The maid playing the role of the "cousin" responded readily. When Elizabeth and Janet asked where she was at 9 p.m., she answered without hesitation, "There's a maze in the garden. I was inside it at that time."
Elizabeth and Janet exchanged a surprised glance—neither of them expected Elina to incorporate the maze into the script so naturally.
Janet pressed further. "Can anyone verify your whereabouts?"
The cousin paused in thought. "My fiancé can vouch for me. I told him around 8:30 that I was going for a walk in the maze garden. It's huge, and I'm unfamiliar with it, so I wandered around for a long time. When I finally returned to the manor, I heard… Anna had been killed."
"How long were you walking?" Simon asked.
"I'm not sure. I walked for quite a while and stayed by the fountain in the center for a bit. When I returned to the manor, it was nearly 9:30—about an hour in total," the cousin replied calmly.
Elizabeth frowned. "Were you alone in the maze? If so, no one can confirm your story. Could it be that you're the killer?"
The cousin adopted a look of innocent surprise.
Janet took out a diary. "This is your diary, right? It contains some rather… sensitive entries."
The cousin looked shocked. "This is mine! How did it end up in your hands?"
"You really didn't notice it had gone missing?" Elizabeth asked, puzzled. "From the entries, it seems you write in it daily."
The cousin's expression briefly flickered. She smoothed her hair and said, "I actually just realized yesterday it was gone. I assumed I misplaced it somewhere and didn't think much of it."
So the maid must have stolen the diary just yesterday. And yet the cousin remained so composed upon discovering it was gone—very suspicious indeed.
Janet began laying out the evidence they had found. When the cousin saw the small blue gemstone, her flustered reaction suggested no recognition. But when the dagger was shown, she admitted to having seen it before—in Anna's fiancé's possession.
The three detectives asked the cousin to leave and began discussing the clues. Far from narrowing the suspect list, they felt more confused than ever.
"This case is just too complicated," Elizabeth sighed. "Even more so than the stolen gemstone case."
"Maybe we should summon the last fiancé quickly," Simon suggested with enthusiasm, clearly enjoying this mystery more than his brother's boring legal files.
The male servant playing the fiancé entered. Janet immediately noticed his watch, adorned with small blue gemstones. Strange—if the watch was his, why had the cousin reacted so nervously to the gemstone earlier?
The fiancé's acting was not particularly convincing. When asked where he was at 9 p.m., he claimed to have been sleeping in his room. But Janet revealed the butler's testimony that the room had been empty at the time, and he stubbornly stuck to his story.
Elizabeth was frustrated. This case, unlike the gemstone theft, involved lie upon lie.
Janet examined the fiancé's watch closely and brought up the gemstone. "Your watch is very striking… but it seems to have a small flaw."
The fiancé quickly replied, "I dropped it yesterday afternoon. It got damaged and hasn't been fixed yet."
Elizabeth and Janet exchanged a look and pressed further. "Can you tell us exactly how you dropped it?"
The fiancé hesitated, then said, "I bumped into the cousin in the hallway, and the watch slipped off."
But how did a gemstone that supposedly fell off in the hallway end up in Anna's bedroom? The logic didn't add up. And could a mere bump really dislodge a gemstone from a well-crafted watch?
Simon decided to test him. He held up the gemstone and said sternly, "We found this in Anna's room. Did you have a fight with her? Was your watch damaged during the struggle after she caught you and the cousin together? Is that why you killed her?" As he spoke, he gestured to the broken-lovers portrait and the dagger. "The cousin already said the dagger is yours."
The fiancé raised his hands, flustered. "No, no—it wasn't like that! I didn't do anything."
He explained that the cousin had asked to see the watch, so he removed it and handed it to her. She lost her balance, and the watch hit the ground. The gemstone could have come loose then and been swept into Anna's room by servants during cleaning. As for the dagger—it was on his desk, where anyone could access it.
Regarding the night of the murder, he admitted spending over an hour with the cousin in the maze. He had previously lied to protect her reputation. Now that it was out in the open, he had no reason to hide it.
"You two were in the maze for over an hour?" Elizabeth asked. "Were you together the entire time?"
"Not exactly," the fiancé said. "There's a rumor that if two people enter the maze from opposite ends and meet at the central fountain, they're destined for each other. So we entered from different sides. We met at the fountain at 9 p.m. and chatted. Neither of us had time to kill Anna."
"Wait a second," Janet said suddenly. "How did you know it was 9 p.m.?"
The fiancé lifted his wrist. "Isn't it obvious? My watch."
Elizabeth immediately called him out. "But you just said your watch was broken."
The fiancé scratched his head, sheepishly. "Oh, right… I must've remembered wrong."
"No!" Simon exclaimed. "You were 'certain' earlier. Why were you so sure of the time?"
The fiancé tried again. "Ah! I remember now—I heard the garden bell chime. The cousin said it was 8:30 before we left. When we met at the fountain, the bell rang. It chimes every half hour, so I thought it was 9."
"Wrong!" the three novice detectives shouted in unison, eyes gleaming. "The butler told us the bell tower was broken yesterday. It only chimes on the hour. That means you two met at 9:30!"
The fiancé widened his eyes in realization. "No wonder it felt like I waited so long! I must've been off about the time."
After sending him away, the trio huddled to discuss. "It has to be the cousin, right?" Janet said, slamming her fist down.
"Yes, definitely," Simon agreed. "She broke the watch on purpose to confuse the timeline. That gave her enough time to commit the murder."
Elizabeth hesitated. "But what about the gemstone and the dagger?"
"She planted them!" Simon explained. "She staged it all to frame the fiancé!"
Three eager pairs of eyes turned to Elina. "It's the cousin, right?"
Elina clapped her hands. "Very impressive! Your deduction was excellent."
Then she had the cousin reveal the backstory.
The cousin had come to stay at Anna's estate after a family tragedy left her with nowhere else to go. She discovered that Anna had no remaining relatives. If Anna died, she would inherit everything.
So she seduced the fiancé, hoping to use him to carry out her plan. But Anna discovered their relationship. Though initially in denial, Anna eventually decided to send her cousin away and confronted her using the diary as leverage.
Upon realizing the diary was gone and that Anna had discovered her plot, the cousin saw that her plan was falling apart. She deliberately broke the fiancé's watch to distort his sense of time and make him her alibi. She slipped into Anna's room while the fiancé was in the maze, confronted her, and stabbed her.
She then returned to the maze in time to meet the fiancé at the fountain. The butler didn't see her because he took the servants' staircase, while she used the guests' stairs.
"Exactly as I thought!" Elizabeth nearly jumped for joy. "I've never felt so clever in my life!"
"Same here," Simon beamed. "Maybe I really do have a knack for detective work, ha!"
Janet was just as pleased. She turned to the actors. "You were all amazing—truly impressive!"
"El, you're a genius!" Elizabeth grabbed Elina's arm, eyes shining. "I still can't believe how smart I felt when I realized the bell tower detail. I was literally shaking with excitement."
"Hey, I've got an idea!" Elizabeth said suddenly, turning to Elina. "We're visiting a count's estate soon. He has four daughters who are always complaining about being bored. What if we brought this detective game along and let them try it?"
"Absolutely," Elina stretched lazily. "Each person can only play it once anyway. The more people who join, the more I can put my brain to work."
Elizabeth turned to the servants. "We're bringing you along too! I can't wait to see the look on their faces when they try this. Just thinking about it makes me giddy!"
The servants exchanged bewildered glances, clearly surprised by the sudden turn their lives had taken. Still, a trip to another noble's estate, no chores, and still getting paid? That was something to smile about.