When The Snow Falls

"Where were you before they left?" Daniel asked.

He was highly interested to hear Ethan's answer.

"Toilet, I had diarrhoea," Ethan replied frankly. "I couldn't have left early if I'd wanted to."

Daniel checked his posture and eye movement and he had the feeling that Ethan wasn't telling the truth.

"It did smell in there when we got back," one of the boys pointed out. "You should have said so before. You still look ill. Is it food poisoning?"

Ethan nodded and then looked directly at Daniel.

"Are you satisfied with that answer?" he asked.

"I am," Daniel said with a smile. "What were you doing, Vincent?"

Vincent smiled at him. It was a smile that Daniel found somewhat sleazy.

"I was reading. Then I joined some of the girls for about half an hour until we left. Well, there was a minute gap in which I grabbed my coat from my room."

"He spent a while in our room," another group of girls confirmed.

Between himself, Felix and Amien they asked everyone at the table. Daniel wasn't all too surprised to find that the only person without an alibi was Ethan.

"Who has the misfortune to share a room with Ethan?" Amien asked with a snort.

"Vincent shares it with him," one of the girls contributed.

Daniel's eyes narrowed. If Vincent had been absent for most of the hour before the play, there was no one to vouch for Ethan's whereabouts. He really didn't have any sort of alibi.

"So you were just reading in your room by yourself while we were having fun?" one of the girls asked him.

Ethan nodded and shrugged.

"What were you reading?" Oliver asked.

"Sherlock Holmes to prepare for the play," Ethan replied.

Daniel didn't feel like he had been lying about that part. Everything was pointing towards Ethan being the murderer, but he knew they were missing something important.

The motive.

***

The Mystery Club met up in the boys room after finishing dinner. The atmosphere in the room was tense as a result of the questioning at dinner. Amien sat on his bed and stated the obvious.

"It's Ethan, isn't it?"

Daniel nodded with a frown.

"He is the only person without an alibi and everything they said adds up to the person who left the lodge and came back later to be him."

"He has also been visibly different since last night," Felix pointed out. "He's been quiet. From the little I knew about him before, he came across as someone who didn't stop talking about himself."

Amien levelled him a cool glance.

"You think that's the guilt of someone who committed a murder?"

Daniel was inclined to agree. It would make sense for Ethan's personality change to have been the result of causing a death.

"Should we tell the Police?"

It was Meredith who asked the question.

"He has probably noticed that we seemed to be establishing alibis and will have noticed that he was the only one without one. He could be a danger to us," Amien answered. "We should tell them to be honest."

Daniel's mind started working fast. Amien was completely correct that Ethan could be out for revenge after they had highlighted in front of everyone that he didn't have an alibi. However Ethan had still been quiet and hadn't argued at all. That wasn't the actions of someone who wanted to murder them. Or had it been a disguise.

"If the Police do not turn up here in any less than an hour, we will walk over to the theatre together and tell them everything we know. Whether or not we will be listened to is something else, at least we have told them what we know," Daniel suggested. "For now, we need to work out the motive."

Amien nodded in understanding.

"That's true. We don't actually have a reason for him to have done it. The other members of the theatre group do, but now with everything we know, it's highly unlikely to have been one of them."

"Why do people commit murders?" Oliver asked in a tone that Daniel found very naive.

Daniel cleared his throat. The answer to the question was very complicated.

"You can class most motives for wanting someone's death into revenge, love, hate, fear or financial gain. There will be some others that don't quite fit it, but we can proceed under those categories."

He didn't miss the glance Felix gave him. For the moment he ignored it and focused on the current matter.

"Wow, you really know your stuff," Oliver commented in admiration. "Which one do you think it was?"

The reborn detective considered everything he knew about Ethan.

"He won the event last year…" he said to start off with.

"Maybe he secretly had a crush on Yukari and murdered Nakajima because he was cheating on her. That would come under the 'love' category," Felix suggested.

Oliver wrote that idea down on his notepad.

"I hadn't thought of that one," he said.

"I guess we can put that under the revenge category as well," Harry pointed out.

Daniel saw the flaw with that plan.

"Actually, if he is in love with Yukari, he wouldn't have chosen a method that would implicate her. If he was present in the theatre for as long as he was, he would have known the plot of the play down to the fine details."

"Maybe it's revenge- she rejected him for Nakajima and he wanted her to be accused of the murder," Felix said. "That fits a little better."

Daniel considered that and gave his approval. It did fit everything they knew. The actors did mix with the students. Then he remembered that Yukari probably would have told them about a love confession from Ethan when she mentioned his name. She would have also remembered him better if he had really confessed to her.

"We will keep that one as a maybe," he said. "Let's consider the hate category next. What would be strong enough there for Ethan to kill Nakajima?"

"He hated his playboy ways?" Meredith suggested.

That didn't feel right to Daniel. Ethan didn't come across as a person who would kill someone because they were a playboy. Oliver noted it down anyway.

"Why would Ethan fear Nakajima?" Harry asked. "Blackmail?"

Whilst that was usually a strong motive for murder Daniel knew it didn't fit.

"It can't be in this case. Ethan only comes here once a year and doesn't seem like a person who could be blackmailed. We'll keep it on the list anyway."

"Financial gain next," Meredith announced. "But Ethan comes from a rich family. I've noticed his clothes are all designer as well. Nakajima was just an actor, it doesn't fit.

Daniel was in agreement in this case. It also reminded him that the sports shoes had been from an expensive brand which pointed even more to the murderer being Ethan.

"Finally, jealously," Amien said. "Maybe he does have a crush on Yukari and killed Nakajima out of jealousy."

Daniel shook his head. Whilst it was a good point, it didn't fit the facts.

"If Ethan was backstage for nearly an hour, he would have known about the break up. There would be no need to kill Nakajima if he was no longer dating Yukari. It would have been good news for him."

Something struck a chord in his mind and he tried to trace the thought back.

"You said most murders fit those categories meaning that some don't. What are those motives?" Amien enquired. "Daniel?"

Daniel held up his hand so he wouldn't be disturbed and tried to put the puzzle pieces together in his mind. Ethan had an impulsive and brash personality and had been very keen to beat him at the mystery event like he was jealous of his abilities.

It all added up to one thing.

"...I think Ethan sneaked to the theatre to cheat on the event. He wanted to make sure he could get one over me. That's why he was there for so long, he wanted to know everything that happened in the second act which is when everything gets explained."

A silence met his accusation and he continued.

"Ethan comes across as someone who acts on impulses. I think he took the safety cover off the knife in an effort to derail the play so he could announce his deduction based on everything from the first half after the play was stopped. I don't think he realised properly that the actor would die."

It fitted in with all the evidence they had and everything he knew psychologically about Ethan.

"It fits," Felix agreed. "Should we go and tell the Police?"