Benoit met with Peacock and Scarlet at the entrance of the basement.
"Did you two ladies scream?" He asked.
"I'm not a screamer." Scarlet told him.
"My voice still hurts from last time." Peacock said.
Mustard and Plum finally caught up.
"You ladies okay?"
"Do you need CPR?" Professor Plum wiggled his eyebrows.
"It wasn't them. It had to be Mrs. White. The scream sounded like it was down here." Benoit explained.
Colonel Mustard leaned in to hear the scream, which was a dumb choice because the door had opened and his him in the face.
"Sorry." Mr. Green said, "What're you all doing here?"
"We heard screaming." Scarlet replied.
"Well, mystery solved." Green sarcastically remarked.
Mrs. White exited the doorway with shame written across her face.
"Mrs. White! What happened?" Benoit looked at the shaken-up lady.
"Rats." She mumbled.
"Rats?" The group asked.
"Rats! Big rats!" She explained.
"You can handle dead bodies but you draw the line at rats?" Colonel Mustard sighed.
"Big rats!"
"Okay. Did anyone find anything else besides big rats?" Benoit looked to the group which shook their heads. "Fine. Let's go back to the lounge then. That seems to be our designated meeting spot."
When the group entered the lounge, they found Mr. Boddy's dead body holding a bloody lead pipe in his hand.
Beside him was a bloody candlestick that nobody except Benoit seemed to notice.
"Mr. Boddy is head!" Mr. Green yelled.
"And he's killed again!" Plum pointed out.
"But who did he kill? Oh my god, Yvette!" Mrs. White said, faking concern.
"Where's Wadsworth?" Scarlet asked.
"They said the conservatory, let's check there." Benoit suggested.
The group huddled arm-in-arm to the conservatory.
On the floor was a black blanket covering a body. The shoes stuck out the bottom. Mens black shoes.
"Wadsworth!" Peacock exclaimed.
"Well, that answers that. Yvette's the murderer." Mustard told the lot.
"Where is she, though?" Benoit asked.
"Who cares? Let's stay together in the lounge until the police arrive. She can't kill us if we're all together." Scarlet said matter-of-factly.
"Alright. Back to the lounge like sardines." Benoit sighed.
With everyone in the lounge, Mr. Green had an announcement. "Everyone, I've been lying to you."
"You're not gay." Benoit blurted out.
"Wait, how did—"
"And you work for the FBI." He finished.
"How could you possibly…" Green sighed, "We've been trying to catch Mr. Boddy for ages. Now that both my main Mr. Boddy suspects are dead, I can call my boss to get over here. We'll probably call off our investigation."
"You're not gay?" Plum asked.
"Wait a minute." Miss Scarlet placed her hands on her hips. "How do you know Yvette wasn't Mr. Boddy?"
"Please, she was never a suspect. Plus, she isn't a very good actress. I don't know why you ever hired her."
"Because she was kind, caring, consi—" Scarlet listed off.
"She was also one of Mr. Boddy's informants." Green told her.
"That bitch!"
"Who were your two main suspects?" Mustard asked after Green had phoned his boss.
"The man who introduced himself earlier today as Mr. Boddy, and Wadsworth." Green explained. "But they're both dead now so we'll never know."
"Oh, shucks." Plum shook his head.
"At least we don't have to be blackmailed anymore." Miss. White nodded.
After sitting around for an hour or so, the FBI burst through the door.
"You found Mr. Boddy?" The captain asked.
"It's a long story, boss." Mr. Green began but was interrupted by Benoit.
"Would you mind if I tell it? Because I've had this whole thing figured out hours ago with nobody of authority to tell it to."
Benoit extended a hand to the chief, "Benoit Blanc. I'm not associated with these people. But they're all, unfortunately, associated with a certain blackmailer. A one Mr. Boddy. Who nobody ever knew until tonight. When someone introduced as Mr. Boddy arrived here today, everyone followed along like lemmings. Why not question it? Everyone else was using an alias, some mighty non-congruent aliases, but aliases nonetheless. Why not him? He was. His alias was Mr. Boddy."
"But he was Mr. Boddy!" Plum argued.
"Are you sure?" Benoit asked.
"…no."
"Moving on. The real Mr. Boddy's plan was going swimmingly. See, he started this here party to kill his informants who could squeal on him; and to get the FBI to drop his file; and continue to blackmail you all. The fake Mr. Boddy was dead. Except, he wasn't. The bullet missed him and his the mantle in the study. But he knew he was a sitting duck. He was smart. How did I know this man was smart? Because he was the only one of you to get a detective involved! This house, this party, it has murder written all over it! Speaking of written, he also wrote me a clue in the note. Mr. Boddy lies. Could be that he lied about being dead, or he lied about his identity."
Colonel Mustard crossed his arms "So when did this fake Mr. Boddy kill the cook?"
"He didn't. Yvette did. She walked out of the study after we all remembered that poor Mrs. Ho existed."
"The study? The cook wasn't killed in the study!" Peacock pointed out.
Benoit smiled, "You all don't notice anything, do you? Remarkable. Truly remarkable. In the kitchen was a secret passage. This house is full of them. The lounge even has one in a bookcase, and I bet my bottom dollar it leads to the conservatory."
"What's so important about the conservatory?" Scarlet raised an eyebrow.
"The fake Mr. Boddy knew of the secret passages and used the one from the lounge to hide in the conservatory."
"But he wasn't in the conservatory!" White protested.
"Because someone moved him. Someone who initiated the search. The same someone who happened to pick to search the conservatory…" Benoit wanted someone to finish his thought but that was asking too much.
"Wadsworth. It was Wadsworth. I've seen better reveals on the Masked Singer, and that is being kind. What a mediocre waste of my talents, I tell you what."
"Wadsworth is dead, you-you Perry Mason wannabe!" Peacock said.
"Ma'am, do not, and I repeat not use the name of Perry Mason in vain. I would be lucky if I could come close to that character. That well-written, marvelous hunk of a man would be insulted to even be in the same sentence as me. Now, I could tell you, all of you, many different ways these whole events could have transpired. Just to wind you all up, get you eager, maybe bamboozle you. Maybe even for my own amusement. But here's what really happened. Wadsworth knew Mr. Boddy could only have escaped through the secret passage. You all did put him in the study, but he wasn't in there when Yvette entered to kill the cook. The two concluded that he must have gone into the lounge and then the conservatory. So, when we were all in the lounge, Yvette turned off the lights and Wadsworth grabbed the candlestick and ran through the secret passage, killed the fake Mr. Boddy for real, and joined us back in the lounge."
"That's why he was out of breath!" Green exclaimed.
"And Bingo was his name-o! Then he and Yvette carried the body to the lounge and went back to the conservatory. Yvette didn't know Wadsworth had the lead pipe. He bashed her over the head and gave the pipe to Mr. Boddy's body."
"But Mr. Blanc, weren't you in the lounge the whole time? How could they have brought the body in?" Mustard asked.
"Not the whole time." Benoit shook his head, "No, sir. They also heard Mrs. White scream and used that to their advantage. I'm sure if that didn't lure me out, they would have pulled another light-show. With me being gone, Wadsworth could go in and out as he pleased. He stashed Yvette in the hallway of the secret passage and covered himself in a blanket making his shoes visible. If we go there again, we'd see the same sight, except Yvette under the blanket. He'd be the one hiding in the secret passage, shoeless, presumed dead, and able to not live in fear of the government."
"I wonder what that's like." Scarlet huffed.
"Officers, if you follow me to the lounge, we can find the real Mr. Boddy and finally end this night. I don't know about you, but I'd love for this all to be over." Benoit led them to the lounge and the officers took it from there.