Chapter #10: Another Search Begins

"Oh Sonic, isn't this wonderful?!" Amy exclaimed, clapping her hands. "We get to explore the mansion together!"

Judging by the way the blue hedgehog was moaning and slamming his head against the wall, he didn't agree that it was "wonderful" that they had been paired up. But his cheerful new partner failed to notice this and continued to chatter on about what they could look at.

"I didn't get to see the Hall much; we could go there! And maybe the Conservatory! And the Study! But I don't want to go to the Kitchen; I've been there twice already. We won't go there, will we, Sonic?"

When he didn't answer, she turned to look at him. He was staring out the windows of the Dining Room at a fountain (smaller and simpler than the one in the rose garden). Whatever he saw in that view had caught his complete interest, and he had not heard her question.

"Sonic!" she said, stamping her foot. He jumped a foot in the air and whirled around. She asked again, "We won't visit the Kitchen, right?"

"Uhh…sure," he replied cautiously.

"Good!" Then she paused for a moment to think. "Didn't Vector say we should look for anything unusual in each room? We're looking for the crime scene now, right?"

A pause, and then, "…Right."

"How about we start here?"

He shrugged. "Sure, I guess."

Immediately Amy turned and began to examine the Room. Contrary to what some might believe, she had developed a keen, observant eye when it came to clothes and rooms.

The Dining Room was plain compared to some of the other Rooms in Tudor Mansion. The floor was plain wood with no rugs or carpets, and one wall had a set of three windows, the center one bigger than the other two. The lower half of the walls had wood paneling, and china was set on it for display. There were two large cabinets for the same purpose, a few potted plants and paintings, and a fireplace. The main attraction, the dining table and its eight chairs, was in the very center, and made of a dark-colored, expensive-looking wood. Everything appeared to be in order, and nothing out-of-place.

Sonic also observed the Room more thoroughly than before, and reached a conclusion. "I doubt the murder happened here; it's used way too much. Somebody would've noticed evidence sooner."

Amy nodded. "You're right. Why don't we try the Conservatory? Knuckles and Rouge found that gun there."

Again, she received a shrug for an answer, and the two hedgehogs walked out of the Room. Her mind was on helping Vector and Tails, but his mind was on the strange thing he had seen outside through the window…

Meanwhile, in the Kitchen, Vector was looking into every cabinet and cupboard, and inspecting the refrigerator and its contents. Rouge, however, was content to sit on the table and watch him. "What do you think you're going to find, detective?" she asked, smirking. "Bloody fingerprints?"

The skepticism in her voice was impossible to miss, and it made Vector curl his lip. "'Course not," he replied curtly. "Our killer is too smart for that."

"Don't overestimate the echidna, Sherlock; he wouldn't know smarts even if it hit him in the face."

The reptile rolled his eyes. "You've really got your mind set on him, huh? Whatever happened to me bein' a killer?"

"You're too goody-goody to kill the Doctor; so is the rest of the bunch. Knucklehead, however…" she chuckled, "he'd do anything for his Master Emerald. He can't stand being away from it too long, you know. Thinks somebody will steal it while he's trapped here. I can read his mind like a book."

Vector wouldn't admit it to her out loud, but Rouge had a very good point. Knuckles' duty to the Master Emerald and Angel Island was his motive for murder; even the scarlet echidna himself couldn't deny it. But Knuckles had a backup: his echidna honor. A wise Guardian would only resort to measures such as the taking of a life if absolutely necessary to protect the Master, and if no less drastic course of action remained. In the case of the murder, escape was an alternative to violence. But the crocodile knew better than to assume too much; he had to collect more evidence and information before writing off anyone or accusing them.

His in-depth search of the Kitchen done, he turned his attention to the secret passage he had found with Amy in their search for Sonic. Like all of the others, it was a wooden panel with something put on top of it to hide it; in the case of the Kitchen, it was a sack of flour. Vector removed it and lifted up the panel. His gaze stopped at the stairs themselves, and the dust that had collected on them from little use. He saw several footprints in it: his own large ones, Amy's high heels…and three others. His eyes widened a fraction.

The tunnels had been used recently, but it was before their discovery by the gang that day.

Tails might be right, he thought. The killer might have used these tunnels last night…problem is, whose shoeprints are these? And which one is the killer's?

He studied the prints intensely, imprinting them in his photographic memory for later comparison with everyone's shoes. When finished, he stood up, ticking off a list of things to do on his fingers.

First, check all the other secret passage rooms. Second, do a thorough sweep of the whole tunnel system. Last, check everyone's shoes.

It was a tall order, but he set his jaw determinedly and marched out of the Kitchen, with a very curious Rouge the Bat tailing him.

In the Hall, Tails was doing a similar search, but unlike the white bat, Knuckles was offering his help, though he grumbled about their situation while doing so.

"I really don't see why we're doing this," he said as he was looking into a potted plant; he had learned from the Conservatory search that such plants made good hiding places for evidence. "Why can't we just fight our way out of this place? We don't need to stay here and play detective."

The young fox sighed; their teaming up wasn't meeting his expectations. He stopped fiddling with the doors of the Room to look at the echidna and explain. "If we try and fail, we'd only lose our freedom in this place, Knuckles. We don't know what kind of security Eggman put in this place."

He wasn't really lying when he said this; his intrusion into the security room had not given him a complete tour of the estate's security measures. Eggman could have hidden all sorts of cameras and traps indoors and out, and he wouldn't have seen them.

He bent down and began looking through the ashes of the Hall's fireplace. "And Jenkins did say that he would let us go once we find out who killed Eggman. Besides, don't you want to find out?"

Knuckles snorted. "I already know; the bat-girl did it."

Another, heavier sigh escaped from Tails' lips. He had expected that answer…and that was a suspicion of his own. But then something hit him.

What if Knuckles was accusing a very popular prime suspect to throw suspicion off of himself?

That thought caused the boy to look at his friend in a whole new, disturbing light. Knux was no longer trustworthy; he was just as much a suspect as Rouge.

With a shudder, he stood up and tried brushing the soot off his gloves, but he only succeeded in dirtying his legs. "Uhh…I think I need to wash this stuff off," he said, sweating a little. "These are my only gloves."

Knuckles stood up. "There's a sink in the Kitchen. We're done here anyway, right?"

"Yeah, there's nothing here."

With that, the fox and echidna left the Hall.

Outside in the lush, green front lawns of the Boddy estate, Jenkins was finishing up a stroll through the distant hollow about a hundred yards behind the mansion. His mind was mainly on the murder case and the six suspects. The walk had been meant to calm him, but it had failed. So all he could do was think harder.

He could cross out Vector from his list, since he himself was an eyewitness for his alibi. As a result, he trusted the reptilian detective's judgment of the fox lad Tails. The Robian coyote had never suspected him of murder from the beginning, though the whole security room incident had sparked some suspicion for a moment. The others he did not trust yet. The bat and echidna, who constantly accused each other, were at the top of his list, while the two hedgehogs, Sonic and Amy, were at the bottom. Speaking of the former…

Jenkins was startled when the front doors burst open, and a blue blur streaked out of the mansion towards him. But instead of taking the path, the hedgehog simply hid behind one of the nearby oak trees.

The coyote wasn't sure what to think of this. Though he and his Master had agreed to let the guests roam the estate grounds, it made him a little uneasy. With such speed, Sonic could easily leave, and of all the Mobians, he was the one Master Eggman would want to escape least of all. With determined strides he came closer to the hero, who saw him and was also making his way towards him.

"Going somewhere?" Jenkins inquired a little suspiciously.

Sonic caught on quickly and held up his hands. "I'm not gonna leave," he said, "not without my friends. If they're staying, I'm staying."

The butler allowed himself a smile. "Such loyalty is admirable; I commend you for that. …Don't tell any of the robots I said that."

He also grinned and gave him a thumbs-up. "Mum's the word."

A part of Jenkins warned him not to warm up to the hedgehog; after all, he was…or had been…his Master's archenemy, and was a suspect in his murder. On the other hand, Jenkins wasn't Master Eggman. So, despite himself, he began to start a friendly conversation.

"Why are you out here, might I ask?" The smile faded, and Sonic nervously glanced toward the mansion. The butler guessed, "The female hedgehog?"

"Yeah. She kept talking about how this mansion is like the places in her romance novels." He made a face. "Blech."

"She has a romantic interest in you, I take it."

He sighed and ran his fingers through his quills. "You have no idea," he replied. Then, he suddenly remembered something and asked, "Where's the greenhouse? I saw it through the Dining Room window."

Jenkins was a little puzzled by the strange request, but didn't ask questions; most likely he would soon get his answers. "Right this way," he said, gesturing to a cobblestone path leading to the mansion's west side. He was a little surprised to see that Sonic did not go rushing off down the path, and instead stayed beside him; he accredited it to the presence of Egg Pawn patrols. Following the path, they came to the glass greenhouse, and he immediately sensed that something was not right.

The door was open…

Frowning, Sonic trotted over to the opening and peered inside. He was disturbed to see muddy footprints going inside and weaving in and out of the aisles of plants and flowers. He looked at Jenkins, whose face showed deep concern, and said, "I'd better get Vector; this is big." He raced off, leaving the butler to puzzle over this strange new clue…

A few minutes later, all six guests were at the scene, and Vector, Tails, and Jenkins were inside the greenhouse, taking a closer look. Once again, the crocodile stored mental images of the prints, and compared them to everyone's shoes: no match.

"Then where did they come from?" Tails asked no one in particular, scratching his head.

Vector rubbed his chin in thought, a deep, worried frown on his face. Ever since he had laid eyes on the greenhouse and the shoeprints, he had fallen silent. It was a silence no one liked. Finally he asked Jenkins a strange question.

"What are the roads nearest the whole estate?"

Blinking in confusion, the coyote replied, "There is just Madison Court to the north of here, which you used to come here. There are no other roads for miles; it's all forest and countryside."

Without another word, the croc left. The others followed him silently as he walked down the cobblestone path back to Tudor Mansion. But he didn't stop; he walked down the driveway all the way to the gate, where a dozen Egg Pawns stood on watch. Ignoring them, he began to follow the tall, brick wall that made up the northern border of the estate, first to the left until it came to a corner, then to the right. Close by the corner he found something interesting.

There was a crooked line of bricks pressed deeper in than the rest, and it continued straight up and stopped about a foot and a half from the top.

"Strange…I never noticed that before," Jenkins remarked.

Vector came closer to the strange line, and found that the grass had failed to grow in that area, leaving only dirt, which was still slightly wet from the storm.

Imprinted in it was the same pair of footprints.

"They're pretty deep," he mumbled. Then he turned to Jenkins and said, "I want you to go around to the other side and tell me what you see."

The butler nodded and trotted off, leaving the other five guests to press the sleuth for answers. He gave them nothing, content to wait and see if his suspicions were true. After three minutes of no word from Jenkins, he heard him shout from the other side.

"I found something! Some bushes hide it, but the bricks jut out far on this side!"

"Good enough for footholds?" Vector called back.

There was silence, and then some scuffling on the other side. A minute later, the coyote appeared at the top of the wall, and, at a gesture from the reptile, moved a few feet to his right and then carefully leaped off. He landed on his feet but fell to his knees with a grunt, and then stood up and brushed any grass and dirt off his clothes. He met Vector's gaze and said, "Does that prove your theory, detective?"

"Yes, it does, Jenkins. Thanks."

"All right, enough secrecy!" exclaimed Knuckles. "What was that all about?!"

"To put it bluntly, Knux," Vector answered grimly, "We have an uninvited guest wandering around the Boddy estate."