LogFAQs > #957234229

So... we return to court. Indeed the girl that McGilded claims was on the carriage is there. She has an entertaining but incredibly tedious animation where she loads her smoke gun. Surprisingly, to the game's credit, I think that animation is played less than five times, and she actually only fires it... twice? At the beginning?

Anyway, McGilded's story is that Gina Lestrade (hey a Holmes reference I do recognize) was hiding under his seat the whole time - making it impossible that she committed the murder, and letting her be a pretty nice witness. It's at this point that the game starts hinting very strongly at us that something is very much not right about this witness; the compartment where Lestrade claims to have hid is now empty, whereas before, it had a bunch of stuff that no doubt would have made her life more uncomfortable. There's also a bloodstain that I don't remember from before, and which Ryunosuke says bothers him a lot. Sinister.

This obvious bit of doctored evidence aside, Lestrade begins her testimony. She says she screamed after hearing a thump, but did not hear anything at all up 'til that point. It's a little directionless where this is leading... except that the lack of sound implies that our victim never actually got on the carriage. (Hey, this is the first place where I've taken lots of penalties.) We're not sure exactly why we keep pushing here, only that the truth has yet to come out fully... Magnus is irate that the trial somehow continues after all six jurors come onto our side.

We draw a crazy conclusion: that the body was not even in the carriage to begin with, but rather was dropped in via the skylight. (It's quite annoying that "the body was placed there after it was dead" was considered incorrect here.) This brings Fairplay and Furst back to the stand in an outrage - love Fairplay gnawing on his stick and that bizarre running animation for Furst. They claim to have nothing to do with any sort of body dropping and not even to have a motive and besides, the skylight doesn't even open! Yet when we press them, McGilded and Lestrade volunteer the intel that Fairplay owes money to McGilded just like Mason did, and that the skylight does open, but only from the top. It's an unsettling amount of deduction and puzzle-solving being executed by the defendant and his favorite witness - and again, it's unsettling just how much the crowd and jury seems to like him.

This all comes to a head when we examine the opened skylight and find a bloodstain that feels pretty damn decisive. Case closed, baby.

OBJECTION, snarls Van Zieks. The evidence has been fabricated and didn't exist before the smoke grenade. (Okay, so you knew the skylight opened - why make Lestrade prove it if you're about integrity? Well, whatever.) First the missing driver's items, now this bloodstain on the skylight... We have the option just to laugh at Van Zieks, but let's be real - that big bloodstain on the floor of the carriage probably wasn't there before, either. And indeed, Van Zieks confirms that there was no such bloodstain.

While he's beside himself with rage at the unfaithfulness of his defense attorney, McGilded is still capable of producing an evil laugh and pronouncing the trial over. The prosecution agrees they have no more evidence; the Judge agrees that there is nothing left to be said for this trial. Ryunosuke tries to object that the truth is yet to be known, but the Judge nonetheless hands down a verdict of Not Guilty.

In the defendant's antechamber, despite his threats to us, McGilded is in high spirits and is even being invited to help investigate the omnibus again. He also offers us money that we refuse, even though it means we're homeless tonight. And soon, someone is going to persih in a fire inside that omnibus - right in the courtroom.

End case and WHAT.

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* So this makes two no-investigation cases and one no-trial case. Presumably there will be both trial and investigation in G1-4, but there's obviously no guarantee at this point. I do assume Sholmes will be back and that we will have a lot more deduction there, but does that mean actual court segments won't happen?

* The story seems fairly clear now. While Gina is actually a very convincing witness, the doctored evidence and McGilded's obvious evilness are pointing us toward the truth: McGilded simply killed this dude over money, then paid off an urchin to bear false witness and doctor the evidence. But what's really confusing here is the one loose end I can't explain: if Gina was in fact not in the carriage, then how did both the witnesses on top of the car see two bloody hands? I guess this means Gina really *was* there, and McGilded convinced her to lie specifically about the sounds and how Mason wound up on that carriage.

* Totally didn't catch that Mason was wearing a Furst hat.

* The case is explicitly stated not to be over, and with a character who knows Gina being introduced, it seems pretty clear that we'll find out the truth of the case through Gina one way or the other. Van Zieks has also implied he has unfinished business with McGilded, so this could definitely be McGilded faking his own death.

* Still loving Naruhodo psyching himself up with the face-smashes.

* My initial bet is that it will be Magnus himself who dies in that fire, but that it might be hard to identify the body/that figuring out who it is will be a major plot point.

* Furst telling a story about farting in the omnibus is pretty amazing.

* Van Zieks performs a desk-pound with his foot - I mean I just don't have anything to say to that.

* Overall, really a fascinating case. It blows right through the ethical dilemma of 2-4 and actually has Ryunosuke get a (likely) guilty person off, despite not wanting to. And it ends without the truth being elucidated. Now it's not unprecedented that this can happen, but we generally get one satisfying conclusion in those cliffhanger cases; plus, those cases are usually penultimate cases like 3-4, 5-4, and the like. I don't know if there's a G1-5, but this case certainly didn't feel penultimate when we started (we just landed in London, and there's a festival in six months that there has to be a crime at!) So yeah, really interesting stuff.

* We know that Mael Stronghart has to be important later - but is there a chance he is involved with Magnus at all? Presumably not, right? That's probably too much speculation for now.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness