Matsushida directed the servants in restoring order and getting medical care for the wounded (especially Royo) while Leonara and the others finished keeping the terrorists in the hedge maze while it burned, and got Halley to patch up the electrical system and restore the lights.
Jaana showed up with the captured bomber, who was recognized as Sermon Mal, a free-lance machinist who did a lot of work around the estate. With a proper sense of drama, Leonara accused him of conspiring with her steward, Mero Anoth, to murder her. Anoth's protestations of innocence fell on deaf ears, and he and Mal were dragged away by Basker Torenson and Leonara's confessor Father Anton to be questions more extensively.
Eventually some sort of order was restored to the estate (a process punctuated by the distant explosion of Mal's bomb) and everyone toppled into bed.
The next morning, our heroes investigated Mal's escape route, and found his car but no more incriminating evidence. As Mal was only a hireling, it was felt that there were no grounds to do more than confiscate his equipment and boot him off the estate, although Halley took it upon her own authority to brand him with the Scraver sign for "annoyed a Scraver". Anoth, having committed not only conspiracy to commit murder, but active treason, remained in the cellar under Father Anton's tender care.
Our heroes then tossed Anoth's quarters, finding a planner with the previous day ripped out but no other incriminating evidence. Using the 3000-year-old pencil trick, they read the impressions left on the next page and discovered that there was supposed to be something happening at 2am the previous night (exactly the time the bomb had gone off). More enlightening was the record of Anoth's frequent meetings with one LE, who was found to be Lim Evrard, a financial Reeve in the city.
After getting Countess Leonara's assurance that Anoth would never again see the light of day, Matsushida went off to subpoena Anoth's financial records, with everyone else along as backup. Matsushida took Gwen in his fast expensive car, with Jaana in the back seat as chaperone/bodyguard. Halley and Gwen's maid/squire Elaine swiped Matsushida's motorcycle and followed along out of sight, leaving the actual bodyguard to trail along in an estate car.
Mr Lim proves amenable to the idea of releasing the records of deceased criminals to the legal authorities, or at least to Matsushida. The records reveal that Anoth borrowed 2000 firebirds (many years of his salary) for a reason that was not recorded, with himself as collateral. The loan was paid off in an extremely timely fashion, given the huge amount, and the financial dealings between Anoth and Lim were concluded some months in the past, even though Anoth's daytimer listed meetings scheduled not only since that point, but into the future.
Suspicions aroused by Lim's unReevelike lack of records, Matsushida requisitioned some armsmen to keep a tail on him, and also on the person next most frequently listed in Anoth's daytimer, Mary Ann Kaneda. The daytimer offered names and addresses of many other potential leads, but Matsushida wanted to save the resources for an emergency.
Since Lim had only made that one loan to Anoth, and was not his regular banker, Matsushida asked his own banker, Markus Drummond, for help in locating Anoth's account, to check it for other suspicious activity. A deniable conversation followed, in which Matsushida was by no means told anything about Anoth's finances, especially not that they looked quite ordinary. Matsushida thanked Drummond for his lack of assistance, and everyone headed back to the estate. Halley and Elaine failed to keep out of sight on the way back, and when they arrived Halley got a severe dressing-down. Elaine, conspicuously, did not.
While Matushida was playing forensic accountant, the good Father had taken Anoth's confession. Leonara played our heroes a tape of Anoth explaining how he had borrowed money for his ailing father's operation, but then had been foreclosed upon and indentured by the Reeves (no names mentioned at that point), who forced him to commit treason. Anoth was unconscious and could not fill in any details, but the conclusions were reasonably obvious. Only Matsushida's years of gambling experience enabled him to conceal his chagrin.
<<The Peasants Are Revolting [Index] Snail Trails>>This file was last modified at 1635 on 22Jun99 by trip@idiom.com.