the other side of Briar Road. Also, the true scene of the crime means the knife throwing theory is back on the table.

The defense calls for Joan to take the stand. Ryunosuke does this but I think it would have been cool if Ryunosuke had let Susato lead here and ask for Joan to take the stand since it was her idea and make up for the time Susato got shot down. Joining Joan on the stand is John Garrideb. I forgot that he's also a possible witness. The Garridebs say that while they have knives similar to the generic one that hurt the victim but, even they have no idea if one of their knives went missing that night. That's a reasonable claim, so I wonder how we'll figure out what really happened. I found it amusing when Ryunosuke was wishing there was some sort of technology that would let them identify the owner of an item and Susato literally brings up fingerprinting. Turns out that the technology exists but isn't accepted as evidence yet. So we need to do something else. At this point I still don't really know what is up with the tenant on the first floor but it seems unlikely he is involved at this point.

We find the decisive evidence in John's pipe. The broken tip of the knife is a perfect fit. A book went out the window and the victim stopped to pick it up. A knife soon followed. Ouch. "This was nothing more than a series of unlikely events that culminated in an unfortunate accident". Just "unlikely"? Anyways it seems like we've finally reached the unfortunate truth of the matter. It also sounds like the victim woke up. So somehow we've reach the end of a case with no one dying. \o/ It's a formality at this point but we get our six Not Guilty (and voiced!) votes. Cue confetti and fireworks!

After the trial we catch up with Soseki and he's super happy to be free! But, it looks like he has decided to head back to Japan after this whole ordeal. Ryunosuke and Susato still need a place to stay and Sholmes suggests staying in the attic of the building he lives in since a vacancy just opened up. So the new home office from now on is none other than 221B Baker Street!

Case G1-4 End

This is another case that's a bit unusual. At the end of it all, I see why they decided for the victim to survive the attack even though they wouldn't really participate in the case. It would be a bit of a downer (again) if it turned out a person died from all this. I do feel bad for Joan since she obviously never expected something like this to happen but at the same time she shouldn't be throwing knives around like that! Should be using a more refined weapon like a bow instead. The Garridebs were alright as characters but Patricia was great. I'm not sure exactly why but I ended up liking her a lot. It surprised me that the playing card tenant never showed up at all after his initial appearance. He lived near the scene of the crime and showed up in the case but otherwise was completely unrelated. In the end, we never do find out why Van Zieks took up the case. I thought he would show up after the case to at least give us a cryptic clue but nope. Not even that much. There's also the issue of the Reaper's curse. I doubt anything seriously bad is going to happen to Soseki at this point but ultimately this plot point is still hanging since it could be months before the curse kicks in.
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My bracket looked like random picks compared to his.
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