Chapter 2, The intoxicating dinner party (spoiler)

[evilloh]

I've been enjoying this chapter but I have some unanswered questions, maybe some of you can bring light to it. (I tried using the search but coulnd't find nothing)

Ada Smith is the one who put the poison in the tonic from the medicine cabinet.
my questions are:
1) How did she get to the keys? Did she try to steal them somehow to make a copy and then return them? We could assume that the keys were kept unwatched and she could easily reach them without noticing, in which case this is no problem.

ASSUMING THAT: The key for the cabinet was originally blue, and the only two copies available were owned by Edmund and the steward Brian Walker. The copy made is of color grey, and it was hidden in a bag with another plain key, my questions are:

2) Why does little pip have both keys copy (the plain one and the medicine one, both grey) under the mattress?
3) Is the plain key just a random base key that is used to make copies? But why are they present in the scene? (both in the bag and under the mattress?)

ASSUMING THAT: Ada baker was the assassin, or better said the "Darkhand Steward"

4) Why her? She had been working there for a most of the time and didnt have any evidence of resentment in her room. Was she just a brotherhood member and we couldn't know from the scene?

5) Since english is not my first language i'm not sure about this, but was "Steward" in "Darkhand Steward" a wink towards Brian Walker (the stweard) to make us think that he could have been the one? Or, since he DOES have evidences for resentment towards Edmund actually IS the Darkhand Steward? This could explain how Ada Baker could get a copy of the medicine cabinet, since the steward owned one himself. Was all the resentment evidence in his room just a decoy and he doesn't have nothing to do with the assassination?

I hope someone could help me out figuring out those little doubts, I'm not that smart but I am really enjoying this game so far. If some of the answers/doubts that I have would be discovered in the next chapters please let me know and don't give more information, I'll find out myself! Thankyouuuu

[Neimo]

"Ada Baker received encoded instructions from Darkhand Steward to poison Edmund Cloudsley.
She used her ability to move freely throughout the rooms while cleaning and made a copy of the key to the medicine cabinet."

[⑨ ChocolateMystia]

What or who Darkhand Steward is will be revealed later. As for key-copies, I assumed the blank ones were indeed blanks to make future copies. Little Pip didn't copy medicine cabinet, but rather the drinks cabinet, you can see he has stolen some alcohol in a bottle he has (description says cloudy liquid or w/e, same as the alcohol), he's also stolen cigars from the coat in the lobby. Also, Ada hasn't been here the longest, she's way newer. The other lady, the cook and the butler are the oldest (IIRC). Also, Ada worked as the cleaning lady, so it's possible they let her have the keys while cleaning, and she used that chance to make the copy.

Most characters had dubious clues to mislead you (butler hates his boss/the rich, little pip is a thief, and the cook lady has worked here long but doesn't seem to get compensated for it).

[ironmanmk42]

It took me a bit but there's a note saying to read the 4th word of every row. If you read the "Dear Ada" letter using this you'll see that the message says "use the substance to take out the target, sincerely darkhand steward" which directly gives you the answer. Darkhand steward clearly instructed Ada Baker to poison Edmund C and she is a steward mask member. I just finished this chapter so I think more will be revealed in the next ones.

Ada is a recently hired maid and can move about all rooms and made key copies and hid them in the bag. Little Pip presumably got a key somehow. Why him is odd but he has a copy.

This one took me a while honestly since I kept thinking Edmund C was living in the 4 rooms. And thought darkhand was connected to Little pip

But once revealed, it all makes sense now.

[worstcase11]

Note that the letter from the brotherhood indicates that the brother hood had already contacted Edmund several times beforehand and demanded their idol back. Edmund likely threw all of their previous letters into the bin as well.

So it makes sense that Ada, a servant who has been working for Edmund for only about a year could have been planted there as a spy or assassin.

Likely she had two main jobs:
1. Finding out whether Edmund had the idol and where it was kept.
2. Attempting to steal the idol.

It is relatively easy for her as a housemaid to snoop around everywhere and if someone leaves their keys on a table she can quickly use pen and paper and make a drawing of it that she can later use for turning one of her blanks into a key.

Finding out Edmund had the idol would have been relatively easy - he did experiments with it.
However stealing it was not successful because he kept it inside a safe that had a numbers lock.

So only after all other attempts failed, she was ordered to kill Edmund.


About Little Pip's key, I saw a Let's Play by Kallista on youtube, where she had an interesting theory. Pip could have stolen the key and/or the blank from Ada. He likes to snatch small, shiny items after all. This then could have caused Ada to hide the remaining blank and key in the bag outside the window and also to get rid of any other evidence she may have had in her room as a precaution.

[Top Marx]

The key that Lil Pip made was to the liquor cabinet. he's a little scamp who likes to drink and smoke and read dirty literature and he's not above some petty theft to get it

[Ultra Taco]

It was kind of BS that "Darkhand" was not explained in the moments leading up to this. Next to their threatening note in the trash can was another threatening note by Vanguard something or another, but that actually had 2 names on it so I could put it in the scroll.

How tf was I supposed to know that it was ada? there were a million other red herrings. Im glad the game is hard but I felt like I had to cheese this one to win. No hints of course, but when you get it down to 2 left you can cheese it

[⑨ ChocolateMystia]

Originally posted by Ultra Taco:

It was kind of BS that "Darkhand" was not explained in the moments leading up to this. Next to their threatening note in the trash can was another threatening note by Vanguard something or another, but that actually had 2 names on it so I could put it in the scroll.

How tf was I supposed to know that it was ada? there were a million other red herrings. Im glad the game is hard but I felt like I had to cheese this one to win. No hints of course, but when you get it down to 2 left you can cheese it

Edmund had a lot of threats, most are there as red herrings. Ada however had a secret letter from one of them telling her to get rid of Edmund. Se also has a bag hanging from her window with copies to the keys needed to do it, no other servant or character had the means to poison the tonic. You can also find the syringe used hidden inside a statue by the entrance, which is pretty high up, some place only probably cleaning staff would even access.

[Ultra Taco]

Oh derp, I completely missed the encoded message. Found it just now though, I suppose thats fine.

[plk217]

I was looking for any secret message after finding the book about codes, but didn't find it. Only later after solving the case I managed to find it, when revealed to me she got one.
That is because when I first saw the note in her room, next to the pile of candles, I simply thought it's her "note to self" to steal every fourth candle from the chandelliers while cleaning.
And I just could not get that idea out of my head anymore to take it as a proper clue.

[Tharmund]

Originally posted by Ultra Taco:

It was kind of BS that "Darkhand" was not explained in the moments leading up to this. Next to their threatening note in the trash can was another threatening note by Vanguard something or another, but that actually had 2 names on it so I could put it in the scroll.

How tf was I supposed to know that it was ada? there were a million other red herrings. Im glad the game is hard but I felt like I had to cheese this one to win. No hints of course, but when you get it down to 2 left you can cheese it

The rooms of the servants comes in play here. Ada promised to give candles to Lucia, there is only two rooms with candles in it, the bottom one and the top one.

There is a note in Lucia room about how the oldest servant gets the bottom room and another note on Edmund room, about how Ada had a certain amount of time in service (one year, I believe), there is the animal statue in the kitchen, telling that Lucia had 3 years of service in the manor. Everything suggests that Ada should have a room above Lucia, because she had less time in service, other objects helps you guess the rooms. David Gorran is the most obvious one, because of the gun and tobacco. The butler also has a note on himself about the tale of the ruler who married a donkey or something, so it helps to guess his room, because of the book about tales or rulers on the bottom one.

You can see that the bag with keys, hanging outside the manor, can only have been placed by the widow in the top room, so you know they belong to Ada, you can compare the shapes of Ada and Pip copies with the others in EC pocked, the see what key opens what, Pip also has a small bottle with brandy in his mattress, this way, you can realize that Ada is a killer, even without the note, because she had access to the tonic, when she was not supposed to.

Also, only now I realized that note about parasites on the butler's rooms, behind the bed, is about the rich people being parasites, looks like he is secretly one of these guys wishing for the workers to overthrow the ruling class and he may be one of the guys behind one the letters treating Edmund, lol

[dripgrind]

You can tell that the butler isn't the murderer (despite his revolutionary politics) because he has a diary entry about plucking up the courage to ask for a raise - which he probably wouldn't be thinking about if he was planning to murder his boss.