CLUE
Starring the Digidestined
Part 2
Miss Scarlet-- Miss Miyako Mrs. White--Mrs. Sora Mrs. Peacock--Mrs. Mimi Mr. Green--Mr. Tai Professor Plum--Professor Izzy Colonel Mustard--Colonel TK Wadsworth--Ken Yvette--Kari The Cook--Chef Matt Mr. Boddy-- Mr. Iori Cop--Policeman Joe Motorist--Daisuke J. Edgar Hoover/Jehovah's Witness--Angemon CAST CHANGE: Singing Telegram--Catherine (the French girl, I believe)
Mrs. Mimi banged her fist on the table. "Look, I demand to know why we've been brought to this horrible place."
Ken unfolded a piece of paper. "I believe we all received a letter. Mine says, 'It will be to your advantage to be present on this date, where a certain Mr. Iori will bring to an end a certain long-standing painful financial liability."
"I got a letter, too," Mr. Tai said. Miss Miyako's eyes were wide.
"So did we, didn't we?"
"Pardon me, sir," Colonel TK said to Iori, "but did your letter say the same thing?"
"No," Iori said as Kari entered once again, this time with a plate. "No thanks, Kari. I just ate."
"Now how did you know her name?" Tai asked.
"We know each other. Don't we, Kari?" She jerked away.
Ken cleared his throat. "Would anyone care for fruit, or dessert?" The others pushed their plates away. "Then I suggest we all adjourn to the Study for coffee and brandy, where I believe our unknown host will make known his intentions."
In the Study everyone sat down, Iori nearest the door. Ken used a letter- opener to slit a brown packet labeled 'Ken--please open AFTER DINNER.' He pulled out a packet of letters. "Thank you, Kari." She left, casting a last glance at the rest of the guests.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am instructed to explain what you all have in common. Unless you would like to do the honors, Mr. Iori?"
"Why?" Iori asked, hands clenched. "Do they know who I am?"
"I don't think you've ever identified yourself to them."
Iori jumped up. "It's a hoax! I suggest we all leave!" He walked out of the door with measured strides. Ken ran after him.
"You cannot leave this house!"
"Who's gonna stop me?" Iori rattled the doorknobs on the front door, which didn't open.
"All the windows have bars, and all the doors are locked," Ken said pointedly.
"This is an outrage! You can't hold us prisoner!"
"Yeah!" everyone else cried, coming out of the Study.
"Please, everyone return to the Study. All will be explained!" Everyone, still grumbling, walked in--except Mr. Iori. He ran down the Hall. Ken followed, suddenly brandishing a whip and wearing purple glasses.
Iori entered the Conservatory, glanced around, grabbed a flowerpot, and rushed to the glass windows. Ken laughed from the doorway. "You can't get out that way."
If Iori was startled by Ken's sudden change of appearance, he didn't show it. "Why? It's only glass." A smallish Garurumon jumped up against it from outside. Iori dropped the flowerpot.
"Point taken," Ken said. The glasses and whip vanished. "Now then..."
In the Study, everyone had found seats but Miyako, who perched on the edge of the couch. Iori dropped back into his isolated chair. Ken returned to the desk.
"Ladies and gentlemen, you all have one thing in common--you're all being blackmailed."
Mimi giggled. "Why, that's absurd! No one could blackmail me, I've never done anything wrong!"
"Anyone else wish to deny it?"
No one did.
"Very well. Since you are all in the same boat, there's no harm in my revealing some details. Professor Izzy, you were once a doctor of psychological medicine helping homicidal lunatics."
"Yes," Izzy said, "but now I work for the United Nations."
"Your work has not changed. But you don't practice medicine at the UN; his license to practice has been taken away!"
"Why?" Miyako asked, coming to stand by Ken. "What did he do?"
"You know what male doctors aren't allowed to do with their lady patients?"
"Yeah?"
"He did."
"Ha!"
Mimi gasped. "That's disgusting!"
"Are you making moral judgments, Mimi?" Ken asked, hurrying to her side, followed by Miyako. "How then do you justify taking bribes for delivering your husband's vote to certain lobbyists?"
"My husband is a paid consultant, there's nothing wrong with that!"
"Not if it's publicly declared. But if the payment is delivered by slipping used greenbacks under the door of the men's room, how would you describe that transaction?"
Miyako leaned over. "I'd say it stinks."
Mimi stuck her tongue out. "Oh, how would you know unless you were in that men's room?"
"So it's true?" Tai asked.
"NO! It's a vicious lie!" She got up and turned away. Mrs. Sora sighed.
"Well, I am willing to believe you. I, too, am being blackmailed for something I didn't do."
"Me too," Tai said.
"And me," TK added.
"Not me," Miyako said, lighting a cigarette.
"You're not being blackmailed?" Ken asked.
"Oh, I'm being blackmailed all right. But I did what I'm being blackmailed for."
"What did you do?" Izzy asked with interest.
She hoisted herself onto the desk. "Well, to be quite frank, I run a specialized hotel and a telephone service that provide gentlemen with the company of a young lady--for a short while."
"Oh yeah?" Izzy said. "What's the phone number?"
She rolled her eyes.
"And how did you know Colonel TK lives in Washington?" Tai asked. "Is he one of your clients?"
"Certainly not!" TK cried.
"I was asking Miss Miyako!"
"Well, you tell him it's not true!"
She grinned. "It's not true."
"Is that true?" Izzy asked.
"No, it's not true."
"So it is true!" Tai cried.
"A double negative!" Ken broke in.
TK gaped at Miyako. "Double negative--you mean you have photographs?!"
As she nodded, Ken said, "The double negative has led to proof positive, I'm afraid you gave yourself away."
"I don't witness what's incorrect with TK visiting a house of ill fame, I mean, most soldiers do, right?" Izzy asked.
"Oh, please!" Miyako said.
"He holds a sensitive security post at the Pentagon. And colonel," Ken continued, "you drive a very expensive car for someone who lives on a colonel's pay."
"I don't. I came into money during the war when I lost my mommy and daddy."
Ken turned to Sora. "Sora, you have been paying our friend the blackmailer for some time now. Your husband died under, shall we say, mysterious circumstances."
Miyako started to laugh.
"What's so funny?" Sora asked.
"I see! That's why he was lying on his back--in his coffin!"
"Well, I didn't kill him!" she said.
"Then why are you paying the blackmail?" Tai asked.
"I don't want a scandal, do I? We had had a very humiliating public confrontation. He was deranged, a lunatic. He had threatened to kill me in public--"
"Why would he want to kill you in public?" Miyako asked.
"I think she means he threatened, in public, to kill her," Ken said.
"Oh." Miyako took a long drag on her cigarette before continuing, "Was that his last word on the matter?"
"Being killed is pretty final, don't you think?"
Ken blinked. "And yet he was the one who died, not you."
"He was found dead at home. His head had been cut off, and so had his...well, you know."
The men crossed their legs.
"I had been out at the movies all evening."
"What was he like?" Miyako asked, leaning forward on her desk.
"He was always a rather stupidly optimistic man, I mean, it must have come as a great shock to him when he died."
"What did he do for a living?"
"He was a scientist. Nuclear physics."
"Do you miss him?"
"Well, it's a matter of life after death. Now that he's dead, I have a life." She cast a glance at Tai.
Ken cleared his throat. "He was your second husband. Your first also disappeared."
"That was his job. He was an illusionist."
"But he never reappeared!"
"He wasn't a very good illusionist."
Tai stood nervously. "I won't wait for Ken to unmask me. I work for the State Department, and I am a homosexual." Sora looked disappointed, while Izzy inched away. "I feel no personal shame from this, but if anyone found out I would lose my job on security grounds." He sat. Izzy jumped up.
"Well, that just leaves Mr. Iori."
Miyako leaned further forward, grinning cruelly. "What's your little secret?"
Ken looked surprised. "Oh, hadn't you guessed?"
"Well, how could we?" Mimi asked.
"He's the one who's blackmailing you."
TK leapt to his feet. "You bastard--" Iori stepped on the colonel's toes, then poked him in the eyes.
PAUSE
TK: How dare you!
Iori: I didn't ASK to be cast as Mr. Boddy! And you called me-slash-him a bastard!
UNPAUSE
As Tai and Izzy pulled Iori off of the colonel, the man shouted, "He called me a bastard!"
Sora decided to take matters into her own hands and kneed Iori between the legs. Mimi clapped gleefully.
"Was that necessary, Sora?" Tai asked.
Ken shouted over the din. "Wait a minute! The police are coming!" Everyone ran into a circle around him except Iori, exclaiming and generally disapproving. "Listen! Blackmail depends on secrecy. You've all admitted how he's been able to blackmail you. All you have to do is tell the police, he'll be convicted, and your troubles will be over!"
Iori stood painfully. "It's not so easy. You'll never tell the police."
Ken glared at him. "Then I shall. I have evidence in my possession, and this conversation is being tape recorded!"
Meanwhile, in the Billiard Room, Kari heard Tai exclaim on the reel-to-reel tape recorder, "Point of order--tape recordings aren't admissible evidence!" She sipped her Cognac in silence.
In the Study, Ken shouted, "Excuse me! The police will be here in forty- five minutes! Tell them the truth, and Iori will be behind bars!"
Iori started for the Hall. "Where are you going this time?" an exasperated Ken asked.
"I think I can help them make up their minds. Can I just get my little bag from the Hall?"
He went out and came in with the black bag. Sora blinked, then said suspiciously, "We didn't know we were meeting you tonight, but did you know you were meeting us?"
"Oh, yes." Iori opened his bag and started handing out boxes of various sizes. "Open 'em."
"Why not," Yolei muttered. "I enjoy getting presents from strange men..." She perched on the desk and pulled the ribbon off the box, then opened it. She pulled out a candlestick.
Looking startled, Sora did the same, only with different results--a rope tied in a noose. Tai also opened his, revealing a lead pipe.
TK and Izzy opened their packages at the same time. A wrench and a revolver- -respectively.
Mimi was last to open her box. She found a dagger inside. Sharpened, of course.
Iori started to walk around the room. "In your hands you each hold a lethal weapon. If you denounce me to the police, you will also be exposed and humiliated. I'll see to that in court. But...if one of you kills Ken, now...no one but the seven of us will ever know. He has the key to the front door, which he said would only be opened over his dead body. I suggest we take him up on that offer." He walked the door and slammed it shut, setting his Cognac on the table.
"The only way to avoid finding yourselves on the front pages is for one of you to kill Ken. Now."
His hand flicked the lightswitch.
In the dark, a shot rang out. There was a scream that almost canceled a thunk and a gasp. Mimi turned the light on, yelped, and dropped her dagger in shock.
Iori lay on the floor, dead.
"Oh my God!" someone cried.
"Is he all right?"
"Stand back!" Izzy said. Everyone did. He checked for a pulse, then announced, "He's deceased!"
"Oh, God," Miyako said.
"Who had the gun?" Sora asked nervously, looking around for it.
Izzy went to it and picked it up. "I did."
"Then you killed him!" Mimi screeched.
"I didn't!"
"So who did?"
Iori was rolled over. "No one! Look, there's no gunshot wound! Someone tried to grab the gun from me in the dark, and it went off! Look, the bullet broke that vase on the mantle!"
There was a stampede to look at it, and there was in fact a bullet hole in the wall. Miyako said, "Oh, God," again.
"Then how did he die?" Sora demanded of Izzy.
"I don't know! I am not a forensic expert!" He lit his pipe in defiance.
"I need a drink," Mimi said, picking up Iori's half-full glass of Cognac and taking a sip.
"Maybe he was poisoned!" Izzy suggested helpfully.
Mimi screamed and dropped the glass. Tai ran to her, whispering words of reassurance as he helped her to a seat. Finally, he slapped her.
Sora and Yolei looked scandalized.
"I...had to stop her...from screaming," Tai offered carefully.
"WAS THE BRANDY POISONED?" TK asked anxiously.
"Looks like we'll never know," Miyako said, brandishing the glass. All the Cognac had spilled out.
"Unless she dies too," Tai said fearfully. Everyone ran to watch Mimi.
"This is very reassuring," Mimi said sarcastically.
Then a scream rang out. Everyone gasped and tore out of the room.
"Where is it coming from?" Miyako asked angrily.
"The Billiard Room," Ken explained simply.
"The murderer must be in there!"
"Why would he scream?"
"He must have a victim in there! Oh, my God, Kari!"
"Oh, my God!"
The door opened, and everyone crowded in. Kari stood there, sniffling, her eyes red.
"You're alive!" Ken acknowledged.
"No thanks to you!"
"What?" Sora asked.
"You locked me up with a murderer, you morons!"
"So the murderer IS in this room?"
"Yes!"
Tai checked behind the door as she continued, "It's what Mrs. Sora said in the study, one of you is the killer!"
"How'd you know we said that?" Izzy demanded.
"I was listening!" She nodded at the recorder.
"But why were you screaming in here all by yourself?" Sora asked suspiciously.
"Because I'm scared too. I also drank the Cognac. I can't stay here by myself!"
"Come back to the Study with us," Miyako offered, holding out a hand.
"With the murderer? Yeah right!"
"There is safety in numbers, my dear," TK said, shaking his wrench, then putting it away as he realized what he was doing.
The entire party moved back to the Study.
"This is terrible," Ken said, dropping into a chair, "absolutely terrible. It's not at all what I'd intended."
"Not what you intended!" Sora said, struggling not to scream the words.
"So you're not the butler?" Miyako said incredulously.
"I'm not THE butler, but I am A butler. In fact, I was HIS butler."
Izzy shook his head. "If he told you to invite us to his mansion, why did he arrive late?"
"I was the one who invited you here. It was all my idea."
"I'm afraid I don't understand. You gathered us here to meet your late employer. Were you, like, assisting him to blackmail us?" Sora queried. The others stared silently.
"Certainly not!"
"I think you had better explain."
"Please sit down. Everyone."
Everyone sat down except Tai. He searched for a spot, but no one was willing to get up and give it to him. He ended up leaning against a serving table.
Ken went on, "When I said that I was Iori's butler, this was both true and misleading. I was once his butler, but it was not his untimely death this evening that brought my employment with him to an end."
"When did it come to an end?" TK asked in a hushed voice.
"When my wife decided to...end her life. She too was being blackmailed by this evil man who now lies dead before us. He hated Rosa for the same reason that he hated all of you. He believed that you were all thoroughly...un-American."
Tai's table gave way, dumping him (and a lot of crystal) on the floor. "Sorry."
"For some reason, he felt that it was inappropriate for a senator to have a corrupt wife, for a doctor to take advantage of his patients, for a wife to emasculate her husband and so forth."
Tai rolled his eyes. "But this is ridiculous! If he was such a patriotic American, why didn't he just report us to the authorities?"
"He decided to put his information to good use and make a little money out of it. What could be more American than that?"
Ken received multiple nods.
"What was your role in all this?" Izzy suspiciously asked.
"I was a victim, too. At least my wife was. She had friends who were...Socialists."
Everyone gasped, Mimi the loudest.
"Well, we all make mistakes," Ken said defensively. "But Iori threatened to give my wife's name to the House Un-American Activities Committee unless she named them. She refused, and so he blackmailed her. We had no money, and the price of his silence was that we worked for him for nothing. We were slaves! Well, to make a long story short--"
"Too late," TK said shortly.
"--The suicide of my wife preyed on my mind, and created a sense of injustice in me. I resolved to put Mr. Iori behind bars. It seemed to be the best way to do it, and to free all of you from the same burden of blackmail, was to get everyone face to face, confront Iori with his crimes, and then turn him over to the police."
Izzy nodded. "So, everything is explained."
"Nothing's explained. We still don't know who killed him!" Miyako cried. Mimi, who had been nodding at Izzy's statement, started shaking her head.
"Well, the point is, we've got to find out in the next thirty-nine minutes. Before the police arrive!"
"My God, we can't have them come here now!" Mimi yelped.
"But how can we possibly find out which of you did it?" Tai asked angrily.
Izzy gave him a look of disbelief. "What do you mean, which of 'you' did it?!"
"Well, I didn't do it!" Tai shouted.
Ken interrupted. "Well, one of us did. We all had the opportunity, we all had a motive."
Miyako jumped up. "Great. We'll all go to the chair."
"Maybe it wasn't one of us," Izzy suggested.
"Well, who else could it have been?" TK asked, hands on hips.
"Who else is in the house?"
Ken and Kari looked at each other. "Only the cook."
Everyone smiled in realization. "THE COOK!"
Thus began the stampede to the kitchen.
Only it was empty. Tai walked quietly in, looking behind counters. He stopped in front of a meat closet, which began to open behind him. Oblivious, he said, "Well, he's not here--"
Yolei screamed. Tai turned in time to catch the body of the cook--Matt-- with a dagger protruding from his back. "I didn't do it!" he shouted. "Somebody help me, please?"
No one came.
"Somebody help me, please!"
This time Miyako and TK ran to help lay Matt on his stomach. Sora followed and reached out to grab the dagger.
"Don't touch it, that's evidence," TK admonished her. Sora stood in a huff.
"Not for us! We can't take fingerprints!"
TK stood and glared in Ken's direction. "I think you had better explain yourself, Ken."
"Me? Why me?"
"Who would want to kill the cook?" Tai asked.
"Dinner wasn't that bad," Miyakomuttered.
TK turned on her. "How can you make jokes at a time like this?!"
She stood, glaring. "It's my defense mechanism."
"Some defense. If I was the killer I would kill you next."
The other guests looked shocked.
"Oh?" Miyako asked. There was an uncomfortable silence.
"I said if," TK added hastily. "IF!" No one spoke. "Hey, come on. There is only one admitted killer here and it is not me, it is HER!" He pointed at Sora, who backed away.
"I've admitted nothing!"
"You paid the blackmail, didn't you? How many husbands have you had?"
"Mine or other women's?"
"Yours."
"Five."
"Five?"
"Yes, just the five. Husbands should be like Kleenex. Soft, strong, and disposable."
"You lure men to their deaths like...like a spider with flies!"
"Flies are where men are most vulnerable!"
"Right!" He realized what he said, blinked, then continued with, "Well, if it wasn't you, then who was it? Who had the dagger, anyway? It was you, Mimi, wasn't it?"
"Yes!" Mimi said. "But I put it down."
"Where?" Izzy asked.
"In the Study."
"When?"
"I don't know! Before I fainted, after I fainted, I don't know! But any of YOU could have picked it up."
"Well," Ken said. Everyone looked at him. "Let's take the cook's body into the Study."
"Why?" Tai asked.
"I'm the butler. I like to keep the kitchen tidy."
When they went into the study, the men were in front, rather effectively blocking off the women's view. Izzy dropped Matt's arm and pointed. "LOOK!"
"What?" Tai, Ken, and TK asked.
"The body's gone!"
Matt was dropped.
"What are you all staring at?" Mimi asked.
"Nothing," Tai said in disbelief.
"Who's there?"
"Nobody," TK said in the same tone as Tai.
"What do you mean?" she asked in exasperation.
"Nobody, that's what we mean," Ken said. "No body. Mr. Iori's body, it's gone!"
"Maybe he wasn't dead," Sora suggested.
"He was!" Izzy snapped as they started into the room.
"We should have made sure!" Miyako said.
"How, by cutting his head off, I suppose," Mimi said.
"That wasn't called for," Sora snapped.
"Where is he?" Miyako demanded, shoving both of them aside.
"We better look for him," Izzy said. The women stepped over Matt, and everyone looked around.
"He couldn't have been dead," Tai affirmed after a moment.
"HE WAS!" Izzy yelled. Then, normally, "At least, I thought he was. But what difference does it make now?"
"Makes quite a difference to him," Miyako said, searching through the papers and tape reels on the desk. "Maybe there is life after death."
"Oh, please!" Sora snorted. "Life after death is as improbable as sex after marriage."
Tai's eyes lit up. "Maybe Iori killed Matt!"
"Yes!" the women shouted.
"How?" Ken asked.
Tai was at a loss. The women were crestfallen.
"If you'll excuse me," Mimi said. She asked Kari, "Is there a lady's room in the hall?"
"Oui oui, madam," Kari said in a French accent.
"No, I just want to powder my nose." Mimi left. Kari blinked.
Yolei grinned maliciously as she picked up some negatives of photographs. "What's this, Ken?"
"Those are the negatives to which TK earlier referred."
"Were you planning on blackmailing him, Ken?"
"Of course not! I'd obtained them for him and I was GOING to give them back as soon as Iori was unmasked!"
Yolei tilted her head. "Mmm...very pretty. Would you like to see these, Kari? They might SHOCK you..."
"No thanks, I am a lady."
"Oh, how do you know what sort of pictures they are if you're such a lady?"
"What sort of pictures are they?" Izzy asked.
"They are MY pictures!" TK shouted, grabbing at them. Yolei held them out of range.
"No, I'm afraid there's something in them that concerns me too."
Izzy grabbed the pictures and held them to the light. Sora gasped. "No one can get into that position."
"Sure they can," Izzy said. "I'll show you." He started to demonstrate on a rather unwilling Sora.
Lucky for her, Mimi screamed just then.
The party ran out to see Iori, head bloody, fall into her outstretched arms. "Iori! He's attacking her!" Izzy yelled. Everyone ran over, and Tai pulled Iori off. The others helped lay him on the floor.
"No, he's dead," Sora said softly.
"Mr. Iori. Dead. AGAIN," Ken said, once again disbelieving.
"Oh, God," Mimi whimpered, fanning herself.
"She's going to faint! Somebody catch her!" Izzy cried.
"I'll catch you," Ken said heroically. He encircled Mimi with his arms. "Fall into my arms." She slipped right through. "Sorry..."
"You've got blood on your hands," Sora said, looking at Tai.
He panicked and whipped out a handkerchief. "I didn't do it!"
Ken picked up Iori's arm and dropped it. "He's got new injuries. Well, he's certainly dead NOW. Why would anyone want to kill him twice?"
"It seems so unnecessary," Miyako said, shaking her head.
"It's what we call overkill," TK pointed out.
"It's what we call psychotic," Izzy said, glaring at everyone else suspiciously.
"Unless he wasn't dead before," Tai said thoughtfully.
"What's the difference?" Izzy asked.
"That's what we're trying to find out!" Ken shouted, standing in the bathroom doorway. "We're trying to find out who killed him, and where, and with what!"
"There's no need to shout!"
"I'm not shouting!!! All right, I am. I'm shouting, I'm shouting, I'm shout- -"
The candlestick fell from where it was nestled above the bathroom doorway and hit Ken on the head. He hit the floor.
Next time on Clue, another murder and my favorite scenes ^_^
Starring the Digidestined
Part 2
Miss Scarlet-- Miss Miyako Mrs. White--Mrs. Sora Mrs. Peacock--Mrs. Mimi Mr. Green--Mr. Tai Professor Plum--Professor Izzy Colonel Mustard--Colonel TK Wadsworth--Ken Yvette--Kari The Cook--Chef Matt Mr. Boddy-- Mr. Iori Cop--Policeman Joe Motorist--Daisuke J. Edgar Hoover/Jehovah's Witness--Angemon CAST CHANGE: Singing Telegram--Catherine (the French girl, I believe)
Mrs. Mimi banged her fist on the table. "Look, I demand to know why we've been brought to this horrible place."
Ken unfolded a piece of paper. "I believe we all received a letter. Mine says, 'It will be to your advantage to be present on this date, where a certain Mr. Iori will bring to an end a certain long-standing painful financial liability."
"I got a letter, too," Mr. Tai said. Miss Miyako's eyes were wide.
"So did we, didn't we?"
"Pardon me, sir," Colonel TK said to Iori, "but did your letter say the same thing?"
"No," Iori said as Kari entered once again, this time with a plate. "No thanks, Kari. I just ate."
"Now how did you know her name?" Tai asked.
"We know each other. Don't we, Kari?" She jerked away.
Ken cleared his throat. "Would anyone care for fruit, or dessert?" The others pushed their plates away. "Then I suggest we all adjourn to the Study for coffee and brandy, where I believe our unknown host will make known his intentions."
In the Study everyone sat down, Iori nearest the door. Ken used a letter- opener to slit a brown packet labeled 'Ken--please open AFTER DINNER.' He pulled out a packet of letters. "Thank you, Kari." She left, casting a last glance at the rest of the guests.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am instructed to explain what you all have in common. Unless you would like to do the honors, Mr. Iori?"
"Why?" Iori asked, hands clenched. "Do they know who I am?"
"I don't think you've ever identified yourself to them."
Iori jumped up. "It's a hoax! I suggest we all leave!" He walked out of the door with measured strides. Ken ran after him.
"You cannot leave this house!"
"Who's gonna stop me?" Iori rattled the doorknobs on the front door, which didn't open.
"All the windows have bars, and all the doors are locked," Ken said pointedly.
"This is an outrage! You can't hold us prisoner!"
"Yeah!" everyone else cried, coming out of the Study.
"Please, everyone return to the Study. All will be explained!" Everyone, still grumbling, walked in--except Mr. Iori. He ran down the Hall. Ken followed, suddenly brandishing a whip and wearing purple glasses.
Iori entered the Conservatory, glanced around, grabbed a flowerpot, and rushed to the glass windows. Ken laughed from the doorway. "You can't get out that way."
If Iori was startled by Ken's sudden change of appearance, he didn't show it. "Why? It's only glass." A smallish Garurumon jumped up against it from outside. Iori dropped the flowerpot.
"Point taken," Ken said. The glasses and whip vanished. "Now then..."
In the Study, everyone had found seats but Miyako, who perched on the edge of the couch. Iori dropped back into his isolated chair. Ken returned to the desk.
"Ladies and gentlemen, you all have one thing in common--you're all being blackmailed."
Mimi giggled. "Why, that's absurd! No one could blackmail me, I've never done anything wrong!"
"Anyone else wish to deny it?"
No one did.
"Very well. Since you are all in the same boat, there's no harm in my revealing some details. Professor Izzy, you were once a doctor of psychological medicine helping homicidal lunatics."
"Yes," Izzy said, "but now I work for the United Nations."
"Your work has not changed. But you don't practice medicine at the UN; his license to practice has been taken away!"
"Why?" Miyako asked, coming to stand by Ken. "What did he do?"
"You know what male doctors aren't allowed to do with their lady patients?"
"Yeah?"
"He did."
"Ha!"
Mimi gasped. "That's disgusting!"
"Are you making moral judgments, Mimi?" Ken asked, hurrying to her side, followed by Miyako. "How then do you justify taking bribes for delivering your husband's vote to certain lobbyists?"
"My husband is a paid consultant, there's nothing wrong with that!"
"Not if it's publicly declared. But if the payment is delivered by slipping used greenbacks under the door of the men's room, how would you describe that transaction?"
Miyako leaned over. "I'd say it stinks."
Mimi stuck her tongue out. "Oh, how would you know unless you were in that men's room?"
"So it's true?" Tai asked.
"NO! It's a vicious lie!" She got up and turned away. Mrs. Sora sighed.
"Well, I am willing to believe you. I, too, am being blackmailed for something I didn't do."
"Me too," Tai said.
"And me," TK added.
"Not me," Miyako said, lighting a cigarette.
"You're not being blackmailed?" Ken asked.
"Oh, I'm being blackmailed all right. But I did what I'm being blackmailed for."
"What did you do?" Izzy asked with interest.
She hoisted herself onto the desk. "Well, to be quite frank, I run a specialized hotel and a telephone service that provide gentlemen with the company of a young lady--for a short while."
"Oh yeah?" Izzy said. "What's the phone number?"
She rolled her eyes.
"And how did you know Colonel TK lives in Washington?" Tai asked. "Is he one of your clients?"
"Certainly not!" TK cried.
"I was asking Miss Miyako!"
"Well, you tell him it's not true!"
She grinned. "It's not true."
"Is that true?" Izzy asked.
"No, it's not true."
"So it is true!" Tai cried.
"A double negative!" Ken broke in.
TK gaped at Miyako. "Double negative--you mean you have photographs?!"
As she nodded, Ken said, "The double negative has led to proof positive, I'm afraid you gave yourself away."
"I don't witness what's incorrect with TK visiting a house of ill fame, I mean, most soldiers do, right?" Izzy asked.
"Oh, please!" Miyako said.
"He holds a sensitive security post at the Pentagon. And colonel," Ken continued, "you drive a very expensive car for someone who lives on a colonel's pay."
"I don't. I came into money during the war when I lost my mommy and daddy."
Ken turned to Sora. "Sora, you have been paying our friend the blackmailer for some time now. Your husband died under, shall we say, mysterious circumstances."
Miyako started to laugh.
"What's so funny?" Sora asked.
"I see! That's why he was lying on his back--in his coffin!"
"Well, I didn't kill him!" she said.
"Then why are you paying the blackmail?" Tai asked.
"I don't want a scandal, do I? We had had a very humiliating public confrontation. He was deranged, a lunatic. He had threatened to kill me in public--"
"Why would he want to kill you in public?" Miyako asked.
"I think she means he threatened, in public, to kill her," Ken said.
"Oh." Miyako took a long drag on her cigarette before continuing, "Was that his last word on the matter?"
"Being killed is pretty final, don't you think?"
Ken blinked. "And yet he was the one who died, not you."
"He was found dead at home. His head had been cut off, and so had his...well, you know."
The men crossed their legs.
"I had been out at the movies all evening."
"What was he like?" Miyako asked, leaning forward on her desk.
"He was always a rather stupidly optimistic man, I mean, it must have come as a great shock to him when he died."
"What did he do for a living?"
"He was a scientist. Nuclear physics."
"Do you miss him?"
"Well, it's a matter of life after death. Now that he's dead, I have a life." She cast a glance at Tai.
Ken cleared his throat. "He was your second husband. Your first also disappeared."
"That was his job. He was an illusionist."
"But he never reappeared!"
"He wasn't a very good illusionist."
Tai stood nervously. "I won't wait for Ken to unmask me. I work for the State Department, and I am a homosexual." Sora looked disappointed, while Izzy inched away. "I feel no personal shame from this, but if anyone found out I would lose my job on security grounds." He sat. Izzy jumped up.
"Well, that just leaves Mr. Iori."
Miyako leaned further forward, grinning cruelly. "What's your little secret?"
Ken looked surprised. "Oh, hadn't you guessed?"
"Well, how could we?" Mimi asked.
"He's the one who's blackmailing you."
TK leapt to his feet. "You bastard--" Iori stepped on the colonel's toes, then poked him in the eyes.
PAUSE
TK: How dare you!
Iori: I didn't ASK to be cast as Mr. Boddy! And you called me-slash-him a bastard!
UNPAUSE
As Tai and Izzy pulled Iori off of the colonel, the man shouted, "He called me a bastard!"
Sora decided to take matters into her own hands and kneed Iori between the legs. Mimi clapped gleefully.
"Was that necessary, Sora?" Tai asked.
Ken shouted over the din. "Wait a minute! The police are coming!" Everyone ran into a circle around him except Iori, exclaiming and generally disapproving. "Listen! Blackmail depends on secrecy. You've all admitted how he's been able to blackmail you. All you have to do is tell the police, he'll be convicted, and your troubles will be over!"
Iori stood painfully. "It's not so easy. You'll never tell the police."
Ken glared at him. "Then I shall. I have evidence in my possession, and this conversation is being tape recorded!"
Meanwhile, in the Billiard Room, Kari heard Tai exclaim on the reel-to-reel tape recorder, "Point of order--tape recordings aren't admissible evidence!" She sipped her Cognac in silence.
In the Study, Ken shouted, "Excuse me! The police will be here in forty- five minutes! Tell them the truth, and Iori will be behind bars!"
Iori started for the Hall. "Where are you going this time?" an exasperated Ken asked.
"I think I can help them make up their minds. Can I just get my little bag from the Hall?"
He went out and came in with the black bag. Sora blinked, then said suspiciously, "We didn't know we were meeting you tonight, but did you know you were meeting us?"
"Oh, yes." Iori opened his bag and started handing out boxes of various sizes. "Open 'em."
"Why not," Yolei muttered. "I enjoy getting presents from strange men..." She perched on the desk and pulled the ribbon off the box, then opened it. She pulled out a candlestick.
Looking startled, Sora did the same, only with different results--a rope tied in a noose. Tai also opened his, revealing a lead pipe.
TK and Izzy opened their packages at the same time. A wrench and a revolver- -respectively.
Mimi was last to open her box. She found a dagger inside. Sharpened, of course.
Iori started to walk around the room. "In your hands you each hold a lethal weapon. If you denounce me to the police, you will also be exposed and humiliated. I'll see to that in court. But...if one of you kills Ken, now...no one but the seven of us will ever know. He has the key to the front door, which he said would only be opened over his dead body. I suggest we take him up on that offer." He walked the door and slammed it shut, setting his Cognac on the table.
"The only way to avoid finding yourselves on the front pages is for one of you to kill Ken. Now."
His hand flicked the lightswitch.
In the dark, a shot rang out. There was a scream that almost canceled a thunk and a gasp. Mimi turned the light on, yelped, and dropped her dagger in shock.
Iori lay on the floor, dead.
"Oh my God!" someone cried.
"Is he all right?"
"Stand back!" Izzy said. Everyone did. He checked for a pulse, then announced, "He's deceased!"
"Oh, God," Miyako said.
"Who had the gun?" Sora asked nervously, looking around for it.
Izzy went to it and picked it up. "I did."
"Then you killed him!" Mimi screeched.
"I didn't!"
"So who did?"
Iori was rolled over. "No one! Look, there's no gunshot wound! Someone tried to grab the gun from me in the dark, and it went off! Look, the bullet broke that vase on the mantle!"
There was a stampede to look at it, and there was in fact a bullet hole in the wall. Miyako said, "Oh, God," again.
"Then how did he die?" Sora demanded of Izzy.
"I don't know! I am not a forensic expert!" He lit his pipe in defiance.
"I need a drink," Mimi said, picking up Iori's half-full glass of Cognac and taking a sip.
"Maybe he was poisoned!" Izzy suggested helpfully.
Mimi screamed and dropped the glass. Tai ran to her, whispering words of reassurance as he helped her to a seat. Finally, he slapped her.
Sora and Yolei looked scandalized.
"I...had to stop her...from screaming," Tai offered carefully.
"WAS THE BRANDY POISONED?" TK asked anxiously.
"Looks like we'll never know," Miyako said, brandishing the glass. All the Cognac had spilled out.
"Unless she dies too," Tai said fearfully. Everyone ran to watch Mimi.
"This is very reassuring," Mimi said sarcastically.
Then a scream rang out. Everyone gasped and tore out of the room.
"Where is it coming from?" Miyako asked angrily.
"The Billiard Room," Ken explained simply.
"The murderer must be in there!"
"Why would he scream?"
"He must have a victim in there! Oh, my God, Kari!"
"Oh, my God!"
The door opened, and everyone crowded in. Kari stood there, sniffling, her eyes red.
"You're alive!" Ken acknowledged.
"No thanks to you!"
"What?" Sora asked.
"You locked me up with a murderer, you morons!"
"So the murderer IS in this room?"
"Yes!"
Tai checked behind the door as she continued, "It's what Mrs. Sora said in the study, one of you is the killer!"
"How'd you know we said that?" Izzy demanded.
"I was listening!" She nodded at the recorder.
"But why were you screaming in here all by yourself?" Sora asked suspiciously.
"Because I'm scared too. I also drank the Cognac. I can't stay here by myself!"
"Come back to the Study with us," Miyako offered, holding out a hand.
"With the murderer? Yeah right!"
"There is safety in numbers, my dear," TK said, shaking his wrench, then putting it away as he realized what he was doing.
The entire party moved back to the Study.
"This is terrible," Ken said, dropping into a chair, "absolutely terrible. It's not at all what I'd intended."
"Not what you intended!" Sora said, struggling not to scream the words.
"So you're not the butler?" Miyako said incredulously.
"I'm not THE butler, but I am A butler. In fact, I was HIS butler."
Izzy shook his head. "If he told you to invite us to his mansion, why did he arrive late?"
"I was the one who invited you here. It was all my idea."
"I'm afraid I don't understand. You gathered us here to meet your late employer. Were you, like, assisting him to blackmail us?" Sora queried. The others stared silently.
"Certainly not!"
"I think you had better explain."
"Please sit down. Everyone."
Everyone sat down except Tai. He searched for a spot, but no one was willing to get up and give it to him. He ended up leaning against a serving table.
Ken went on, "When I said that I was Iori's butler, this was both true and misleading. I was once his butler, but it was not his untimely death this evening that brought my employment with him to an end."
"When did it come to an end?" TK asked in a hushed voice.
"When my wife decided to...end her life. She too was being blackmailed by this evil man who now lies dead before us. He hated Rosa for the same reason that he hated all of you. He believed that you were all thoroughly...un-American."
Tai's table gave way, dumping him (and a lot of crystal) on the floor. "Sorry."
"For some reason, he felt that it was inappropriate for a senator to have a corrupt wife, for a doctor to take advantage of his patients, for a wife to emasculate her husband and so forth."
Tai rolled his eyes. "But this is ridiculous! If he was such a patriotic American, why didn't he just report us to the authorities?"
"He decided to put his information to good use and make a little money out of it. What could be more American than that?"
Ken received multiple nods.
"What was your role in all this?" Izzy suspiciously asked.
"I was a victim, too. At least my wife was. She had friends who were...Socialists."
Everyone gasped, Mimi the loudest.
"Well, we all make mistakes," Ken said defensively. "But Iori threatened to give my wife's name to the House Un-American Activities Committee unless she named them. She refused, and so he blackmailed her. We had no money, and the price of his silence was that we worked for him for nothing. We were slaves! Well, to make a long story short--"
"Too late," TK said shortly.
"--The suicide of my wife preyed on my mind, and created a sense of injustice in me. I resolved to put Mr. Iori behind bars. It seemed to be the best way to do it, and to free all of you from the same burden of blackmail, was to get everyone face to face, confront Iori with his crimes, and then turn him over to the police."
Izzy nodded. "So, everything is explained."
"Nothing's explained. We still don't know who killed him!" Miyako cried. Mimi, who had been nodding at Izzy's statement, started shaking her head.
"Well, the point is, we've got to find out in the next thirty-nine minutes. Before the police arrive!"
"My God, we can't have them come here now!" Mimi yelped.
"But how can we possibly find out which of you did it?" Tai asked angrily.
Izzy gave him a look of disbelief. "What do you mean, which of 'you' did it?!"
"Well, I didn't do it!" Tai shouted.
Ken interrupted. "Well, one of us did. We all had the opportunity, we all had a motive."
Miyako jumped up. "Great. We'll all go to the chair."
"Maybe it wasn't one of us," Izzy suggested.
"Well, who else could it have been?" TK asked, hands on hips.
"Who else is in the house?"
Ken and Kari looked at each other. "Only the cook."
Everyone smiled in realization. "THE COOK!"
Thus began the stampede to the kitchen.
Only it was empty. Tai walked quietly in, looking behind counters. He stopped in front of a meat closet, which began to open behind him. Oblivious, he said, "Well, he's not here--"
Yolei screamed. Tai turned in time to catch the body of the cook--Matt-- with a dagger protruding from his back. "I didn't do it!" he shouted. "Somebody help me, please?"
No one came.
"Somebody help me, please!"
This time Miyako and TK ran to help lay Matt on his stomach. Sora followed and reached out to grab the dagger.
"Don't touch it, that's evidence," TK admonished her. Sora stood in a huff.
"Not for us! We can't take fingerprints!"
TK stood and glared in Ken's direction. "I think you had better explain yourself, Ken."
"Me? Why me?"
"Who would want to kill the cook?" Tai asked.
"Dinner wasn't that bad," Miyakomuttered.
TK turned on her. "How can you make jokes at a time like this?!"
She stood, glaring. "It's my defense mechanism."
"Some defense. If I was the killer I would kill you next."
The other guests looked shocked.
"Oh?" Miyako asked. There was an uncomfortable silence.
"I said if," TK added hastily. "IF!" No one spoke. "Hey, come on. There is only one admitted killer here and it is not me, it is HER!" He pointed at Sora, who backed away.
"I've admitted nothing!"
"You paid the blackmail, didn't you? How many husbands have you had?"
"Mine or other women's?"
"Yours."
"Five."
"Five?"
"Yes, just the five. Husbands should be like Kleenex. Soft, strong, and disposable."
"You lure men to their deaths like...like a spider with flies!"
"Flies are where men are most vulnerable!"
"Right!" He realized what he said, blinked, then continued with, "Well, if it wasn't you, then who was it? Who had the dagger, anyway? It was you, Mimi, wasn't it?"
"Yes!" Mimi said. "But I put it down."
"Where?" Izzy asked.
"In the Study."
"When?"
"I don't know! Before I fainted, after I fainted, I don't know! But any of YOU could have picked it up."
"Well," Ken said. Everyone looked at him. "Let's take the cook's body into the Study."
"Why?" Tai asked.
"I'm the butler. I like to keep the kitchen tidy."
When they went into the study, the men were in front, rather effectively blocking off the women's view. Izzy dropped Matt's arm and pointed. "LOOK!"
"What?" Tai, Ken, and TK asked.
"The body's gone!"
Matt was dropped.
"What are you all staring at?" Mimi asked.
"Nothing," Tai said in disbelief.
"Who's there?"
"Nobody," TK said in the same tone as Tai.
"What do you mean?" she asked in exasperation.
"Nobody, that's what we mean," Ken said. "No body. Mr. Iori's body, it's gone!"
"Maybe he wasn't dead," Sora suggested.
"He was!" Izzy snapped as they started into the room.
"We should have made sure!" Miyako said.
"How, by cutting his head off, I suppose," Mimi said.
"That wasn't called for," Sora snapped.
"Where is he?" Miyako demanded, shoving both of them aside.
"We better look for him," Izzy said. The women stepped over Matt, and everyone looked around.
"He couldn't have been dead," Tai affirmed after a moment.
"HE WAS!" Izzy yelled. Then, normally, "At least, I thought he was. But what difference does it make now?"
"Makes quite a difference to him," Miyako said, searching through the papers and tape reels on the desk. "Maybe there is life after death."
"Oh, please!" Sora snorted. "Life after death is as improbable as sex after marriage."
Tai's eyes lit up. "Maybe Iori killed Matt!"
"Yes!" the women shouted.
"How?" Ken asked.
Tai was at a loss. The women were crestfallen.
"If you'll excuse me," Mimi said. She asked Kari, "Is there a lady's room in the hall?"
"Oui oui, madam," Kari said in a French accent.
"No, I just want to powder my nose." Mimi left. Kari blinked.
Yolei grinned maliciously as she picked up some negatives of photographs. "What's this, Ken?"
"Those are the negatives to which TK earlier referred."
"Were you planning on blackmailing him, Ken?"
"Of course not! I'd obtained them for him and I was GOING to give them back as soon as Iori was unmasked!"
Yolei tilted her head. "Mmm...very pretty. Would you like to see these, Kari? They might SHOCK you..."
"No thanks, I am a lady."
"Oh, how do you know what sort of pictures they are if you're such a lady?"
"What sort of pictures are they?" Izzy asked.
"They are MY pictures!" TK shouted, grabbing at them. Yolei held them out of range.
"No, I'm afraid there's something in them that concerns me too."
Izzy grabbed the pictures and held them to the light. Sora gasped. "No one can get into that position."
"Sure they can," Izzy said. "I'll show you." He started to demonstrate on a rather unwilling Sora.
Lucky for her, Mimi screamed just then.
The party ran out to see Iori, head bloody, fall into her outstretched arms. "Iori! He's attacking her!" Izzy yelled. Everyone ran over, and Tai pulled Iori off. The others helped lay him on the floor.
"No, he's dead," Sora said softly.
"Mr. Iori. Dead. AGAIN," Ken said, once again disbelieving.
"Oh, God," Mimi whimpered, fanning herself.
"She's going to faint! Somebody catch her!" Izzy cried.
"I'll catch you," Ken said heroically. He encircled Mimi with his arms. "Fall into my arms." She slipped right through. "Sorry..."
"You've got blood on your hands," Sora said, looking at Tai.
He panicked and whipped out a handkerchief. "I didn't do it!"
Ken picked up Iori's arm and dropped it. "He's got new injuries. Well, he's certainly dead NOW. Why would anyone want to kill him twice?"
"It seems so unnecessary," Miyako said, shaking her head.
"It's what we call overkill," TK pointed out.
"It's what we call psychotic," Izzy said, glaring at everyone else suspiciously.
"Unless he wasn't dead before," Tai said thoughtfully.
"What's the difference?" Izzy asked.
"That's what we're trying to find out!" Ken shouted, standing in the bathroom doorway. "We're trying to find out who killed him, and where, and with what!"
"There's no need to shout!"
"I'm not shouting!!! All right, I am. I'm shouting, I'm shouting, I'm shout- -"
The candlestick fell from where it was nestled above the bathroom doorway and hit Ken on the head. He hit the floor.
Next time on Clue, another murder and my favorite scenes ^_^