Surprisingly enough, the Count's bedroom is behind unlocked doors. Apparently, he's not too worried about people snooping around here, presumably because he's usually present when he's got ladies to impress here.
It feels a little wrong to not even have to crack a lock to get in, but what can you do?
(Kasumi's Notice: 1d20+7+1 AD = 15)
Let's start with the decor. How do you top using pieces of of big animal teeth for decorating your walls? Using the whole, curved tusks, coated with fine gold patterns. It's - no, decadence really doesn't cut it anymore.
The bed is a round mattress covered in deep purple silken bedsheets and a small village of pillows, alos purple with gold fringes. You estimate that, even with the Count's slight belly, this bed will hold up to four floozies, five if they're particularly malnourished.
More interesting - to, ahem, your mission - is the wooden desk. This one is made from local wood, actually, but the carvings on it are foreign and made with great skill - the Count didn't import a work of art, he brought the artist with him.
Refocusing from their intimacies in the gallery, Kasumi looks for anything else besides the garish decorations, the bed and the desk. The same pasted-on velvet wall coverings from the gallery cover the walls, but the room is otherwise empty.
"Strangely empty for such a rich person who likes so many shiny things," Kasumi says. "I'll search the desk and the bed, you check the walls and the decor, love. I'll join you once I've finished."
"I'm starting to think he keeps more than one bedroom," Yukio says. "It would not surprise me." She tucks on some of the tusks experimentally, but they don't see to give.
Kasumi gets to work on the desk. The drawers are empty - oh, but what's that? Looks like somebody left a letter taped to the underside of the middle drawer. Kasumi has to smile a little at what is clearly a beginner's idea of a good hiding place.
"What have you found?" Yukio asks, being that her search has turned up nothing so far.
Kasumi turns the letter over in her hands and gives it a shake before opening it. "Letter of some kind. How's your search going? Rubbing the seams?"
The letter doesn't rattle. Inside, it's just a sheet of paper. Those foreigners seem to get off on folding paper - don't they know that'll damage the sheets?
"Nothing so far," Yukio says.
Kasumi looks at the letter. The fanciful handwriting marks it as the Count's, though it's neither sealed not signed. In fact, it seems to be have been aborted about halfway through.
Dear Herr Tingarson,
I wish I did not need to write this letter. I wish I did not have to address you this way. Why will you not see me? We are flighty souls, both of us, and I knew it - but to be shut out of your company has hurt me gravely. What has become of our friendship? I wish not to shame you, but I beg of you, answer me that I might learn to understand your recent actions.
Kasumi grows increasingly angry as she reads the letter, but is not surprised. Being set up still is one of her least favorite problems, however. "Yukio, have you found anything?" she asks, keeping her voice even.
"Not yet, I -" she says, then sees the expression on Kasumi's face. She takes the letter and reads it for herself.
"This is not good," she says. Her expression becomes uncharacteristically cold, as if she was back on the battlefield. "If people know about their...friendship...then it will be hard to implicate the Count in Tingarson's death."
"It does beg a whole array of new questions, though," Kasumi says. "What motives would our killer have for setting up the Count? Who would have the means to do so?" She stands up and peers at the letter with Yukio. "And how could they put us on this path?" She looks around the room. "I think it is time we made our search much less covert. Do not destroy anything, but let's turn this place upside down and see what falls out, if anything substantiates the relationship implied in this letter. Once we've done that, I will beckon Aiko and the Count to join us, and then we ask him about this letter."
Yukio nods. "That seems a sensible course of action, Kasumi."
And thus you apply yourselves to this task of gently dismantling what can be taken apart inside the bedroom. The tusks, you find, actually unscrew from their wall mounts, but do not contain any hiding spaces. The desk, too, stands stripped of its drawers with no further secrets revealed. For reasons of decency, we will not elaborate what your thorough search of the bed turned up.
(Well, actually, we're not that decent, so here's the one find of any significance: a wooden sculpture of a horse's member, covered in leather.)
But that's all she wrote, or he, for that matter.
---
The Count is, shall we say, not quite angry at how you've dismantled his bedroom. If anything, he seems slightly bemused by it until he spots the letter in Kasumi's hands. "I would have that letter back, if you please, Mademoiselle. I carelessly left it here - my apologies, I do try to keep the guest bedroom free of personal items."
"But perhaps you would like to be up front with what it is that you wish to find out, that we might abbreviate this admittedly amusing diversion and get to the core of the matter."
Aiko stands next to him, having since quietly stashed the signed contract for potential later use.
Kasumi stands next to Yukio, the two of them in a matched defensive but open stance. "We are investigating Tingarson-san's murder, and your name was raised as a possibility as the man who hired his assassin." The sentence came from her mouth easier than one might think. She raises the folded letter in her fingers and waggles it back and forth. "Do you care to explain your relationship with Tingarson-san?"
"I do indeed," the Count huffs. "Mademoiselle, I admit I know far too little of your fascinating country, not for lack of trying, mind you, but in our world, many a man has been ruined by accusations of lying with another man." He looks at Kasumi and Yukio. "I am not as narrow-minded as my countrymen in such matters, but the simple truth is that me and Herr Tingarson were good friends, and just that. Though I am quite interested in virility and its trappings, the idea of lying with a man does not interest me in the slightest. If you were wondering, I do indeed surround myself with beautitful women for the actual joys of such, not merely to camouflage a moral failing."
(Kasumi Sense Motive: 1d20+10 = 21)
(Aiko Sense Motive (min 23):1d20+13 = 23. Bluff DCs targeting her also increase by 3)
(Count's not rolling Bluff. He's being 100% truthful here.)
Kasumi doesn't see any of the telltale signs of deceit. Yes, he seems a bit flustered at having to explain himself, but really, that's the best that could be expected of a man who has been lied to and had his bedroom torn apart by undercover investigators.
"And so, what about your friendship with Tingarsan-san?" Kasumi asks. "This letter seems to imply that you two were having some degree of difficulty. Any heated arguments or disagreements?"
"If you suspect me of such, then surely you know that he had a thing for young boys that even the finest of my women would not cure him of," the Count explains. "I frequently warned him that it would not end well, that he was risking his office for mere pleasures of the flesh - but with his latest lover, I do believe he actually fell madly in love. Alas, my warnings became shrill to him, and he avoided me in all ways. I was gravely concerned for him, and desperate to talk sense into him - but then he was murdered, by the very boy he had gambled his heart on! Would that I could find his neck and wring the life out of him. My friend deserved much better, Mademoiselle."
Aiko listens to the Count's words with great interest. He's clearly given to public oratory, and his lips are no strangers to half-truths and fabrications, but what he says rings true to her ears.
"What do you know of this boy?" Aiko asks, gladdened to her core to be free of duplicity in the investigation, if only for now. "Was he Imperial or Gaijin?"
"An Imperial fellow, young and wiry. Mine eyes were struck with jealousy, so I cannot describe to you details of him - though I dare say I would recognize the boy, were we to meet."
Aiko's lips purse slightly. "My Lord, it has been my experience that the mind becomes repository to many things our conscious thoughts are unaware it has kept. There are meditative techniques that can be called upon to aid recall of such things, especially if they are connected to such strong triggers as passion."
"You will, I hope, forgive me, Mademoiselle, that I'm in no mood for Imperial mysticism at this hour. Such techniques are well known to be used by the unscrupulous in pursuit of trickery, and hardly scientific even when used with the purest of intentions."
"Do you not have a confidante or advocate to stand watch, to ease any doubts you may have? We seek only your recall of details of this youth's appearance, nothing else. Should we stray from that, your advocate would be there to safe guard your secrets."
"Confidantes and advocates I do not lack, Mademoiselle, but what do my servants and lawyers know of such mysticism? How could they tell the wheat from the chaff, as it were? Mademoiselle, I may not be an academic, but I am a learned man, and my father insisted that I become proficient in logicks and philosophy, that it might enrich my mind and equip me with reason, the greatest of God's gifts."
He looks to Kasumi.
"Have my answers satisfied you, or is there still more of my time you wish to occupy?"
Kasumi gives the Count a slight bow of apology. "Just a few more questions. You said that Tingarson-san's proclivities for boys was a secret, yet his assassin used that knowledge to gain his trust. Who else could have known about Tingarson-san's sexual preferences? Also, how do you know that it was his latest partner that killed him specifically, and not anyone else?"
"Your second question is easier to answer, Mademoiselle. My friend Tingarson, for better or for worse, did not like the Imperial people as a whole. He shunned my visitors and refused to deal with those that sought him out. When he was smitten by an Imperial boy, I took notice of such an extraordinary event. And I knew that if his killer was an Imperial, he would either have had to be invited in, or known Herr Tingarson's house very well. Both would very much suggest the boy, do you not agree? As for who would have known of his...persuasion, I can only speculate. I did my best to make it...sensible for the few who knew to hold their tongues, and I am confident none broke the agreement. But there are information brokers in this city - and yet, this information would not come cheaply. Mayhap you have more familiarity with such people than I do; I count none of lowlives in this city among my allies."
Both Kasumi and Aiko twig on the formulation of that last sentence. It's not quite a lie, but...it does suggest something that is not quite the truth, either.
"Someone of your position either counts someone as an ally or an enemy," Kasumi says. "Are there any of these brokers who would want you, Tingarson-san, or both dead or disgraced?"
"Certainly I have not made friends with them. You are, perhaps, familiar with Herr Adler and his band of children? They covet the riches gathered in these halls, and my guards have sent a few of them to the city jail for attempted thievery. I would not think so low of his mind to suggest that he harbors a grudge against me, but it is well possible that if he happened upon some piece of knowledge that might hurt me, he would be more than happy to sell it."
"Who would procure the young men for Herr Tingarson's bed?" Aiko asks, maybe a touch grimly. It doesn't surprise her at all to hear Adler's name mentioned in this fashion, but the idea he seeks to play her so inelegantly rankles. "This person would have to be very trusted and very discrete, for I imagine such an invitation could not be easily made in person between the youth and Herr Tingarson."
"Good friends we were, Mademoiselle, but I was not privvy to such details," the Count says. "Truthfully, I said to myself that the less I knew of how he went about it, the better it would be for everyone."
"Forgive me my lord, but you strike me as a man who though he might not know of details would know well enough the workings of a dear friend's household enough to recognise who amongst its members would be trusted with matters of such delicacy if only by association with other such matters you had seen them been entrusted; there are always tasks that those as exalted as yourself can not handle directly lest that exalted station be tarnished. It is the way of your land as well as ours."
"A logical argument, enticing me to speculation on my good friend's household after his death - a loathsome topic, but very well, if it will help your investigation. The house's majordomo was Herr von und zu Stucker, a man descended from a prestigious line of house managers not entirely unlike some people - such as me - might follow the parentage of a fine showbreed. I've no certainty, but if it was not done by him, then I can scarcely imagine it done without at least his knowledge. I would add, however, that I aim not to cast any aspersions on Stucker's character - distantly though I knew him, he always struck me as an upright gentleman with not one bad fiber in his being."
"The honour of his house is his own?" the Inquisitor asks. "As such, finding the murderer of his lord without the manner in which the assassin gained entry becoming public knowledge would be weighing heavily upon him and any future employment, yes?"
Kasumi nods in agreement. "Sounds like a good place to start asking questions, to me."
"Such unpleasant notions you raise," the Count says. "Is this the whole of your profession, then, first trickery, then intimidation? Answer me honestly, please, that I might convince myself not to think less of you."
Kasumi levels her gaze at the Count. "We are here to find the truth, Count. If everyone was decent enough to tell us what they knew upon our arrival, we wouldn't need to ask in the first place." Not a hint of waver or second-thoughts in her voice or demeanor. "We will find who ordered Tingarson-san killed, Count. Thank you for your assistance." She bows in respect to him.
"I do sincerely hope you will do just that - my hurt feelings aside, I appreciate the artistry of justice as greatly as any honest man does. Now, if you would kindly see yourselves out, I must have this room fixed up. It would not do to entertain my other guests in a suite dissembled."
Kasumi looks over at Aiko and cocks an eyebrow.
Well, anything else?
"Who benefits, my lord, from your removal from society?" she asks, moving slowly around the room. "I do not for a moment doubt that you are at least partly occupied with why it was to your household we were guided in the hope that evidence of your friendship with Herr Tingarson might be discovered and misconstrued."
"I am not too humble to say that the better part of Kargbeck's finer society has intimate ties with me," the Count says. "Were I to stumble, or be stumbled...I do not see how anyone could hope to take my place, or benefit disproportionally from my misfortune. I can only see chaos in the wake of such."
"Such is often the case when great pillars are felled," Aiko nods. She reaches out and tousles Yukio's and Kasumi's hair slightly, followed by her own. Just enough to make it look like it has been rearranged in a bit of a hurry. "As such, it pays to ensure it is from time to time reinforced."
Kasumi gives Aiko a "do that again and you'll be missing a hand" look before returning to the Count. "Chaos? Do you mean such as would be advantageous to a band of young thieves?"
"And no less convenient to any number of people who do not wish this city well," the Count says. "A society is resilient, Mademoiselle, a fallen pillar, as your friend put it, will not bring down the entirety, but it will weaken it. My friend was an important man in his own right. If you wished ill on Kargbeck, would you not make maneuvers such that the best and mightiest of its citizens were removed, that the masses might offer less resistance to your violence?"
"Thieves and usurpers," Kasumi muses, then returns to the Count. "Well, thank you for your time, and I apologize for the necessary intrusion." She hands the Count his letter and bows again. "Good day."
"Fare thee well, Mademoiselle," the Count replies, then quietly shoos you outside and closes the bedroom door behind you.
"That was more informative than I thought it would be," Yukio comments. "Maybe we should question nobles more often, they seem much more forthcoming with information than thieves and ninja."
"I have known common criminals and murderers who have been far more honest and forthcoming, even without persuasion, than those who have their nobility to hide behind and defend," Aiko shakes her head. "We were simply lucky that his lordship was more or less a good man with nothing he felt the need to hide and the nobility to trust those who entered his house under the shroud of falsehood."
Kasumi's expression darkens at the mention of nobles. "I agree." She looks over at Aiko. "So, this Adler character you know seems to be less interested in helping us than you thought."
"I've never thought his interest in helping us extended any further than helping himself in some fashion. But it seems that the fashion has become... cutting edge."
(OOC: Cue sunglasses and the opening bars of that song
)
Kasumi suppresses a giggle at that while Yukio stifles her own. "Come on, let's go before his guards throw us out for making jokes like that."
"We are three maidens exiting his bed chamber whose composure is slightly less than that we displayed when we entered," Aiko points out, feeling a little unclean that this whole idea isn't a unique occurance to her, "so I imagine they are more likely commenting on their lord's virility than listening to our idle gossip."
Kasumi takes Yukio's arm and walks towards the door with a smile on her face. "Aiko, we shall have to investigate where your sense of humor has gone off to next."
Aiko folds her arms into her sleeves. "I'm just considering the logistics of commissioning the painting of the two of you in bed together that I promised him," she says innocently.
Mister Andersen
