Chapter 3

In which investigations go nowhere and the killer is discovered, but not revealed.

Lilli gasped. She tried to turn around to run back to the car with the Beilschmidt brothers to ask for help, but forgot she was standing on her toes and stumbled. She landed with a loud 'thud' on her knees.

She quickly tried to scramble to her feet, but tripped on the hem of her dress, crashing to the floor again. The cars weren't too large, and the killer had heard her. Within seconds, the door opened, and she stared into his eyes.

"You saw, didn't you?"

Lilli trembled in response.

He sighed. "I really don't want to kill you, Lilli. I truly don't. But you've seen what I've done, and for that, you're going to have to die as well."

Lilli did the only thing she could think of-she screamed for her brother. "VASH!"

"Damn!" the killer hissed. He brought down his sharp weapon directly into her chest, then ran back to Alfred's corpse. He lifted the key from the American's pocket and used it to unlock the door to the caboose. He then hid away in the bathroom, concealing his weapon in private.

At the sound of his sister's scream, Vash jumped up. "Lilli's in trouble!" He made for the door, but Lovino grabbed his hand.

"Wait. The others will have heard her too. Do you really want to try to get out there after she's just screamed your name? What if you're out there and they think you killed her?"

Vash's green eyes blazed at the Italian. "How dare you! I would never kill her! She's the only family I have left-"

"You think the others will care? They'll just think you killed her to take the trail off yourself! Stay in here. With the door locked, they won't suspect it's us."

Vash shot another glare at the unusually thoughtful Lovino, then sat down on the bench next to his Italian companion.

Lovino was right. Elisabeta and the others did hear Lilli's cry for help. Elisabeta, Francis and the Beilschmidt brother all came running, but by the time they arrived at where the young girl lay, she had already passed away.

"She screamed her brother's name," Francis murmured. "Just before she died. Was it a call for help, or...?"

"Let's go find out, shall we?" Elisabeta replied stiffly. She stepped around Lilli's body carefully before opening the door to the next car. "Oh, isn't that brilliant?"

"What?" Francis peeked around her shoulder and groaned. "Not the American, too!"

"I guess this means we can rule him out of our suspect list," Elisabeta muttered. She walked briskly to the end of the car and slid the door to the caboose open. "That's odd," she said with a frown. "It should be locked. Alfred had the key..."

"Unless they took it from him and killed him in the process," Francis whispered in her ear, suddenly behind her. "Then killed Lilli when they realized she'd seen what they'd done."

"But what about Arthur?" she hissed in reply. "Where has he been this whole time?"

As if on cue, the door to the bathroom, only a few feet away, opened, and Arthur stumbled out, looking pale. "Are they gone?" he asked hoarsely.

"Who? Are who gone?" Francis demanded.

"I-I saw them attack Alfred before he could lock the door, and then they dragged him over here. I hid in the bathroom so they wouldn't see me and k-kill me too." He leaned on his cane. "Then I think they saw that girl, L-Lilli, watching them, and they went and m-murdered her too." Vash stood up angrily, but Lovino pulled him back down so they could watch the exchange in silence.

Francis narrowed his eyes. "Is that so?"

"Y-Yes! Don't you believe me? My best friend and that innocent girl are dead! I could n-never kill anyone!" he shouted.

"Of course we believe you," Elisabeta said soothingly. "Come, let's take you back to the main car. Perhaps Feliciano can find you a good brandy." She helped him down the narrow train car while Francis glared at her from Alfred's body.

After safely depositing him into his seat and ordering Feliciano to bring him a strong drink to calm his nerves, she returned to Francis, who was waiting impatiently. "He shouldn't bother anyone from his seat. Shall we take care of the bodies?" she asked.

"No. First we must question our prime suspects-Vash and Lovino." They walked into the caboose. "Congratulations! You have both been promoted to 'probably the killers' to 'if you're not the killers I'll feel very foolish indeed'."

"We didn't kill Alfred or Lilli, Frenchman. We were locked in here the whole time," Lovino explained slowly, as though he thought Francis wouldn't be able to comprehend what they were saying.

"The door was unlocked, and the key was not on Alfred's person. Explain that."

"The real killer probably unlocked the door to frame us! We were in here the whole time-just the two of us and Yao's body." Lovino gestured to the stiffening corpse on the bench across from him.

"Why would we kill Lilli? I love her! She's my sister, the only person I have left. If I had to kill her, I'd kill myself too. Think about that."

"What about you?" Francis looked at Lovino. "You'd have no qualms with killing Lilli. You barely knew her."

Lovino's face went red, anger bubbling up inside him. "That's what you think," he spat. "I knew her very well, actually, her and Vash both. They're both my friends, and Lilli and I..."

"You courted?" Elisabeta asked gently.

"Exactly." Lovino nodded. "So why would I kill her?"

"She rejected your advances? You didn't like her so much yet and it wouldn't be so bad? She was going to reveal the secret business the two of you had together?" Vash stiffened. "Ah, so I was right. It's obviously something illegal, or else you wouldn't kill Miss Lilli over it."

"We didn't kill her! And we wouldn't over something stupid like that!" protested Lovino.

"If you want to know what it is, we deal in weapons. I ship them out of Switzerland illegally. Happy? Now it's not a big secret, and it can't be a motive for us killing Lilli. There." Vash crossed his arms.

Francis sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "We're getting nowhere."

While Francis and Elisabeta were making no progress whatsoever with Vash and Lovino, one Ludwig Beilschmidt was making plenty of progress looking through the belongings of the deceased Yao Wang. He'd left his brother and Feliciano, who had by now fetched Arthur's drink, moving Lilli and Alfred's bodies onto some seats, and Arthur had left to use the bathroom. Apparently he had a weak bladder, but Ludwig wasn't worrying about that. He knew there had to be something important in Mr. Wang's belongings, but Elisabeta and Francis hadn't looked through them yet and he wanted to help as much as possible.

It was mostly just clothing, and some personal items. There was one photograph that caught his eye, though.

There were three people in the photo. A Chinese girl holding a baby, and the third person...well, they were cut off, but he could still see light hair and a bit of skin where Yao had obviously not been able to cut for fear of damaging the other two in the picture.

There was something strangely familiar about the baby, though. He flipped over the photo to see if there was some indication of who it was. There was a note, written in English, oddly enough.

My dear Mei, I do apologize, but I simply cannot accept this child as my legal offspring. Sincerely, and then a name that had been crossed out angrily by someone so it was illegible.

He flipped the photo back over to study the child. What was it that was so familiar? He obviously took after his mother, if the Chinese woman was indeed his mother, but there was something that was off about him.

He had short dark hair and flat eyes of about the same shade. It wasn't possible to tell the exact color because the photo was in black and white. He was frowning, though his mother was grinning. In fact, the child looked like he was about to cry, his oversized eyebrows scrunched up in the middle of his forehead-

Oh.

Oh.

Ludwig had discovered the identity of the killer.

He slipped the photograph into his back pocket and closed Yao's suitcase. He knew he should tell Francis and Elisabeta about it before confronting the killer himself, just in case he attacked him too.

But then, how much could he do? He'd taken Yao and Alfred by surprise, and Lilli was just a little girl. And I'm strong, and he's weak, and he won't be taking me by surprise, he thought to himself. So if I asked him about it and he tried to attack me, I could hold him off and stop him killing anyone else.

Ludwig's thoughts finally convinced him to confront the killer on his own. He pictured the look of pride on his brother's face. "My brother caught a murderer all by himself!" he'd declare to the world, and then maybe he could stop being useless, better, Ludwig and be someone his brother would love.

Yes. Yes, that sounded very nice. He could do it. He squared his shoulders and left the compartment.

There was the killer, just coming out of the bathroom. The place was otherwise deserted. "I know what you did," Ludwig called out to the killer. The man was startled.

"Pardon?"

"You killed Yao, and Alfred, and Lilli. I know you did it. I found something in Yao's suitcase, a picture of his sister and a baby. Guess who the baby gets its eyebrows from?" Ludwig smirked.

The killer grinned back. "So you're found me out. Wonderful job, that so-called amazing detective hasn't even done it yet. I suppose you're going to tie me up or something and deliver me to the others?"

"That's exactly right."

"Fine. Do it. Incapacitate an old man in cold blood on a hunch." The killer shrugged. "Well, not old, but definitely older than you. And a cripple as well. Won't you just be a great hero?"

Ludwig glared into the killer's poisonous green eyes. "I know it was you. And I'd rather keep the people on this train safe on a hunch than let another one of them die because I was hesitant." He slowly approached the killer, who was leaning lazily on his cane. "Come with me and I promise not to hurt you."

"Really." The killer seemed to find this suggestion very funny. "You know, Ludwig, I'm not worried about my own health right now, and you shouldn't be either. You should be worried about yourself." And suddenly, twisting like a snake, the killer brought his cane up in a twirl and knocked Ludwig square across the face with it.

Ludwig fell to the ground. He touched his nose. Definitely broken. He looked up and saw the killer fiddling with the end of the cane. "You know," the killer said, "canes are wonderful things. People automatically assume you're helpless and will do things for you, but they can also be used to store things. I knew a man once who stored poison in the neck of his. Mine isn't nearly as...sophisticated, of course. I just unscrew the bottom, and, voila!" A spike slid out of the bottom of Arthur's cane. "Screw that in nice and tight, and it becomes a perfect weapon. Then when I'm done I slide it back up, cover the end back up, and no one has to know."

"Please don't kill me," Ludwig begged as Arthur positioned the business end of the spike straight over his heart. "Please. You don't need to do this."

"Oh, but I do, young Ludwig, I really do. I have to protect my family, you see, and if that means taking out a few pesky young people on a train, then so be it."

"But Alfred...he was your best friend..." At this point, Ludwig was just stalling for time, trying to come up with a plan in case Francis and Elisabeta or anyone else didn't come soon.

"He threatened to reveal me to everyone on the train," the killer snarled. "I couldn't let him do that. And I can't let youdo what you wanted. Trying to be a hero for big brother? Is that it? Maybe you had some kind of infatuation with someone on the train you wanted to impress, the Hungarian? Or maybe that porter boy, Feliciano?" Ludwig's eyes widened as the killer moved the spike closer to his heart. "Too bad they'll never find out what I did. Too bad, eh? They'll never avenge you." The killer jerked the cane up sharply, then stabbed it down into Ludwig's chest.


AN: So it's pretty obvious who the killer is now, yeah? Yeah. We've got means, and we've sort of got motive, it's just not been fully explained yet.

Oh no, Ludwig's dead too. Darn.

Anyhow, hope you enjoyed! :D