Care for a halftime report on this case?
Yeah! I suppose I can manage at least that before heading off to lala land.
Trial Day 1 Start: Barok’s case rests on believing Benjamin’s theory and the teleportation itself as not only plausible but fundamentally successful, despite other aspects of the experiment utterly failing. This means that, as Meningen was alive on the podium and dead of a stab wound to the heart by the time his cage landed in the Crystal Tower (and then broke his neck), Benjamin was the only one capable of killing him. As part of Ryuu’s promise to Benjamin when he took up his case was to protect his theory and his machine, it was difficult for Ryuu to refute the theory in the early stages of the case, or else he’d risk the protection on the machine from investigation being rendered null and void, as it’d no longer be a “true scientific experiment.”
Trial Day 1 End: As a witness testimony from Gotts eventually proved, there was one more air balloon in addition to the three fair-sanctioned balloons present during the experiment. This green balloon was hit by a fire-arrow to make it explode. Ryuu, realizing he could no longer stop where this train of thought was going, jumped on board: he then suggested that Meningen was already inside this balloon, and was never on the podium in the first place. As the case got closer to proving this teleportation machine as nothing but a stage trick with a possible double involved, Benjamin jumped in to admit to stabbing Meningen in order to keep the protection on his machine valid. After some prodding from Barok and a throw from a newly-in-London Susato, Ryuu eventually chose to pursue the truth of the machine, rather than protect it like he was initially asked to. Benjamin, upon being asked by Barok if there was anything he had to say after hearing Ryuu’s words, admitted that he DID in fact see someone with a crossbow the day before: the mechanical engineer that built his machine and well known magiscientist swindler Enoch Drebber. There’s a lowkey consensus that this machine was likely built for stage magic, and Benjamin allowed the protection on his machine to be revoked, allowing for full investigation of its mechanisms.
Other Info: Ryuu starts this case having already been on probation for 6 months. He finally gets the courage to ask Vortex to reinstate his license, and though he does so, Vortex also implies that Ryuu knows very little about what Asougi had truly come to England to do. Most of the other pertinent information in this case directly or indirectly involves Barok. For one, Benjamin is his old friend. For two, a serial killer named “Professor” that was active 10 years ago forever changed Barok’s life when his fifth and last victim turned out to be Barok’s older brother, Klimt. It was this that led to Barok pursuing prosecution. The Professor is involved in another incident, albeit indirectly, via his wax model being stolen from Rozaic’s. Sherlock is currently pursuing this case, and it’s yet to be seen how or if it’s related to Meningen’s murder. Finally, we’ve got Barok’s new disciple. His background is entirely unknown, and just about everything about him--his mask, his silence, and his working under Barok--are on Vortex’s orders. Though Ryuu does seem to find him strangely familiar...
And I think that’s most of the larger points of the case so far!
