Chapter 8

While Aro and Charlie were interrogating Tanya, Didyme did the same with Edward.
"Did you talk to Renee?"
"I tried. She asked me to come to your house today to have tea with all of you."
"My niece is so stubborn, I'm sure she tried to give that feeble-minded Michael Newton another chance."
"Bella is worst, at least she knows her mother rather well. She told me to wait for today because her mother would try again to shove him into her face. Then I saw Carlisle... he's a more clever rival than that pitiful boy."
"Don't worry. Renee strongly despises him. She's a good friend of Tanya, so she rejected him yesterday."
"Really? I don't understand why Carlisle tried. I made my intentions clear since the first day I met Bella, and I know she returns my feelings."
"Yes, but he was excessively vain. He never considered you a potential rival. He was so sure his financial status and place in the community would give him the upper hand. What are you going to do now?"
"My intention to marry her haven't changed." Edward blushed. "But... our plans changed a bit yesterday... well, now they've changed more. I need to talk to Bella and..."
"You shouldn't have mentioned that Emily and Lauren saw you coming to the house."
"Why not? I'm sure by now, they had told the whole town."
"What if they saw you leaving the house again?"
"But I left through the other side of the ..." Edward stopped, he knew he had been caught.
"Edward, I know you didn't spend the night here or at my house. Neither Bella nor Rosalie. They weren't at home when I left. So tell me what were all of you doing?"
He decided to trust Didyme, he was sure they'll need help and she'll be a wonderful ally. " I'll tell you all, but we have to call Emmett McCarthy immediately. He was a big part of it after night all."

Jacob was dusting the handles of the french doors, he was truly concentrated. Seth, however, was distracted with the third maid, Kim.
"I'm sure you know this is a very important investigation. We were commissioned to guard this spot by the very same Mr. Volturi, a retired commissioner of Scotland Yard." Seth said, standing straighter.
Kim put her little hand in Seth's forearm and said "Then I must tell you what I saw. It could be terribly important."
"Maybe."
"My life could be in danger."
Jacob, despite being concentrated in the fingerprints issue was attent to their flirting, he snorted very loudly. Right! Like she wasn't in the servants wing of the house last night. He thought.
Seth looked at Jacob with anger. That Jacob was so full of himself! He decided that talking with this nice miss could give him better clues, in fact, he shall talk to all the maids and the cook to get the truth about last night. So he took Kim's arm softly, and went to the other side of the terrace.
"What a delicate flower like you could had seen last night?"
"There was a woman in Mr. Masen's room, and it wasn't Miss Bella." Kim said lowering her voice. She didn't want that rude constable to hear.
"But I heard Mr. Masen is courting her! What a two-timing..."
"There's more. Mr. Masen didn't spend the night here, we saw him leaving."
"Are you sure? Who was this woman?"
"We're sure he left, he made a lot of noise while walking down the stairs, they creak. Then we though it was weird he was leaving, so we went to take a peek into his room. When we reached upstairs, we saw a woman coming into his room, but it was too dark to see her clearly, she was wearing a dark robe."
Jacob only heard the part of a woman in Mr. Masen's room. What a pig! Miss Bella was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, she was an angel. And to think this bloody colonial is cheating on her! Now he had to find a way to let her know. His first suspect to the infamous murdering of Carlisle Cullen was also Edward Masen. All the men who went to Africa returned with violent tendencies. He had to prove he was guilty to free Miss Bella from the evil clutches of that ruffian.

After Aro and Charlie left Mrs. Cullen go, they went with Dr. Whitlock.
"I have to take this body to the morgue. The cause of death is unclear."
"What do you mean with 'unclear'? The guy was stabbed!" Charlie pointed to the letter opener which was secure in a big jar.
"Look at his shirt. He was stabbed seven times, but the shirt only had one blood stain!" He put the shirt aside.
"This one." Jasper pointed to a tiny mark on Carlisle's abdomen "this didn't bleed. And this one" he pointed to the chest, "in other circumstances must had bled him dry, instead there's only a few drops of blood. The man was dead when he was stabbed, probably his heart stopped."
"So that's why he didn't fight back."
"Exactly. My guess is that he died seven hours ago, one hour more, one less."
"It's ten a.m. so it happened between two and four in the morning."

While Charlie was busy with his men setting the removal of Carlisle's body to the morgue, including taking the bottle and the letter opener to a lab for further investigation; Aro went to the hall, where he heard voices.
"It was an excellent idea, but who would have thought Carlisle was going to die."
Aro stopped. That was Edward's voice, and what he said was a bit incriminatory.
"You're right. Now we have to keep it secret, I don't want to deal with certain people reactions."
That was Didyme. Aro just took a peek in the room, to see who were the people talking. It was Didyme, Edward and Emmett McCarthy.
Jacob came to interrupt him when he was about to ask them what they were talking about.
"Sir, I have the same fingerprints in the door handles the and the letter opener. When we get to the station I'd like to check the ones in the bottle; but I think we found our killer. Now we just have to find whose fingerprints match. Let me start with Mr. Masen."
"Before we start, Jacob, I'd like to have a few words with them; but I think it's a great idea. Why don't you go and take Miss Platt and Mrs. Cullen fingerprints first? After all, it was Mrs. Cullen letter opener."
"But sir, I just heard that Mr. Masen had... had some mysterious activities last night."
"That's why I'd like to talk with them first. I promise to let you question him later. By the way, let Seth know that he has to close that study and go to the station, we have to make a reunion and talk about all our findings."
Jacob left more at ease, because Mr. Volturi was including him in the discussion of the case. Aro entered the room and silenced Didyme.
"I heard all of you talking. What happened last night that you want to keep secret?"

Seth was talking now to the cook. Apparently all of them went to the party to help Lady Higginbotham. They all came back together at midnight. Kim and Demetri, the driver, were in charge of closing all the windows before closing the house. It's a task Esme delegated on them, to make sure all the service was at home at night. They were the ones that noticed Mr. Masen leaving and the woman lurking in the house. Demetri pointed that the woman was hiding from Mr. Masen, she came into his room without his knowledge. That was very important. Mrs. Clap, the cook, claimed to see a blond woman leaving the house very early in the morning, and she thought it was Kim, but the girl was sleeping. Seth was sure this would be a very important clue.
He heard Jacob calling to him, so he thanked Mrs. Clap and went to meet his annoying partner.
"Mr. Volturi asked for you to close the study, it was very irresponsible to left it alone."
"I closed it, I have the key here." And he showed him a very shiny key.
"Now, come with me,we have to take their fingerprints and get to the station. I just hope Mr. Volturi won't be so hard on you for spend the morning chatting with the help."
Jacob was walking ahead of Seth, so he didn't have the chance to notice Seth mocking him. But Mrs. Clap did, and laughed. She was glad to talk to the nice constable, and to encourage the rest of the girls to better talk to him. He really listen without judging.

"I can't believe it was so easy." Rosalie said while taking off her hat. This morning resulted so advantageous. She was seated with Bella in the train back to Forkshire. Early in the morning they went to visit Mr. Royce King, to let him know that their engagement was broken. Rosalie was nervous because she had heard of his temper. Who would have thought Royce was too friendly with his secretary first thing in the morning? This gave her the perfect excuse to break the engagement, and have the upper hand by convincing him that she would keep the secret, if he didn't complain with her mother and demand whatever dowry he gave to her.
"Rose, I never saw one of those in real life, only in sculptures and paintings." Bella was still blushing, she saw Royce... thingy! She always thought the first one she would see in real life would be her husband's.
"I was more occupied watching his face, his eyes almost jumped out of their sockets!" Rosalie laughed. "What do you think mom will say? Do you think it's better if we go to her after I have Emmett's ring in my finger?"
"Well sometimes asking for forgiveness is easier than asking permission."