"Friola, if you hide something, we will have to take it as an admission of guilt for killing the young lord," Merasi said, trying to scare the poor girl into revealing things.
"No, I didn't kill him. He hung himself," the girl shouted, hoping they would believe her.
Gassu and Chanam's eyes immediately changed while Ning and Merasi took a second to understand what had just happened.
Gassu walked forward and asked, "Did you just say the young lord hung himself?"
Friola realized her mistake as well. She wasn't supposed to say that. She was under direct order to not do exactly that. However, in her fluster, she blurted out the thing she had been trying to hide.
"Friola, did you see the young lord hang himself? Were you there?" Merasi asked.
Friola shook her head. She wasn't sure what to do anymore. The one thing she had been trying to hide was already blurted out.
"Was the rug in the room when you entered?" Ning asked.
The girl didn't want to lie, but she had direct orders.
"Friola, think of yourself. If you don't answer, you will be spending all your life in prison for murder," Merasi said.
"No, don't send me to prison. I'll speak!" she shouted. In the end, her wish for a proper life outweighed her determination to follow her lord's order to the end.
"Ok, then tell us clearly what you saw," Merasi said.
Friola nodded and reigned in her fear to speak about what she saw this morning.
"When the young lord hadn't woken up by 11 for breakfast, the Marquees had asked the maids to go wake up the young lord."
"I had been the one task with this by the head maid. After I went to the young lord's room, I noticed something from inside."
"There was water leaking out of the door," Friola said.
"Water?" Merasi asked with some confusion on her face.
Friola nodded. "I didn't think much of it and only wondered if the Lord had forgotten to use a bucket when he created the ice for the heat. However, when I saw that the door was unlocked, and opened it to call for him, I found him… dead."
"What about the rug?" Ning asked.
"The rug was soaked with water. So much so that, it overflowed out of it," Friola said.
Ning got a sense that he understood what had happened. "And the rug was directly under him?"
"Yes," Friola said.
"I see," Gassu said.
"So it was a suicide," Chanam said.
"No wonder you guys couldn't find a stool or chair. Lord Higen seemed to have used a block of ice as the stool," Merasi said.
"That settles it then. Lord Higen hung himself around midnight," Gassu said.
Merasi and Ning couldn't help but nod.
"Alright, let's leave the poor girl. We will go and find the rug, then make a report," Gassu said.
Ning and Merasi decided to leave as well. They left the girl and walked out of the room.
"I will go with you guys, or Callum will not treat you like people," Merasi said, which the two detectives were thankful for.
Ning, behind the three, walked with a slight smile on his face. He was… a little proud that he caught the clue that lead to the findings.
The missing rug.
'Oh right, system. Was I correct? Did Higen Callum kill himself?' Ning asked.
<No, it was a murder>
Ning stopped. Now that was interesting. 'I was wrong. We were all wrong,' Ning thought.
This wasn't the case of a suicide, but a murder? All evidence lead to suicide.
'Or… it could be made to lead towards suicide.'
"Guys, can we stop for a second?" Ning asked.
The three of them stopped and turned around. "What's wrong?" Merasi asked.
"Um, let's think this through for a second okay? Let's say, this wasn't a suicide, but rather a murder. Could the evidence we have found be helpful in that assumption?" Ning asked.
"Um, not really," Chanam said. "I don't see how there is any—"
"Actually, there is something that has been bothering me for a while. Let's go check the rug and maybe we will find something out," Gassu said and went to find Lord Callum.
Under Merasi's order, he reluctantly asked one of the butlers to lead them to the rug outside.
"This is the one," the butler said, pointing to a green rug, amongst many other clothes and curtains hanging in the drying wire.
"It's dry," Ning said with confusion. Wasn't it supposed to be wet?
"It's only dry on that side due to the sun. On this side, it's still wet," the butler showed the other side that was traces of water on it.
"Thank you," Merasi said, sending the butler away.
"So, what was it that bothered you, Gassu?" Ning asked.
"Yes, here's the thing okay. We thought that he hung himself by standing on a block of ice right? That doesn't make sense to me," Gassu said.
"If you were to hang yourself, why not do it on a chair? Why make an entire block of ice big enough to handle your weight? That would take hours to melt, and even if it was small enough, it is still the not ideal thing to hang yourself on, is it?"
"Hmm, now that you say that, that is weird," Chanam said from the side. "But maybe he just had the ice lying around. You know how these rich people are. They always have either themselves or others to make ice for themselves."
"For someone not wanting to live, creating an entire block of ice would take too much concentration and Aether. That just seems wrong," Merasi said.
Suddenly, Merasi's eyes shifted as she looked up in the air. "Down here!" she shouted, and a figure swiftly flew down towards her in a uniform of white and purple.
"What's the news?" Merasi asked the newly arrived Alekor.
"Captain, I just listened to the crowd for a few minutes, and I have to say, Marquees Callum… not the best of reputations."
