Worlds Beyond Number - HINT! ep3: Will They, Won't They

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

Our interlocutors do as the Romans do and pipe up, sweating through their first interrogation, but Cass finds himself in the cruelest court of all when his paper trail leads the way to new suspicions and old desperations. Not even a nice liberal government can save you from some things, like the smoking, still-warm barrel of a gun.We are:Brennan Lee MulliganErika IshiiAabria IyengarLou WilsonHINT! was designed and edited by Kate Sanders at Fortunate HorseSPECIAL THANKS TO: Shannon, Melanie, Amanda Freberg.Transcript of this episode coming soon! You can find transcripts of all our episodes here, for free, on our Patreon. Just navigate to the post for the episode and the transcript will be attached. If it's not there, it's on the way ;)Our album art is by the great Corey BrickleyOur music appears courtesy of Artlist.io, Musopen.org, Archive.org and the public domain.  

This is the sound of Worlds Beyond Number. The tinkling, clunking piano continues to play, echoing through the high ceilings, the parquet floors, as Susie Scarlet looks around nervously. Your pen pals with Marlene? Yes. What has she told you about me? Oh, uh, let me be so close.

clear. I'm not here to put any additional heat on an acquaintance that has nothing to do with tonight. Why don't you tell us your relationship with Marlene Brown? As some of you might know, Marlene Brown was often seen gallivanting around the town with body. not as a romantic connection, as many in the press assumed, but as a confidant of sorts. I think he liked having a friend who is a little queer, if you will. Well, when I met the two of them, everything was fine, dandy. Marlene and I were very close.

And then suddenly I was hearing her, she was saying terrible things about me behind my back, at least according to Rutherford and from other friends. And we grew quite distant and then she was gone back in New Hampshire. and I thought that it was her. She was, as Mr. Boddy, he used to say, a little crazy. But now I was given to understand recently that it wasn't her at all. It was Rutherford and his fragile little ego. And so when he and I struck up a romance, you know, I had feelings for him.

Yes, he's awful, but he was so charming, and he knew exactly what to say. And then when I confronted him, I suddenly heard from a friend that, oh, it wasn't actually Marlene saying all of those things. It was Rutherford saying she said all those things. And so when I confronted him, it seems that, yes, he'd done that on purpose. He'd create a distance, and I threatened to tell her. And I'm sorry, she turns to you, Mrs. White. I thought that you and were perhaps close with Marlene,

and she had said some things to sort of poison the well, as it were. And, well, it was all him. and he threatened to go to the press with this. And it would, it's hard enough as it is. There just simply aren't roles for someone like me. And there would be no kind of career for someone like me if I was, well, he had photographs of us. You know, nothing, nothing too risque,

but I had to get a hold of them at any cost. But I didn't kill him. I, she points to the piano. I, if you would like one of you, go ahead and bring the candlestick over here. Uh, yeah, I'll look to see if either of you wants to join me because we've been using the buddy system the whole time. I'll come with you.

Uh, and I'll pop into the lounge. Uh, on the way, just... Okay, how are you feeling about all of them? this. I don't know. We've taken in so much these passages, the candlestick not being there, reappearing. I think that Mr. Green is on to something. I think there is more to this than just a gunshot. But where it comes in, how it comes in, when it comes in, where it comes in, where it comes in, those things all still feel like a mystery to me. I'm just going to confide in you since I trust the two of you the most

and you a little more than Cass. When we were looking for my purse, there's a moment where we separated, and he was very eager to get into the dining room by himself. And my pant legs are kind of rolled up, so I'm just going to hike them up a little bit. Like, sorry, this is not. Oh, I didn't.

And I'll show you the bottom of the, like, chef's knife. Oh. I'm a little skittish. There's a murderer of fun. Yeah. It's right to be careful. But, I mean, Mr. Green is good with his words. But, I mean, he and Mr. Body clearly had something of a moment before we all parted from the dining room.

Yeah, I just, yeah. I still, I trust him. Everyone's, everyone's got reasons and everyone's got secrets, and I just wanted you to know everything. I appreciate that. Put a hand on your shoulder. We'll keep our wits about us, and we'll figure this out. Okay.

And then, yeah, go into the lounge and grab the candlestick. Is anything else out of place? No, not since you were last there. No new things have shown up or disappeared. All right. Good day. Good day. And I'm going to grab it from the bottom. Or everyone else has touched it. Oh, God. Now my fingerprints are on it. I'm going to go to jail.

I'm going to come back with it. So you return and Miss Scarlett holds out her hand. May I? All right. Well, and she moves over to the piano. There is, as you see, an octagonal dent indentation in it, where it, It looks like something needs to go. And you notice that the brass candlestick tapers down into an octagonal shape. She places the candlestick into the indentation. And you see the painting of the incredibly haughty-looking cherubs pops open, hinged on the left. I knew it was in here.

What do we see inside of the? or behind the portrait. If you open up the painting further, you see that this was as a wall safe, essentially. It's not, of course, in any sort of safe that requires a combination if somebody happened to put something autsoaginal in that indentation,

it would have been very easy for them to see just the random gold bars and loose contracts and a number of photographs ranging from rather risque all the way to actually kind of sweet. It's his trophy collection. What was it, Susie, that you wanted, you said that you were going to tell her unless he did, and then he threatened to go to the press, presumably with this blackmail material. Yes.

What was it you wanted him to say to Marlene? Tell her that I had feelings for her and that he was the one that ruined it all. He did, just on a whim. He just ruined what could have been something very special. And I'm worried that she'll never see me the same way again because, well, I'm sure he's painted me quite cruelly to her. Is there a fireplace or anything like that in this room, or is there any of that? There's no fireplace. There's candles on the walls.

This is an electric light room, but there are candles sort of for show. I'll take a look through the photos I'm going to place to one side, but I'll look through the contracts. There's gold bars in here that I'm going to leave. But I'll look through the contracts in here and see if there's a thing. anything in the contracts. Is this all new to you, Cass? Oh, 100%. I mean, as you all know, I haven't represented

the body corporation since I worked for my father, who passed away a couple of years ago. And most of us who have any amount of wealth tend to keep it in banks and contracts with lawyers, you know, and not in some insane painting here. It makes sense for the photographs to be hidden in a vault because the photographs, even though they implicate Ms. Brown and Miss Scarlet, are illegal. It's blackmail.

The gold bullion I can't speak to, although depending on where it comes from, perhaps it's stolen. And these contracts, and I just want to rifle through them and see who the contracts were with or what they might have anything to do with. They are various things. I think they are different contracts that he's had. with people that you've known in the past that he's been friendly with. Again, his largesse of giving a club membership or, you know, a piece of land and contracts that he's signed with these people that he's given gifts to. But it seems like he's had to do quite a lot of gift giving that involves signatures from people. I would like to walk the contracts over and put them on, close the piano and put them on the back of the piano and look to Claudette and Arnold and Fred as well and say, this is all Greek to me, but maybe some of you would recognize some of the names of anyone he's on business with here.

Fred, you in particular, if there's anyone here that seems like they might be the major domo of some extra national corporation, research. development? Let me see. And he looks through it and most of it this looks like is all very personal but yes he holds up there is one in

I read German still and this one is a contract with it looks like some sort of German government official for research into chemical weapons

Well, it's a good thing Germany has a good liberal government. Fucking Krauts. I will, listen, I served in the war, you know, you know. I'm not talking about you, Fred, you're not a kraut. Air krauts, you're Fred. It's a completely different condiment. You're mustard. It was Musselaard at one point, yes, but.

Okay. I'd like to grab the photographs and walk over and, and hand them to Susie. I'm sorry, I thought, I thought you didn't like me. I don't have to like somebody to believe that they shouldn't be hurt. Thank you. And, you know, if you do write to Marlene, please. Well, I don't know what's going to happen after all this,

but I'd love to sort of at least, feel like I can also be a pen pal of hers. I'll give you her address. You should write her a letter. So you made the player piano play. You knew where the safe was. You found the photos. I was in the middle of searching through them

when I heard the gunshots. And I didn't have time to, you know, I didn't have time to grab them and move the candlestick back and, you know... Why don't you take this from the very beginning? All right. Starting at dinner, walk us through the events as they unfolded. Leave out no details, Susie. Well, I was in the lounge after everybody else had left.

I was sulking, but then I realized that... The candlestick was the same one that was used in the piano. And so I grabbed it, pocketed it, kept it under my dress for the entirety of the very awkward dinner, and then moved straight to the ballroom. I flipped on the piano playing switch so that it would seem as if I was just playing the piano. and I had to figure out how the candlestick would activate the safe. I knew that he had gone to a safe and grabbed the candlestick. I didn't know where it went.

How? How did you know that? As you guys are talking, Mrs. White kind of like stiffens and then leaves the room. Uh, I'll dart my eyes up. Claw? You can come with me. Uh, I'm going to dart after Claudette. Yeah.

But Fred also comes because I think it wise that none of us should leave the room. What is what is happening? Miss Peacock, you stay with Miss Garland. Oh, right. Storming out. It's not a sprint, but it's we were trying to find fingerprints or evidence on the candlestick, if that's why she took it. But there's two other things that could have been used as a weapon and returned quick enough.

There's a wrench and a pipe. And that's what she's storming back to go check. I'll rush back into the lounge, I think, with you to go check these other objects there. Scarlett is back with Mrs. Peacock in the ballroom. Yes, she's drunkenly patting Miss Scarlett on the shoulder, saying, and as you leave, she's saying, oh, back in my day, you know, I was no stranger to correspondence. and as you sprint towards the lounge, mustard nods in agreement.

All right, so we check for more fingerprints on, or blood on the others. What of the gun? I have no idea where the gun is. But your belief is that some of these other objects may have been used because they would fit the opening of the secret compartment from the piano. There's other octagonal instruments, essentially.

or no? No, we were focused on finding the candlestick because it went missing. But if that's just Scarlett figuring out her whole deal, that's fine. That means we're still looking for the blunt instrument that killed Rutherford. So the gun is missing because there was shots fired clearly. And the candlestick was missing because Ms. Scarlett took it for activating the safe. And then made a big, I hate to use the... phrase, a hysterical mess to give herself maybe enough cover to get it returned without

arousing any suspicion. Understood. Let's go ahead and dust for prints. And I take out my notebook and put the fingerprints out in front of it. Can the two of you do that? Oh, sure. I want to look over the dining room. Yes, absolutely.

And you can come and meet us there with any revelations you have. Okay. Fred, do you mind giving me a hat? Yes. They're good. So you two head off to the dining room. You two are here and you're fingerprinting the weapons? Yeah.

Or? Okay. So you fingerprint the weapons and on the wrench, which is in the glass case still, you notice that the case still has fingerprints that are unfamiliar. Do not match any of the sets here. Do the fingerprints give any understanding of how to open the case? Yes. Yes.

It just, the glass slides out. you know, just as a normal sort of frame. And you see... I'll take out a pocket handkerchief, lift the wrench out, and hold it in my pocket handkerchief for you to dust. Yeah, and I'll dust it while also trying to check, like, crevices for, like, blood that was harder to, like, wipe away

or, like, dried blood. So, like, as you're holding it, especially at, like, little joints, I would probably, like, grab your hand just to press in a little bit to see if you, like, fleck off and, you, like dried blood. You, I am very distracted in this moment as we are, as you are doing this. You don't find any blood on the wrench.

You do find, again, that same set of fingerprints that was on the outside of it, but does not match any of the guests at the mansion. Okay. Well, what do we do if we find prints that don't match? And she has not let go of your hands holding the wrench. As I'm looking up, I'll go. All right, do these prints that don't match seem similar to the ones that I'm guessing are Rutherfords, or are they different from Rutherfords? Yes, they are similar.

They're similar to Rutherfords. I would bet this is Rudd's prints. Oh, oh, that makes sense. And I think at that she'll like let your hands go and then moves over towards the pipe. You examine the pipe? It is, I'm running out of flower. It is pipe. It is a heavy metal cylinder patinaed green.

with age and this it has raised lettering on it it reads I-M-P-V-E-E-S-P-V I-I-I-I-I-I-T-I-M-P-V-E-E-M-P-V-I All uppercase letters The Romans you wouldn't see four

eyes in a row. No, not if it was a real number. But again, this can't be, it cannot be one Roman numeral, but I wonder if it... You went to. You went to, like, the boys finishing school. The Hutchings Institute for Cultured Boys. You watch her try so sincerely to not scream laugh at that. The youngest and most cultured boys are brought to Hutchings to continue their acculturation.

It must have been very nice for you. Actually, it was grueling. We had to learn to care for the Shetland ponies. There was a lot. What's the Shetland pony? A Shetland pony? It's a long-haired miniature horse from Scotland. Why?

Why? Why? Well, that's culture. Claudette, that's culture. That's a smaller than normal horse. And speaking of culture, you would know that, yes, this is, Roman, Latin, but it's not actually any words or numbers. It might be abbreviations, as we're sometimes stamped onto pieces of public property.

Sometimes it's stamped onto pieces of public property. So as we look at this, this is made, this is industrial. It's part of the pipe. It is, yes. So I'm like, this can't, this is not like the writing at the base of the statue. This was made by the factory. So it's not one of Rutherford's dumb codes. It means something else.

Oh, and if you cared to look, the placard next to it would say Roman Empire plumbing. Roman Empire plumbing. Yeah, workers of the world unite. You know what? We should go talk to the professor. Okay. Do we want to check if blood? Yeah, we can check for blood, but I think that the professor,

We'll probably, you know, he's a student of the antiquities. Some Roman numerals might fall more within his wheelhouse. Okay. While this is happening in the dining room. Professor Plum leads Colonel Mustard into the dining room. Are we looking for more of Rutherford's little secrets? Not this time. We're looking for those of his associate, Mr. Green.

Cassidy. Yes. Do you suspect him? Miss White told me that he was very eager to get in here. Hmm. My hope is to figure out why. He was last seen with Mr. Body and in this room. Yes.

All right. I'll search, split up and search. Please, let's be thorough. All right. You're both looking around. Do you take, what do you, where do you? I think I, I think we'd probably take the room in half. So I think I'm looking, I think after doing a pretty, I feel pretty good about the table.

As we, that's where we had all been sitting. I think I moved through the table and then also to any of the, you know, any of the cabinetry and things. You find on the shelf with the china just above eye level a sheaf of papers. I pulled them down and take a look. What does he see? You see the last will and testament of Rutherford Q. Body. and the establishment of a trust for whom the primary beneficiary is one, Cassidy Ulysses Green. He found something.

I did. He comes over to look. Good Lord. I'm not incorrect in my assumption. This is damning. This ink is fresh. He had him sign a will, making him out to be a very large beneficiary. You would seem that way.

And then... But that would be... That would be madness. And then to just hide this here, surely, he would have hidden something... Far better. And then... And then...

I mean, to have the audacity to murder him right afterwards. I don't know, Fred. It is damning. And Mr. Green will need to explain himself. I should think so. Oh, and... About the...

what I was doing during that time. I don't know if you, any of your friends who saw service ever had them, but sometimes I get these episodes. I can't, uh, can't see right. I can't, everything feels, it's hard to breathe, and I, I didn't want to. It's quite embarrassing.

It's something that I'm sure will, will, We'll go away with time. I hope so, but I've met many other men who served who have similar experiences, and it's nothing to be ashamed about. You've been through a lot, Fred. When I heard those gunshots, I, you know, it brought me back. Me and Claudette want to go find the professor, and we know that he's in the dining room. Okay, so.

I'll push open the door and go, Professor, and my eyes zero in on the case folder. and I go stock still. I bump into you following you into the room. What's wrong? What's wrong? What's wrong? Mr. Green. Colonel Mustard moves to you and sort of gently ushers you towards our side of the room, closes the door behind you. Miss White had instructed me that you were quite insistent to make it to the dining room.

To recover, Your handbag, Mrs. White. You were also alone in the kitchen. Very gentlemanly of you. Do you still have it on you? Uh... She does. Yeah.

I'm going to turn and say, Professor, I see you have discovered a legal contract signed into effect this evening. The contract that Professor holds, Mrs. White, names me as the primary beneficiary of Rutherford's last will and Testament. And now you have become a very wealthy man.

If a court would honor it. I understand. And I step away from the side and like split the difference between like plum and mustard and you. I'm shaking very subtly looking at the professor holding it. And I think that I have a look in my eye both of that thing you are holding. is my doom, and also I want that. I don't want someone else to hold it. I don't want someone to rip it up. I don't want someone to burn it. And I just go, I may have omitted some level of the truth

from our earlier conversation. The conversation that I had with Rutherford when the two of us were the last left here in the dining room was an honest accounting of what I spoke to him of. It was not a full accounting of what I spoke to him of. About a month ago, Rutherford reached out to me, asking to retain my services as his personal attorney, not for my firm to come back and represent the body business empire as it had under my father for Rutherford's father's long tenure as the head of that industry.

I inquired as to why or what personal services Rutherford might require, and he wanted to to draft him a will, which is a perfectly simple legal matter. And you drafted a will with yourself as the primary beneficiary? At his request, Colonel. Now, in all fairness, I can't think of anything stupider than crossing the line on the biggest payday of your life. and then immediately killing him. Also, no one's worked harder to try to find who the murderer is.

All he would have had to do is sit back and watch us scrabble over the remains until the cops came. Well, the three of you were seemingly above suspicion or so you vouched for each other because there were shots when you all were together. And now you're saying that If we were in cahoots, I wouldn't have sent him to go find a contract that would get any of us in trouble. Colonel, please, your station implies some level of military intelligence, and that is deeply unstrategic. That would be quite foolhardy, yes. Let's say I did it.

That means in the intervening hour between dinner and when the gunshots were heard, I would have found something. blunt instrument, some other way of killing my best friend, like a brother to me, ending his life, somewhere silently, and then in the lounge with Claudette and the professor, I would have needed an accomplice to fire that gun. They watched me in the lounge when the gunshots went off,

so even if I did it, I didn't do it alone. and we were the last ones to get to the study. By your logic, Mr. Green, do you believe now that the murderer is not one person but two? It's possible. In fact, I would say it... The only way someone could have done this altogether, we've seen blood in the kitchen drops in the study leading to the white rhino. That means there was some trail of blood, either on the murderer's person or on the murderer's person or on Rutherford's that got through that passageway.

Someone cleaned it up or attempted to clean it up in the kitchen and didn't quite do a full job. Now, the things that have made sense to me thus far are this. Fred, you're the only person with the physical capacity to get a dead body out of the kitchen through the tunnel to that study, prop them up at the desk, and fire. You were in the hall for a physical capacity. an hour.

Colonel, that doesn't add up. The colonel looks at Plum. I am physically incapable of doing such things. I have not fired a gun since the war. He does have the limp. You mean you physically cannot pull a trigger? Not without being physically ill, no. You may laugh, young lady, but

when you've seen the kind of things that I've seen, I... You would want nothing to do with any kind of violence ever again. I'm not even saying that you pulled the trigger. There's another possibility here. If we believe Susie and that her... Look, there have been some double dealings tonight. I won't lie about that.

Susie was trying to get her hands on that blackmail in that closet. She put on the player piano to cover her steps. I absconded from Claudette in the kitchen to come in here and hide the will. That's true. I hid it because I knew its discovery would paint me as suspect number one. And I panicked. The reason I've pushed so hard for us not to call the police is that even if we find the murderer and they go to jail, if I don't... If you don't know who did it, you might be a part of a conspiracy to do murder and it would invalidate the will.

There is no crueler court than the court of public opinion. Even if I illegally inherited this thing that my father spent his whole life building on behalf of other men, if I don't. If it's not above board, if it's not clean, it'll never matter. They'll talk about me, my kids, our family forever. We have kids? Are you married? Yeah, I have three kids. You have three children. What of your wife?

I'm a 37-year-old lawyer. Oh. I just, they're never at the poppies. I never, yeah, I never thought of that. Bring my kids to work with me as I've run around pimping and wheeling and dealing drugs. Yeah, but you don't talk about your wife or anything? And speaking of life, I love Martha very dearly. I don't she still bring it up.

Martha. Martha? Martha Green. Martha. Martha Green, did you take your name? No, she kept her own name. Martha Chartreuse. Oh.

And not to bride. or anything. She's a French lady. Speaking of French and not a pride, do you, are you, is there a Mr. White? I, um, there's not. But the ring?

Um, I came into some money when I was in Paris, but there was no marriage. It just seemed easier to explain. Ah, yes. Gentlemen won't, uh, any good

gentleman wouldn't bother a young lady with an engagement ring on. Yeah. I feel, well, I've known about the ring for a while and the use for it. And I'm sorry I've never mentioned my kids. Kelly Forrest and Mint are the love of my life. I'm going to hit Brennan. I always liked the name Kelly. Kelly, she's a wonderful girl.

Mint is a psychotic name for a child. A little minty. Can we say that? No, Little Minty. You call him Little Minty. Well, it's short from Montgomery. Oh. Murder you.

Mint Gummery. All right. We're going to take a little break here for a second. I think that's it to recover from. Things were at the height of their tension. I have a wife and kids. And we're like, I'm sorry. Wait, hold on.

What? What? What? What? Actually, full record scratch moment. This is when Taylor would run in and go stay in it, stay in. He's not here to yell at. He's not here.

Oh, no. He's not here. We can get back to that. We can get back to that. You're right. You're right. It would be strategically insane for you to have him sign this will and then immediately knock him off. Yeah.

The argument I got into with Rutherford before all this happened was telling him that this is insane. this thing and are you still holding the contract oh yeah i look at it and you can see my hand twitches in a like striver way i just want that so bad that's my whole future and i go i i i told him it was insane why i've been out of i've been outside of the business in the rain currying his drugs and alcohol for years hold on what's insane that he would be gracious with you like he's been gracious to so many of his friends. And I gesture at the other contracts of, like, him being generous with people in a way that's like, this is deriguere for him.

Yes, but those people got their houses or their cars or whatever it is while they were alive. Poor Cassidy has to wait until he's dead for his dreams to come true. It's not even the waiting until he's dead. It's the fact that it's too big to be a favor. if you look at these contracts, there is something that he gets out of this. What does he get out of leaving everything to me? All it does is call me into question. It says, what did Cassidy Green have on Rutherford that this would have happened in this way?

I was trying to find a moment. I had only had it by letter. You know, I had just gotten through. I hadn't been able to talk to him in person about the insanity of all this. And I was trying to say, look, before we do this, invite me back into the business, hire me as a legal advisor, inside counsel, do something that makes this start to make sense. And Claudette, I know you know only too well that Rutherford wanted everyone to shine in the exact place he set for them on his shelf.

That is true. But it feels like maybe he was. was putting you on a different kind of shelf. Feels like you're the only one who actually genuinely feels bad he's dead. Maybe that's something to do with it. I do. Could he have been setting you up? If you remember, I almost gave up the game when we walked into the study for the first time.

I asked, before I could stop myself, I blurted out and asked if he knew. If somehow... Because it didn't... Because the timing. On the one hand, yes, why would... would I kill him immediately after assigning the will? But on the other hand, it, why, to put it in the other direction, why would he make me create this will on the night that he died? It's too coincidental, not in a way that implicates me, but in a way that implicates somebody, the coincidence is too

great. He died on the, he pressured me to do this cockamamie trust, and somehow he died. He died, that night, something foul is at work here. And again, I am implicated. But by God, we were in that lounge and somebody who wasn't the three of us fired that gun. All right. We still have a smoking gun to find then. Where have you not searched? Well, we've been in the library, but we haven't combed it over. And billiard room as well. The billiard room as well. I checked the billiard room and nothing so far. And actually, the billiard room, the billiard room may have been one of the only rooms that none of the rest of us were in.

And if all, if none of us saw Rutherford for that hour before the gunshots were fired, maybe checking the room that none of us had eyeline to might yield some answers. All right. Worth a shot. Should we get the... Might be worth two. I think Plum is going to look to Mr. Green. It's a sign of trust.

I'd like to hold on to these. I will take my briefcase, put it on the table, open it up, and slide the open briefcase over to you, and say, you're welcome to do so, Professor. I'd ask that you put it in that briefcase. if a cup of tea or some cigar ash were to spill on that contract, it would be the destruction of my future. I'm going to look over the briefcase. Does it have a number code or a key? It does not. It doesn't lock. Nope.

Fair. Well, and Arnold do take care with that. I think that money would be better spent by you. or not spent, such as we're with Rutherford. All right, shall we... Think we... Pass by the ballroom, pick up the ladies, and head to the billiard room.

Very good. So you walk over to the ballroom, and Scarlett and Peacock are there. Peacock has offered her some of the Hemingway flask, and she's taken a tiny nip of his... and seems a little calmer and is clutching at the photographs very gratefully. Oh, yes. And, I mean, I don't want to tell tales out of school, but, you know, a ladies' boarding school is...

Oh, yes, what did you find this time? Nothing useful. Mr. Green is going to inherit this house. They both stare at you, uh, mouths agape. I, uh... We'll see who inherits what. Well, at the very least, you can redo some of this terribly tacky decor. Oh!

I, uh, I will take it under advisement. Emelda, thank you very much. I have thoughts about the conservatory, though, young man, you'd better talk. to me before you do anything in there. And you all move towards the billiard room. The billiard room, other than the bar and the billiard table itself, is mostly bare. You don't see much in the way of secrets or riddles or dumb puns. But you can look around if you wish.

First of all, I'd like to look over at Claudette and say, do you want to remand the custody of that pipe to our friend the professor here and see if the Roman numerals strike? Oh, yeah, sorry. I guess I've just been wanging it around and gesticulating with a metal pipe. Yeah, is this the new murder suspect weapon? Not that I can tell. Did we spend any time trying to, like, blood check it?

No, you just, uh, you checked the wrench and dusted the wrench, and now the pipe is... Okay. Do you mind holding it? Oh, sure. I read. Uh, I took Latin in college. Uh, okay, we all went to college. And Greek.

Yes, not fluent, but... All right. I can speak it. Oh, that's the opposite. No, yes, I took them in college, anyway. Uh, so. it has the raised lettering

with the inscription that reads I M-P-V-E-S-P-V-V-I-I-I-I-I-I-T-I-T-I-M-P-V-I. And this is, it's a segment of the pipe, you know, the pipe cuts off before, you know, it looks like, it's the spacing-wise, it looks like there's, there might have been more writing there. It is, those are not any actual numbers or words. They look like abbreviations of words that might be stamped on, you know, plumbing or, you know, an aqueduct.

And you also notice that there is a little bit of green residue in Claudette's hand. I look at the residue What do I get the sense is the composition of the residue? It is rusted metal. Is it oxidized copper? It is oxidized copper. So while it is not fully powdery, there are occasionally crusted bits

coming off in your hand. Yeah, she's like obsessively trying to get it off of her hands. And so I understand these to be the kind of abbreviations of words. Yes. Got it. You would know that likely the IMP might stand it for Imperator, like the emperor. The VESP might be like the name of the emperor and Vespation. You wouldn't know that.

Who said that? I get the sense that this is the historical markings for the whoever was ruling Rome at the time of its construction. Oh. With the residue on it, I'm going to say oxidized. And can we look over it for any trace of blood? Yes. If you look, do you use your... Yeah, I'll use my magnifying glasses, lose my spectacles, to kind of look in.

and, yeah, try to examine and see if there is any, and I'll try to handle it with my handkerchief as well and see if there's any indication of blood on this once we're in the billiard room. In the dim light of the billiard room, you can see that though the rest of the pipe is very clean, that in between one of the Vs, there is a smudge of blood. Well, I think we may have found our murder weapon.

So the gun is... The gun is a cover. The gun is a... Or perhaps even just the second act. To this, our first act. So are there two murders, or is it the one person who did both? I'm going to start. I'm no longer looking at the conversation,

but I will telegraph for the two of you by showing you that I'm still trying to rub the patina off of my hand as I start glancing around to try to catch anyone's hand. I'll see that and I'll say, I'd like everyone's hands up on the side of the billiard table if you'd be so kind, palms facing upwards. All right. So everybody puts their hands up.

I do one hand at a time holding the briefcase. I'd like to swab everybody's hands for some kind of copper residue. I want to look in the creases of people's like knuckles. It's like the grip you would need on this pipe to actually like bludgeon someone to death for it and thinking of the matting. Under the nails too.

Under the nails as well. The nails. I don't actually even need to swab it. We just want some indication that someone who has not yet held this pipe. So I think Fred and Imelda and Susie. Oh, and so. you swab the three of their hands,

and you come away with nothing. Claudette, Mr. Green, your hands as well. Oh, she was the first one to do it. She was showing her hand first to, like, signal to you guys, check everyone's hands. But, of course, you have it on your hands from having handled. Yes. So what does this mean?

Does the professor have any on his? The professor does not have any... I'm sorry, wait, you touched. You had, you... No, I only looked at it through... I only had... Sure, I'm happy to have held it the whole time. Yes, I never picked it.

Right. Then, no, you don't have any in your hand, but you notice that, like, when you're rubbing it, it comes off fairly easily. Yeah. Was there anything on Green's hands? No. No, there was not.

Susie, walk us again through the timeline very briefly. After dinner, you... You straight to the ballroom with the candlestick. I had had it all the way through dinner. And, you know, it took me a minute to figure out the piano. And then, you know, I placed it. But by that time, it was already the gunshots. How did you know to look in the ballroom for the safe?

Had you seen it before? I had seen him one time. when he went to go put a contract away, I saw him with the candlestick, which I thought was odd, and then I saw him walking into the ballroom, but I didn't know where it went. So you had to spend much of that hour

looking for the activation for the way. And you used the play-up piano to cover your tracks. I didn't want him to hear me and think that I was looking. When did you decide, when did you replace the candlestick? Oh, that was after, and she looks at Fred muster at this point. She says, well, when I was being hysterical, I did take that opportunity to run it back. Candlestick went back.

I'm sorry. She said she needed to go use the ladies' room, and she must have done it then. When you put it back, did you notice any other missing ones? weapons from the plinths. The gun was missing. The gun is still missing. Yes. All right.

Well, there's no patina on any of our hands, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't easily be washed off. And from what you said, it sounds like they cleaned up most of the blood in the kitchen. They cleaned up most of the blood in the kitchen. The issue that we have here is this. where would Rutherford have been? He was either killed in the study where his body wouldn't need to have been moved

or he was killed elsewhere and dragged there. If he was dragged there, Fred, it's hard to think of how he would have been moved through that long corridor other than you moving him. That's true. I think that I'm one of the few men here that has the physical strength for it, save for yourself and the professor. Have we investigated the actual billiards room yet or no?

You had not, if you'd like to give it a cursory glance. Yeah, I think so. I think I'll give it a glance as I look at it and I go. There's nothing here but the secret panel that unlocks the bar that you have so thoughtfully packed with gins. Yeah, I'll go ahead and open that secret panel and take a little look around. You open the panel and there are all sorts of giggle juices that you yourself had requisition for everybody. And as you look at them, you consider how every ounce of that illegal substance has cost you an ounce of.

dignity, time, conscience, but you don't see anything out of the ordinary. Still haven't looked over the hall. We still haven't looked over the library. If there's, you know, more than just the current classics, perhaps, we can all split up in that room and discover them together. So sorry, Professor. You stepped outside to smoke in a storm? I was before the weather had turned. I think let's start by the library and take a look there and maybe... I always hated that library. You should do something.

Now that's a room you should do something with. So ostentatious. So great point, Imelda. And I just... Very good. Very good. And I'll walk into the library and specifically, like, take a look at the shattered restaurant on the ground, the model restaurant. The modeled restaurant is, as you can see, from the angles of the splinters,

it was clearly the state of the art, art deco. This doesn't seem like very much your style. Oh, um, it's, it's not, uh, he surprised me with the model and a business plan and contracts. Oh, and expected you to thank him. Yes. Such was his way. When did you break it, Claw? Oh, uh, I came in here during the break. Do I remember hearing any kind of noise that might have sounded like, you know,

smashing a model restaurant on the floor? The jazz coming from the ballroom was so loud and distracting that it was hard to hear any of the other sounds in the rest of the house. But you were in, which room? The lounge. 20 minutes after dinner, I would have been in the lounge. You wouldn't have heard anything from the library, no. I'm going to look at Claudette and the professor.

How many minutes after dinner did you both join me in the lounge? Probably pretty close to the hour. Sometime between 1150 and 1155. So you were in the kitchen for a while and then taking a smoke break for a while. Drying out, yes. Probably half past the hour. So 20 minutes after dinner, that's destroyed, and we spent the last half hour before midnight

in the lounge together. As you're talking, Miss Scarlett is looking at the mantel pieces, poking at them. Say something, Sears. I, this is, I don't know. It's just, I know he had them put in special. Is there something here?

What do you mean? The mantle pieces, science and imagination. Are we looking at some Roman historical figures up here on these bus? There is Sir Isaac Newton on science, and on both sides, there are two muses, one on each. of the mantel pieces. The one on imagination is holding a tomb. The professor, you would

know this to be Calliope, the muse of epic poetry. The naked muse on the other side is Urania, the muse of astronomy, astrology, and the celestial

bodies. And if you look a little closer, you will notice that her breasts are a little shinier and more polished than the rest of her. I hate this man. There is a tiny eye roll of commiseration. So you think there's something on the mantel in the scarlet? I think, yes. I don't want to fondle the naked muse, but what if it opens a door?

No. Do you know which one this is? You can fondle uranium and I'll fondle chalyapy. Okay. I'll fondle Sir Isaac Newton. Fantastic. He liked it. How do you like them, apples?

Oh, a gravity, Joe. I think we're ignoring the gravity of the situation. Professor, you fondle with both hands, Calliope. Nothing happens. Actually, you know what? Claw doesn't. She's obsessed with, like, her hand being unclean

and, like, has not moved past it. Are you all right? I would love to go wash my hands. Um, I'll go with you. Thank you. Says mustard. And I'll just turn to the group. It's a chef thing.

Being clean is important, and I don't like this feeling. All right. So, Mrs. White, you and Fred Mustard, move off towards the restroom. Just looking for a little powder room. And if there is time enough, I don't want to go to a powder room close to here. If I think that may be the murder happened closer to the kitchen, I'm going to look for a powder room closer to the kitchen. Yes.

There is a small toilet near the kitchen, just outside between the kitchen and the ballroom. And mustard points said that he said, oh, there's one. Sorry, sorry, no, I'm a little weird about this and I want to see. Like, I would have washed my hands frequently in the kitchen, but I'm trying to like lay a little trail for a massive cleanup happened here. Am I seeing linen turnover? Can I check the linen closets? And I know where they all are in and around this area. A massive amount of cleanup happened somewhere.

And I haven't seen any evidence of it yet. So she's... So you go... She has a bit of OCD, but it's also the like, I need to clean my hand and I need to figure out where this cleanup happens. Right. So you go towards the small toilet closet near the kitchen. And as you go in, mustard stands outside and he says,

I had a friend back in the Army. He was our chef, actually. And he also had a thing about him to stay clean. And even in the trenches in Europe, he managed to keep his hands spotless. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh earlier when you talked about not being able to pull a trigger. I didn't mean it that way. Yes, well, it's... I wouldn't blame you if you did laugh at me. It's quite laughable that a colonel. No. No, I don't think that's true. I'm just sort of... I know where I was. I was in the lounge.

with the only two people who could move a body easily. So there's just something not adding up. Yeah. Who moved the body? Who shot the gun? And if there was a cleanup, and here I opened the, like, powder room, where is everything that cleaned up that blood?

He built that kitchen for me, another one of his terrible gifts. I keep it spotless, and I missed blood. Oh, well, not to, you know, call into question your friendliness now, but he points to the faucet in the little toilet closet that you had just been in, and you see that there is a tiny smudge of blood.

While we're in the library, We're here with Susie Amelda and the professor, right? So I'm looking at Susie, and like Susie's story and timeline makes a lot of sense. And I'm looking at Amelda. And as we're kind of like searching throughout, I'm going to turn to the professor. I'm just saying, trying to keep an eye out from. I think, yeah, it's funny. We've left the hall and the library for the longest is the two rooms.

That I think it makes the most sense for us to find that. gun in. The shots fired. Nobody could have hidden it in the kitchen. They couldn't have run all the way across the house. They had to hide it in a short enough amount of time that they could fire from the doorway twice into the study and then run back, deposit it, and join everybody to be surprised. To be surprised.

Unless, maybe. If it was two people working together, the bullets, one goes into the wall, the other goes into Rutherford. But maybe that person was there to cover tracks for somebody else. Could be the body didn't get moved into the study. Perhaps Rutherford moved himself. seating at his desk, and maybe someone not moving through the halls comes out from that rhinoceros with a pipe across the head earlier in that hour after he had departed from the dining room.

The drips of blood, the matting of the hair, the person walks back from here, leaving the trail of blood, going to the secret passageway, the blood, and not noticing that the pipe was dripping blood until they get back to the kitchen, where they attempt to clean it up. I'm just going to look at you and look down at the briefcase you're holding and look back and go, you're the only person who was in that kitchen for an extended period of time. The professor's going to take a deep long pull on this pipe. That's an interesting theory, Mr. Green. But of course, I know you didn't fire that gun. And we know that somebody did.

Deep in your cups there, Mrs. Peacock? Deepen my bottles, young man, because I know how to hold it. I'm just going to nod and say. Fred, you said he had something called the limp. Or that he had a problem firing weapons. He does have a limb. with his leg. But the issue with firing, the gun is psychological.

So you don't think he could kill someone, with a gun, at least? I'm not a psychologist. I'm a chemist. I wonder if he would feel the same compunction firing at a dead body. Do you think he knew that it was a dead body? Or do you think he was... Do you think you could actually pull the trigger? Someone cleaned up evidence in that kitchen.

And if it wasn't you, Arnold, it was someone you didn't see while you were in there. But if it was you, someone still had to cover for you with the gun, and we need to find it. And we need to find it now. A silence in the room, as you hear only the crackling of the two terrible gaudy fireplace. one of which Miss Scarlett is slowly moving towards. She reaches out with one tentative hand and cups the left breast. Nothing.

And as she strokes the right, you hear... And the globe that Urania is pointing to slides open and in it you see not a peasant. pistol, but a revolver. Eureka, there it is. That was Abrea Aingar as Miss White, Lou Wilson as Professor Plum, Brendan Lee Mulligan as Mr. Green and Erica Ishii

as everyone and everything else. Hint was edited and designed by Kate Sanders. Music appears courtesy ofartless.io and the Creative Commons and the great public domain. Thanks for joining us here on the ghastly grounds of the body estate. But even more wonders await you beyond the veil on our Patreon. Come and join us by the fireside, won't you? We'll see you there.