Part 23: The Walking Corpse - Part 3

Now, let's examine the body.

Brr...The body that moved, even though it were dead, you mean?

Is a diablo who kill this man. Is a diablo who make the dead man walking.

No, I still can't believe it.

Let's see what our investigation uncovers. Come on, Lucy, examine the body.





Yes, a grim sight. The axe is still lodged in his skull. And rather deeply at that.




The question is, did the body really move or not?

Is there any evidence to suggest that it did?




Well, there's this bloodstain here, look. It's like the body were dragged across the floor. Or dragged itself...

Hmm, it's certainly hard to deny that the body did indeed move from this chair after death occurred.





There's no point wildly speculating about what happened. Let's simply continue our investigations.



Locked from inside:

When the hotel proprietor and Ms Etista came running to the hut, they found the door locked. Yet when Mr Sasucasa broke the door down and went inside, the killer was nowhere to be seen.

How did he or she pull that one off then, eh?

Maybe it passes through the walls?

Or it makes itself minuscule and squeezes through the bars of the window?

Both rather far-out ideas, thank you, Mr Careta. We're looking for summat actually based in reality, I think.

Is a diablo, this killer. Is not worried about the reality.

Let's take the possibilities one by one.

We'll start by examining the window, shall we, Lucy?




There's just the one window int' hut. But with these iron bars on it...

No. There's no way someone could have got through there.



No. It was a human who committed this heinous crime. But I agree, he did have the devil in his heart.

So, next, we must examine the door. Perhaps there's a trick that allows it to be opened without the key.

Right you are, Prof! Let's have a look!




Ee, it's a tough-looking door, this.



Oh, what's that, Prof?

Lucy has clearly been taking telepathy lessons from Alfendi off screen.

Never mind for now.

It looks like the door was definitely locked. There can be no question of that.



Is a very special lock. Is no possible to make the duplicate key.



And that one and only key was found inside the hut.

I think we'd best take a look at that key, don't you?

A good idea, yes. Do you think you can find the key to the hut, Lucy?

Leave it to me, Prof!





Over here, Prof! I've found it. The key to the hut.

In the victim's pocket, was it? Very interesting.

I don't suppose the killer could have got the key back in O'Logie's pocket from the outside after locking up?



…

What's up, Prof?

Something caught my eye when we examined the door before. There's something peculiar about it.

Peculiar? What?

There's something about the hut door that's quite different from other doors. See if you can spot it.





Hey, Prof, there's a screw missing from one of the hinges here!

And that's not the only peculiarity. The hinges themselves are unusual. That's what's been making it stand out to me.

Really? What's funny about them?

It's normal to fit the hinges on the inside of the door. Think about a normal house. If the hinges were fitted on the outside, it would cause problems, wouldn't it?

You can see why, presumably?





Someone on the outside of this door could've opened it by removing the hinges!

Exactly. No matter how unusual the lock is, simply by removing the hinges, anyone could get inside with ease.

So, what you're saying is...

...the hut wasn't necessarily the impenetrable fortress we've been led to believe it was.



I no realise is something like this possible. Incredible!

It's a little too soon for celebrations, Lucy. We need some evidence that the door really was removed in that way.

Look for the missing screw. That will likely tell us something.

No problem, Prof!





Here's that screw, Prof!

So it was around here as we suspected? Good work, Lucy.

Heh heh heh.

Hm, but it's rather more grimy than I'd expected. Perhaps...

Perhaps what?

Never mind. Let's have forensics check it out for us.

I'll get it over to them straight away.

How? Surely the physical screw is still in South America?

Good. We'll continue investigating the scene while we await the results.




No. And that tantalising mystery would seem to be the key to this whole incident.

Is proof that the diablo, it is coming for us.

Give over! It's no such thing.

Still, we have gleaned some very important information.

The hinges! Aye, I can't wait for forensics to get back to us with their report.

I think you are wrong.

Because is the diablo who make this man dead.

No, it weren't. It were a human that's done this, like you or I.

Why don't we consider the motive for the crime while we're waiting for forensics to get back to us?

The motive?

Yes, there's a very obvious reason for this murder.

Okay, let me figure it out, then. Let's see, now...the motive...



Motive.

There was a reason why O'Logie was murdered. The crime had a clear motive. There's evidence here that points to it. That's what you're looking for.






This crate here is empty.

The killer must've have stolen whatever were inside!

And what do you think was inside that crate?



It were the stone idol in there! That's what were in the crate!



No, is no right this, what you say.

The diablo in the stone figure, it breaks out from this crate itself! And then it kills Señor Archie!




No. The stone diablo, it kills the Señor.



Ee, there's no talking to some folk, is there?

I was intending to wait until the report came back from forensics, but maybe we'll do things differently.

This can only turn out well.

I think it's time to demonstrate that the killer in this case was very definitely human. Over to you, Lucy.