By faking the murder scene, Dorothy very smoothly gained the cooperation of the cruise ship crew, allowing the Corpse Puppet Ed to mobilize the crew's strength as a Detective handling the case. Since Dorothy had monitored and investigated the crew from the beginning, she could roughly confirm that they had no connection with the Hidden, and could be safely utilized.
Dorothy recognized the cigarette ash on the carpet of Room 417, knowing it was from cigars typically smoked only by men. Afterwards, she carefully compared and analyzed the slight deformation marks on the carpet to confirm the owner's footprints, deducing the height from the footprints. Finally, she found a male Corpse Puppet of similar height, stripped and disfigured it, and threw it into the room to act as the body, then guided others to discover it.
Fortunately, because the ship's Captain William was a Prit, he had heard news about Detective Ed, so Dorothy could directly gain the Captain's trust under the name of the famous Detective. Speaking of which, the reason for Detective Ed's rapid rise to fame was largely due to piggybacking on Adele's popularity. After the Soaring Theatre incident, Detective Ed leveraged Adele's star power and had already become a well-known Detective in Tivian.
After formally obtaining the investigation rights for the case from Captain William, Dorothy controlled Ed to go through the motions of a simple site inspection. Then, she had Ed walk to the door and ask the anxious waiter waiting on the other side.
"What is the name of the owner of this cabin? You should have records there, right?"
"Yes, we do. The guest staying in Room 417 is named Nicodo Rizzo. He boarded in Russo, and his ticket destination is Moncarlo."
The waiter told Ed the basic information registered for the owner of Room 417 on the ship. After hearing this information, Dorothy pondered for a moment, recalling the location of Russo. In Dorothy's impression, it should be a coastal city in Cassiri, a northern island nation in the Conquest Sea.
After finishing her thoughts, Dorothy had Ed look at Captain William beside him and then speak.
"Captain, I now need to question everyone related to the case comprehensively. Please prepare a separate room for me, and then notify the guests around 417 to come to the door of that room. Also, please call all the waiters responsible for this floor. I need to interview them one by one."
Ed instructed the old Captain like this, and the old Captain quickly responded.
"No problem, right away, Detective."
Afterwards, the old Captain efficiently arranged an empty cabin for Ed on the same floor as 417. After Ed entered the cabin, he immediately gathered the crew, found and arranged for the guests around 417 and the waiters on that floor to gather at the door of the cabin Ed had prepared. Thus, Dorothy controlled Ed to conduct face-to-face interviews with one passenger and waiter after another inside the cabin.
...
"What... you're asking about my impression of the person living next door..."
Inside the cabin, a middle-aged Faloro woman in a long dress was sitting across the table from Ed. After hearing Ed's words, she couldn't help but start thinking back. After recalling for a moment, she opened her mouth and replied.
"Honestly, I don't have much of an impression of him. Although he lived next door to me, I never saw him. Every time I went out or came back, the door to 417 was closed. At first, I thought no one was there, but who knew that as soon as night came, there would be noise."
"Noise? What kind of noise?"
"It was a disgusting sound, like someone was being drowned and howling and screaming wildly. It was very annoying. I've been on this ship for five days, and he would make that noise for a while on three of those nights. Sometimes I felt like he was scratching the walls. Oh dear, if he hadn't been quiet enough last night, I would have changed rooms."
The middle-aged woman said this to Ed. After silently noting down the other party's statement, Dorothy continued with the next interview.
...
"The noise at night? Oh... yes, that annoying strange cry. I could occasionally hear it at night. I thought he was having a seizure, that he was crazy. But I didn't expect this person could also argue, that he was a normal person."
A North Wu man in a long robe with slightly darker skin answered Ed across from him, describing his evaluation of his next-door neighbor. Upon hearing this, Dorothy's expression slightly tightened, and then she immediately had Ed open his mouth to ask.
"Arguing? Did you hear someone arguing with the occupant of 417? When was that?"
"That... it was yesterday morning. I went back to my room to get something, and then I heard arguing from that room. It was two men arguing, and they sounded very angry." The North Wu man replied to Ed's words. Listening to the man's words, Ed continued to ask.
"Then do you remember what they were arguing about?"
"I definitely don't remember that. I couldn't understand anything they were saying. It was another language to me."
"Do you recognize what language it was?"
"Uh... sorry, I don't recognize it either."
Facing Ed's question, the North Wu man shook his head. At this moment, Ed directly spoke a fluent Faloro language. After speaking, he then spoke to the somewhat confused North Wu man in North Wu language.
"Was the language they were arguing in, the accent and intonation, similar to the language I just spoke?"
"Uh... it doesn't seem like it..." The North Wu man replied with some surprise. After seeing this scene, Dorothy then had Ed speak a fluent prite language, and then continued to ask.
"Then was it similar to this language..."
...
Inside the clean cabin, Ed sat in his seat, his expression focused as he looked at the waiter in uniform across from him. At this moment, he was recalling according to Ed's words.
"The guest in Room 417... let me think, I do have some impression. He liked to drink, always drinking at the bar until very late before going back. I've helped him back twice, and he kept muttering incessantly during the process..."
"I see... Besides that, do you remember anything unusual about him?" Ed asked the waiter again, and the waiter began to think seriously after hearing this.
"Anything unusual... It seems... nothing really. If I had to say something, it's that this guest was a bit unreasonable. On the day he just boarded, he insisted on bothering us to change his room. The problem was there was nothing wrong with his own room, and the place he wanted to change to was already occupied that day. We couldn't possibly change it for him. He made a fuss there for a while before giving up. It was very annoying..."
The waiter continued to speak to Ed. Upon hearing the waiter's words, Ed raised an eyebrow and then spoke.
"Change rooms? Then where did he want to change to?"
"I don't remember that. That was almost a week ago. We have over a thousand rooms here, and I'm changing with other guests every day. I definitely can't remember which room number he wanted to change to at the time."
The waiter continued to speak to Ed, and after hearing his words, Dorothy was silent for a moment.
...
"Ah? The guest that Bart escorted back to his room twice?"
The bar staff member on the cruise ship sat in front of Ed. After hearing Ed's question, he fell into thought, recalling. After recalling for a while, he replied.
"As for that guest, besides last night, he had been drinking at my place for several days before that, and he drank a lot. He would get drunk to a certain extent every day, and when it was serious, someone had to be specifically called to send him back."
The bar staff member said, recalling to Ed. After Ed finished listening to his words, he continued to ask.
"Was he drinking alone? Were there no other people with him?"
"Other people... It seems there were, and more than one. Occasionally, different people would sit next to him and chat with him, but I couldn't understand the language they were speaking." The bar staff member continued to reply to Ed, and Ed then spoke again.
"Then do you remember what those people looked like?"
"Their appearances... I'm very sorry, Mr., I serve hundreds of people every day, I really can't remember everyone's appearance."
The bar employee finished his response, and Dorothy nodded silently as she listened to his words.
...
"What? Have there been any suspicious people around?"
A seaman wearing a cleaning uniform sat in his chair, a hint of confusion appearing on his face after hearing the Detective's words. Ed, meanwhile, looked at the person in front of him and added,
"Yes, on the floor you are responsible for, between eleven in the morning and one in the afternoon yesterday, did you see anyone you thought was acting suspiciously?"
"Let me see... If you're talking about suspicious behavior, then there was only one, I think. It looked like a young man, wearing brown clothes, walking very fast so I couldn't see his face, dragging a suitcase and smelling fishy..."
The cleaner recounted what he had seen to Ed, and Dorothy silently noted it down.
...
Finally, after questioning a dozen passengers and seamen, Dorothy finished her inquiries. After this round of information gathering, she had obtained a lot of important information, and now it was time for analysis.
'The man in room 417, who often drank, was unrestrained, and made strange, epileptic-like noises at night, fits some characteristics of a "Cup" believer, and his strange cries are suspected to be withdrawal symptoms from the "cup" drug. Although this "Cup" believer was addicted to the "cup" drug, he didn't seem to have enough medicine with him...
'Also, this man was not alone; he should have had companions on this ship. Someone came to greet him when he was drinking, and there were sounds of arguing from his room, which proves that he had companions on this ship with whom he could communicate, and more than one. And since they could communicate to the point of arguing, they should all belong to the same culture. According to the description of the guest next to 417, the language they spoke should be the Iweig language, and the name of the deceased in room 417 also seems to be from the Iweig culture. There is a high possibility that they were Iweig people.
'Another point is that the death of the deceased in 417 should have been after the argument yesterday morning. The argument was at 11 AM, and the cruise ship discharged the sewage from the storage tank at 1 PM yesterday. So the deceased must have died within these two hours. During this time, the cleaner also happened to see a sufficiently suspicious figure moving around.'
Sitting in her cabin, Dorothy seriously analyzed the information she had. Before long, she had a corresponding plan.
Dorothy controlled Ed, who was still sitting in the original cabin, to stand up and walk to the cabin door. After opening the door, he walked out. Waiting at the door was the Captain, looking slightly anxious.
"How is it? Mr. Ed, you have questioned everyone, do you have any results?" Captain William asked Ed, and Ed responded with a smile.
"I'm getting close to some leads, Captain. I need your help now. I would like to see the passenger registration logbook, could you let me see it?"
"The register? Of course, please wait a moment, I'll get it for you right away."
The Captain replied to Ed like this, and then he immediately ordered a waiter to fetch the item. After a while, a large, thick, ledger-like register was in Ed's hands.
Afterward, Dorothy had Ed, who had taken the register, return to his cabin. After closing the door, she had Ed place the register on the table and then quickly flipped through it, scanning the information at a glance.
The passenger registration on this cruise ship was only done for the convenience of service, so not much information was recorded, and its authenticity could not be guaranteed. The valuable information was only the boarding time, room number, and passenger name, and these three items were enough for Dorothy.
The deceased in 417 had companions who came aboard with him, and the person who killed him was likely one of these companions. Since they were companions from the same culture, their itinerary was very likely the same. This means that Dorothy only needed to find passengers who boarded in Russo and were expected to disembark in Moncarlo, just like that Nicod, which would significantly narrow the search range.
Furthermore, since that Nicod was an Iweig, the people who could communicate freely with him, even argue, were also very likely Iweig people. Dorothy could roughly determine the cultural nationality from the style of the names in the register. After finding people with the same itinerary as Nicod, she could then look for Iweig people among them, further narrowing the range.
Also, according to the service staff responsible for that area, when Nicod first boarded, he tried to switch to a specific area, but it didn't work out because other newly boarded tourists had already occupied the area he wanted to switch to. And the reason for changing rooms wasn't that there was a problem with his own room, but simply that he wanted to stay in that area.
Facing this situation, Dorothy's idea was that Nicod wanted to move to a room closer to his companions. Generally, when a group of people travel together, they will likely choose rooms concentrated in one area for convenience of communication, but due to the complex structure and accommodation situation of the cruise ship hotel itself, it is not easy for all companions to live together, and often some are forced to scatter to more distant places.
This might have been the case for Nicod, the reason being that when he said he wanted to change rooms, he didn't specify what kind of room he wanted, but rather a specific area. And the area he wanted to go to was also where people who had just boarded at the same stop as him were staying, which further confirmed that his companions were living there.
Having understood this point, Dorothy could focus on those passengers in the circle she had already drawn who had connecting room numbers and were living together, further narrowing the search range.
Finally, Dorothy confirmed that Nicod's companions should be among those on this cruise ship of over a thousand passengers who boarded in Russo, were disembarking in Moncarlo, were of Iweig culture, and whose rooms were clustered together. After Dorothy's investigation, there were about eighteen such people. For Dorothy, this was a sufficiently small search range.
After determining the general range, Dorothy immediately re-activated her small Corpse Puppet and directed it towards the eighteen concentrated rooms, beginning to monitor the passengers inside. This monitoring only lasted for about an hour before Dorothy had a breakthrough.
In one of the rooms on the second floor below the deck, Dorothy, using the small Corpse Puppet hidden in the vent, saw two men quickly walk in after the cabin door suddenly opened. Both men were wearing ordinary, decent casual clothes. One had neatly combed light blond short hair and was a handsome young man who looked to be around twenty years old. The other was a slightly overweight middle-aged man with a mustache and a round top hat.
With grave expressions, the two men closed the cabin door after entering the cabin. Then the slightly overweight man looked at the young man and said seriously,
"What's going on? The corridor by Nicod's room is blocked by the seamen, they won't let anyone pass. Did they find something? Did you not clean up the scene properly? Did those vulgar beasts find any traces?"
The slightly overweight middle-aged man questioned seriously, while the young man spoke innocently.
"Impossible! I cleaned it up very thoroughly. After I killed that impatient blood beast beforehand, I directly used the alchemical rune to turn it into blood potion and poured it down the drain in the washroom. All the traces were wiped clean, I put the bones in his own suitcase and brought them back, and I didn't leave any of his things either. The most those ordinary beast seamen could find is that the person is missing, there's no reason for it to be like this."