CISLUNAR DHASANT: THE CITY OF GARGOYLES

Two days after the Black Rose Company arrested Wildrun Thorseau, Analie Course, and Ardwin Jacquee, Benedict collected the various confessions elicited from each and wrote a final summary that he pinned to the Company's corkboard in the Blackbriar.
On Sunwane 22, 8 p.m., Wildrun Thorseau and Analie Course separately received notes from Prof. Mariane Taper summoning them to her office. Prof. Taper accused them of stealing each others' notes and intentionally stirring up troubles among the artists. Apparently having some basis for her suspicion, the professor threatened to expel them both from the university. Speculatively, the evidence against them consisted of notes stolen from each other, and the marble nose from Dorien's statue.
Thorseau and Course left the office, Course claiming she noticed another art student, Ardwin Jacquee, lurking in the hall as she went downstairs. The two huddled in the ground-floor reading room and talked. Both agreed that no matter how much they disliked each other, allowing Prof. Taper to expel them both would serve neither student's interests. After a brief debate, they agreed to go back upstairs and kill Prof. Taper before she could alert the Council of Deans to her suspicions. (Thorseau claims Course was the ringleader in this and he only followed out of panic; the guards suspect this is probably true, although Course denies it. Regardless, its seems academia is a more cut-throat profession than I ever imagined!). They went back upstairs and quietly opened Prof. Taper's door. Seeing that she was in her high-backed chair, apparently looking out the window, the attacked, Thorseau leaping forward and grabbing the professor's arms from behind the chair, and Course cutting her throat (and Thorseau's arm). Both then started to look around for the evidence Prof. Taper claimed she had collected against them. However, in doing so, they saw blood all over the floor, and realized that Prof. Taper had been dead already when they'd "killed" her!
The guards' examination and forensic report on the professor's murder indicates that she was stabbed in the back first, probably while standing beside her desk, and then placed back in her chair, with the chair turned away from the door, possibly so that somebody casually looking into the room wouldn't notice that she was dead. Blood loss was greatest at this time. At a later point in time, no sooner than five minutes after she was backstabbed, her throat was cut. There was very little bleeding caused by this wound.
Claiming to be horrified and confused, Thorseau and Course apparently ran out of the office and reatreated to Thorseau's room, where he changed out of his bloodstained clothes and the two worked out a cover story for themselves. The BRC interrupted them during this planning, but the two managed to bluff their way out of being arrested. The next morning, one day before their oral defenses, they grabbed the final drafts of their theses and went up to the library to rewrite their work in a form that would allow both of them to successfully defend.
Their cover story was that Prof. Taper and the rioting of the artists had inspired them to rethink their disagreements and to decide to work together, and that they had no idea who had murdered her after they'd left. Both students seem to be adept liars (again making me wonder about the university!) and their story probably would have been a success, had they not despised each other so much tha they fell to arguing where Lord Eyvan was able to overhear when he went to the library to protect them from potential assailants.
In the meantime, the rest of the BRC has reason to believe that Ardwin Jacquee, a lower-ranked art student, was involved in the vandalism and had been trying to frame Thorseau by leaving pages of an old draft of Thorseau's thesis around the Field of Triumph after its statuary had been vandalized. Moreover, based on Course's testimony and a flyer to the Red Bull Theater found under Prof. Taper's desk, it seemed that Jacquee was at the scene of the crime on or about the time of the murder. On Sunwane 23, the day after the murder, they went to the Red Bull to investigate. An actress as the Red Bull, Missus Terese Mayel, told the BRC that Jacquee attended shows there every night to press his (unwanted) suit on her. The BRC set up a trap with Missus Meyer's aid, and arrested Ardwin Jacquee at the theater. The small bloodstain on his coat cuff and the accusatory finger from Sieur Dorian's sculpture seemed to indicate that Jacquee was at least peripherally involved in the vandalism. He was arrested and members of the BRC, alerted by Lord Eyvan, returned to the University to arrest the students Thorseau and Course, as well.
A preliminary search of Thorseau's room revealed a slightly bloodstained shirt. A later and more thorough search also revealed a half-finished letter to the Council of Deans from Prof. Taper with drops of dried blood on it, shoved beneath papers on his desk. Thorseau claims he never saw the letter before, and claims he doesn't know how it could have gotten into his room; Course concurs in this claim. This is the only point where their testimony abot the earlier murder seems to clash with the evidence÷why didn't they admit to having taken this letter, if they admitted to attempted murder?
A search of Jacquee's chambers revealed part of an old draft of Thorseau's manuscript, with missing pages matching the pages found at the Field of Triumph. There were also records of artists' works and patrons, money spent for various artists' works at first sale, and at subsequent sales. The discovery of a copy of Messr. Claude Gatley's economic tract Market and Demand indicates that Jacquee was attempting to apply Gatley's formulae to the field of art. Indeed, Jacquee claims that he admires Gatley's work and thought that applying it to art might be a sound financial investment. This is, of course, not a crime. His claims are as follows: (1) He admits that on Sunwane 21 he slipped an old, crumpled copy of Thorseau's thesis out of a trash pile in order to read it. As an art student, he also followed the infamous Thorseau-Course debate. (2) He was carrying the pilfered thesis home that night when he passed the Field of Triumph and heard somebody making noise. He investigated and saw someone running away. S/he had light-colored hair, but was heavily cloaked (note: both Thorseau and Course are blond). (3) The figure dropped something that turned out to be a stone finger. Jacquee picked it up and pocketed it, thinking that it was a rather odd thing for someone to carry. He claims that while he was rummaging in his pockets he might have dropped pages from Thorseau's thesis. (4) The next afternoon, on the 22, he heard about the vandalism at the Field of Triumph and assumed the finger he'd found was from a statue there. However, since he had classes that day (which he did attend, investigators report) and wanted to see his "girlfriend" that evening, he decided to turn the finger in later. He claims he didn't think it was very important, since he hadn't gotten a good look at the vandal and it was going to take a while to repair the statues, anyway. He claims he argued with Missus Meyer that night and spent the next day in disconcertion, deciding to return to the theater one last time to talk to her (Missus Meyer claims they did not "argue," although she admits to having told him somewhat shortly to "blow off"). Jacquee was arrested the next evening, Sunwane 23, at the theater. He pleads to being guilty of poor judgment, but no crime (he claims the stain on his cuff is not blood, but probably a remnant of the dinner he'd eaten at the University commons the night before. This is, unfortunately, impossible to determine).
Jacquee has a record of minor marketplace thievery during his childhood (yrs 7-10), but records indicate that reparations were always quickly paid (note: the records don't indicate who made these reparations for him), and he has been clean since 10, when he was apparently taken as an apprentice by a kindhearted jeweler (now deceased). Discovering in himself an affinity for art history, he took the entrance exams and joined the university three years ago, paying out of his (rather handsome) inheritance from the jeweler. Jacquee's pleader, Sieur Colin Platt, is very good, and it seems likely that Jacquee will get off with a light sentence, if any. Sieur Platt has a record of successes in the past, primarily in defense of members of the Grey Angels, an upscale gang of thieves allegedly led by the well-to-do publisher Sieur Bastable Farthingale, of Farthingale Press.
Thorseau and Course are likely to be convicted of conspiracy to commit a crime, and attempted murder. There may be attempts to charge them with several counts of vandalism (i.e., Dorien's statues and the statuary around the Field of Triumph), but that will be more of a challenge to prove. Based on their confessions and the letter found in Thorseau's room, they are certain to be expelled from the University, at the very least. (Note: If Jacquee is acquitted, the question of who backstabbed Prof. Taper will remain open). they will probably not be tried for a month or two, due to court backlog.

I hope that clarifies the case. I'll keep an eye on it as events unfold. Mm. Cariole filed Breaking and Entering charges against the BRC yesterday, for entering the Tower of Lizards. She tried to charge us with Kidnapping, too, but Marie-Catherine spoke to Mm. Cariole's pleader and those charges were dropped. d'Angeli and I believe we can circumvent the charges with Marie-Catherine's help, and the BRC need never formally face Mm. Cariole in court. I do not expect that she will be pleased.

Benedict

P.S. The BRC has been sent a painting from Mm. Laurelach and a small sculpture from Sieur Dorien "for your help"÷I have them in the Ministry office. What do you want to do with them?