Recap / Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

Head back to the main recap page here.

For the cases of Ace Attorney Investigations 2, click here.

---

Ace Attorney Investigation : Miles Edgeworth

Turnabout Visitor

Part 1-1 - Beginning

It's been a month since prosecutor Miles Edgeworth been inside his own office, having been overseas for most of the time. But upon arriving, he notices that the door was already unlocked. Stepping into the dark room, he stumbles onto a dead body slumped against the bookcase, with a pile of binders next to the victim. Before he could do anything more, a mysterious figure threatens Edgeworth by pointing a gun to his back. The figure then leaves, but not before shooting the frame that holds Edgeworth's old jacket.

About an hour later investigators are combing through the room, Detective Dick Gumshoe among them. Seeing that crime occurred in his own office, Edgeworth himself wants to find the truth behind the incident, especially since it meant the culprit and victim had to be in here for a specific reason. The victim is identified as Detective Buddy Faith, and his issued police revolver seems to been used to shoot him in the stomach. Further examination of the gun reveals only one shot was fired.

A man in a white jacket bursts into the room, crying over the victim. He introduces himself as Prosecutor Jacques Portsman, and reveals that Faith had been working under him. He accuses Edgeworth for the murder, then shifts the blame to Gumshoe when the detective mentions he was the only one with the keys while Edgeworth was overseas. Edgeworth tells Portsman to hold off on any more accusations and let the investigation work itself first. Portsman lets them go as he asks one of the forensic guys to take a picture of him saying goodbye to Faith.

Edgeworth goes on to check on his jacket, and finds a contradiction with the bullet hole in the frame. Since Faith's gun was only fired once, that meant a second gun was used. Edgeworth moves the frame aside to examine his secret safe, and finds that the keypad was wiped clean of dust. This points to someone searching for something in his office, and most likely explains the pile of binders on the floor. The binders are placed back onto the bookshelves, revealing that one of them had a bullet hole. But the hole is too low as Faith was most likely standing when he was shot, meaning the binders were in the wrong order when the murder happened. But that implies the bookshelves were searched twice, once before and once after the murder. The binders are rearranged to see where they were placed during the murder.

Faith's body is moved aside, revealing a set of binders with Gumshoe's name written in blood on them, as well as a missing binder. Portsman again accuses Gumshoe of the murder, but Edgeworth points out the missing binder had part of Gumshoe's name, meaning the killer could have not missed it in his search. Portsman concedes that Gumshoe isn't the killer, but then has a new suspect brought in, security guard Maggey Byrde. She has the master key that can unlock all the offices, after all.

Byrde denies being the killer, saying that she had lost the key around 1 am. Portsman isn't convinced, and claims that Byrde was in the office to steal something. Edgeworth points out that the killer attempted to access the safe, whose existence were only known to prosecutors. And it can't be a lucky find since only two spots in his office were searched, meaning the culprit knew where to look. Portsman then brings up another theory: he had told Faith about the safes and Faith decided to steal something from Edgeworth's office when Byrde found him out and killed him. Portsman then asks that Edgeworth, Gumshoe, and Byrde leave, as they were all potential suspects.

Part 1-2 - End

Even though he was forced out of his own office, Edgeworth isn't going to let that stop him from investigating. He asks Byrde what she had been doing with the master key. She explains that Portsman asked her to unlock and lock his office, aka room 1203, which was next door Edgeworth's. Specifically, she unlocked it around midnight, but then only pretended to lock it at 1:30 a.m. since the key was still missing then. The master key reappeared in the security office around 2:30 a.m. Edgeworth has the door to room 1203 checked to see if see if Byrde was telling the truth, but to everyone's surprise, it is still locked. A fingerprint examination reveals that only the fingerprints of Portsman and Faith were on the knob. At the base of the door, Edgeworth found a note from Faith to Portsman and signs that the the basketball hoop next to the door had been moved.

A search of the hallway uncovers the missing binder, hidden underneath the hallway sofa. Pages pertaining to a case from ten years ago have been removed, a case that was originally handled by the prosecutor who originally used the office now occupied by Edgeworth. Then an examination of the door to Edgeworth's office is performed. There are no fingerprints, meaning the knob was wiped clean.

With new evidence in hand, Edgeworth goes back in to his office to accuse Portsman of murdering Faith. As to how he got inside Edgeworth's office, Portsman tricked Byrde into unlocking it, having swapped the number plates and moved the basketball hoop in order to convince her she was opening room 1203. Portsman then claims he had been in his office the entire time. To this Edgeworth presents Faith's note, which states the detective couldn't find Portsman in his office. Faith must have later stumbled upon Portsman trying to steal from Edgeworth, and got killed for it. Edgeworth then notes that Portsman also later threatened him, but Portsman reveals that he actually has an alibi for the time when Edgeworth discovered the murder. Portsman was in criminal affairs when that happened.

Edgeworth realizes that the man who threatened him wasn't the murderer, but a thief, therefore two people broke into his office that night. It would explain the use of two guns, and why the bookshelves were searched twice. The thief was probably also the one who stole the master key, as he didn't know the room was already unlocked. In any case, this means Portsman's alibi is now irrelevant. Portsman still claims he isn't Faith's killer, and reiterates his alibi that he was at Criminal Affairs while Faith was attempting to bring to him some evidence, a gun and pendant. Edgeworth points out that Faith's note mentioned three pieces of evidence, so what happened to the third? Edgeworth has Gumshoe search Portsman, which leads to the discovery of a blood-stained videotape. Edgeworth promises to have the tape examined for clues, to which Portsman finally breaks down in response.

Portsman is arrested for Faith's murder, but he isn't saying anything about it. It is noted, however, that Portsman's action as a prosecutor have been rumored as suspect and corrupt. Furthermore, there is the matter of the second intruder. Why did that person steal the files of a ten year old case? However, the mystery just got more complex as an investigator tells Edgeworth that he has found a black card with a mark of a white three legged raven. Both Edgeworth and Gumeshoe recognize it as the symbol of the Great Thief Yatagarasu, a notorious criminal who has stolen evidence of corrupt dealings in the corporate world and released the information to the public. Was he involved in the incident?

With this new info, Edgeworth begins to reflect on the incidents of the past few days.

Turnabout Airlines

Part 2-1 - Beginning

Edgeworth realizes that the current series of events actually started two days ago, as he was on a flight back home...

Early in the morning, when he was in the first-class passenger lounge, a moment of violent turbulence shook the plane and made him pass out in terror. When he woke ten minutes later, he found he had somehow acquired someone else's traveling wallet. Summoning his courage, he opened the elevator door — and found the body of a young man inside. A flight attendant saw him standing over the body and quickly concluded that he was the murderer.

Placed in restraints, Edgeworth insisted that he was a prosecutor and needed to investigate the crime scene before any evidence could be contaminated or the real culprit could escape the plane. The attendant who detained him, Ms. Rhoda Teneiro, insisted he must be guilty because she saw him holding the blood-soaked murder weapon. He also had the victim's travel wallet in his possession, indicating that he killed him for his money. Edgeworth easily dismissed both claims by showing the empty wallet, dripping nothing worse than grape juice from a spill at the lounge. Ms. Teneiro, now convinced, released him and even secured permission from the Captain for Edgeworth to look around, provided she accompanied him. One of the passengers, a Zinc Lablanc (a self-proclaimed art dealer from the country of Borginia), said he had seen the victim taking the elevator down to the lounge at 6:00am, just before the turbulence, leaving only a fifteen minute window for the murder. To his mind, this put the guilt clearly on Edgeworth, as nearly everyone else was accounted for at the time.

The first clue that all was it not as it seemed was the crime scene — a set of footprints in the spilled grape juice led to the shop area, which was now closed off. Edgeworth concluded that at least one other person had been in the lounge. Ms. Teneiro also revealed the important tidbit that the elevator served the lounge, the passenger cabin, and the cargo hold, though access to the third required a special keycard. Searching the body revealed that the victim had broken glasses, a large wound on the back of his head (a heavy souvenir bank lying next to the body could have done the deed), was carrying a photo of himself with a large, red-eyed statue, and was missing the cell phone he usually wore on a lanyard around his neck. His passport, hidden in his travel wallet, revealed his name to be Akbey Hicks.

Lablanc interrupted Teneiro at that moment, furious that the in-flight movie was not starting on time. A few questions soon revealed that Mr. Lablanc's watch was set three hours ahead of the timezone used by the flight crew — what he had taken for 6:00am was actually 3:00am, widening the murder window considerably. The other flight attendant, a perpetually-groggy and somewhat underdressed woman named Cammy Meele, spoke up and claimed to have answered a page from Mr. Hicks' call button at 5:00am, while they were stopped at Zheng Fa to refuel and take on more cargo. Unfortunately, Edgeworth himself came down to the lounge after the stopover and was there in the 5-6:15 window, meaning suspicion remained on him — and on Ms. Teneiro, who admitted to coming downstairs to take care of some business in the shop and in the flight attendants' room just off the lounge, before the turbulence. She was reluctant to say exactly what she was doing, but she remembered that the heavy souvenir bank had still been in the shop when she left.

Ms. Meele interrupted with a bit more information that cast Ms. Teneiro in a bad light — she hadn't actually asked permission from the Captain to let Edgeworth search the plane. Ms. Teneiro, caught in the lie, crept away, and Ms. Meele joined Edgeworth in searching the shop. The glass case that formerly held the bank was shattered, and a small hat that would match its head was still inside, but Edgeworth concluded the bank had broken out on its own during the turbulence. A pair of suitcases caught Edgeworth's eye (and not just for being expensive and garishly decorated) by being neatly lined up when one of them had no blocks on its wheels and should have moved during the turbulence. Opening it, he found a bloodstained cloth inside: fabric in a Borginian pattern matching the headcloth of Mr. Lablanc. He concluded that the killer used the suitcase to move Mr. Hicks' body and then returned it to the shop after the turbulence, meaning the murder could have happened anywhere on the plane.

At that moment, Ms. Teneiro reappeared and apologetically cut the investigation short, saying the captain would not give him any more time. Edgeworth had to be satisfied with securing the crime scene and hoping for a chance to do more once they had landed.

Part 2-2 - Middle

Early in the afternoon, the plane landed. Edgeworth found Gumshoe and Franziska von Karma ready to meet him. He was instantly suspicious of Franziska's presence, since there was no reason for her to be there, but she brushed it off by saying she'd been listening to the police radio. She remanded Edgeworth to Gumshoe's "custody" while she investigated the plane — Edgeworth garnered from Gumshoe that Franziska was chasing some other lead.

They returned to the plane, where Edgeworth wanted to interview Ms. Teneiro in private. They encountered Mr. Lablanc first, who was furious about his cargo of imported art not being released from the cargo hold, and Franziska, who insisted on hearing Edgeworth's own defense. He insisted that the logical chain of events pointed to a murder before the turbulence, somewhere else on the plane, and that the killer had moved the body to the elevator with the aid of the suitcase. The souvenir bank, which could only have broken out after the turbulence, was left with the body, and the victim's wallet left on Edgeworth to frame him. Franziska concluded that the flight attendants were now the most likely suspects, particularly Ms. Teneiro, who had lied about having permission to search the plane.

Ms. Teneiro, when pressed for what she was doing in the shop before the turbulence, admitted that she was in there to buy one of the hideous suitcases — because she designed them but was ashamed that they weren't selling, so she made a habit of buying one on each flight to give the illusion that they were popular. She produced her receipt, time-stamped 5:40am. She also revealed in passing that only one suitcase was left in the shop when she was last there. The suitcases were, in fact, so profoundly unpopular that the remaining stock were being held in the cargo hold for destruction at the end of the flight. But only staff can enter the cargo hold, and Ms. Teneiro held the only keycard... or did, but the card had gone missing. Franziska took this for sufficient proof of guilt and had Ms. Teneiro detained.

Part 2-3 - End 1

Edgeworth, Gumshoe, and Franziska investigated the cargo hold, which was surprisingly large for a plane and required a long set of stairs to reach the floor. Mr. Hicks' suitcase contained a file on Franziska, from which Edgeworth quickly deduced that Hicks was no mere passenger but an Interpol agent scheduled for a rendezvous with her at the airport. He had been investigating a smuggling route. They found broken glass from Hicks' spectacles on the floor, and a suitcase missing from the unsold stock. Edgeworth speculated that the victim was killed in the cargo hold, packed into a suitcase to be hidden elsewhere, but ended up in the elevator when the turbulence hit and shook his body loose.

Franziska continued to insist that the souvenir bank, together with Ms. Teneiro's access to the keycard, made her the most likely suspect. Edgeworth, however, saw a more likely murder weapon — the cargo hold itself. Hicks could have fallen to his death from the upper landing. The autopsy report supported this hypothesis — but Franziska pointed to a large box under the landing that would prevent a lethal fall. Edgeworth reminded her that they had stopped to take additional cargo between 4:00 and 5:00am, meaning the box might not have been there. The large box, naturally, belonged to Lablanc, who furiously insisted it was originally from Europe (not loaded at Zheng Fa). But the enormous statue it contained was an obvious forgery - it had yellow eyes compared to Hicks' photograph of the red-eyed original. It also stood over the drop cloth of a piece of cargo which was loaded at Zheng Fa. This justified Hicks' presence in the cargo hold: to take photos of the hold before and after the stopover.

When the statue was moved, there were signs of blood on the floor, corroborating the theory that Agent Hicks died in a fall. All evidence now pointed to his murder before the 4:00am stopover.. with the exception of Cammy Meele's testimony, which said she had seen him in his seat at 5.

Part 2-4 - End 2

Cammy Meele was no more awake than she had been earlier, but Edgeworth trapped her in a contraction when she claimed to be in the flight attendants' room alone from 5:00-6:00am — she should have seen Ms. Teneiro come in with the suitcase she purchased at 5:40. Ms. Meele protested unconvincingly that she was in the bathroom. Edgeworth pressed her for her special skills, which revealed that she is fluent in Borginian and processed all Borginian documents... such as the cargo manifest for the counterfeit statue, for example. Ms. Meele abruptly came awake and retorted that participation in a smuggling ring — which wasn't yet proved anyway — didn't necessarily mean she was a murderer... and that Ms. Teneiro continued to be the likeliest killer, if not a smuggler herself. Edgeworth responded that the very suitcase the killer used to hide the body made it likely that Ms. Teneiro was being framed: something that would never have happened if they were members of the same smuggling ring. Undaunted, Ms. Meele replied that his evidence was entirely circumstantial.

Attention then turned to the missing cell phone. Franziska was able to locate it by the simple trick of calling it. It had been stashed in Ms. Teneiro's locker. Edgeworth surmised that it had been hidden because it contained evidence, like a photo, and Franziska was able to recover the data since the phone was not too badly damaged. It showed the cargo hold before the stop at Zheng Fa, and the last, damning piece of evidence: boxes of cloth labeled in Borginian. Edgeworth easily perceived how this put the final nail in Ms. Meele's coffin — anyone needing to wipe up a bloodstain in a hurry would reach for any cloth they could find, but they didn't use the crate which was clearly marked "Bedsheets." The crate of Borginian cloth was used because it was being unloaded in Zheng Fa, thus eliminating the evidence, and only someone who could read Borginian could make a decision like this, like Cammy. And for further proof, the police would just have to contact Zheng Fa and ask if their cargo was tampered with.

Faced with this last piece of evidence, Ms. Meele broke down and admitted that she pushed Agent Hicks over the rail in a moment of panic, knowing the smuggling ring was about to be exposed.

To thank him for his trouble, Ms. Teneiro presented Edgeworth with one of her special suitcases, which he accepted with fair grace (all things considered). They had some parting words with Franziska, who was leaving to meet with an elite Interpol agent and continue her investigation into the smuggling ring. Moments later, Edgeworth received a call from a man named Ernest Amano, asking him for assistance — to help his son, who had been kidnapped!

Behind the Turnabout

Cammy Meele was a member of an art smuggling ring, using her skills as a flight attendant fluent in languages to help with smuggling artifacts and forging documents. Their latest target was the famous Alif Red statue, and she forged a document for Zinc Lablanc II to make him believe it was onboard at the time.

However, on this particular flight, Interpol Agent Akeby Hicks was there to investigate the smuggling route and asked her to escort him to the cargo hold. As he was Interpol, she couldn't refuse him and led him there, where he started taking pictures of the empty cargo hold. Not wanting the route to exposed, she pushed him off the railing, where he died on impact.

With the dead body now on hand, Cammy knew she had to frame someone else as the body would easily be discovered, and settled on Rhoda Teneiro. But first, she had to ensure no one would realize the cargo hold was the real scene of the crime. She used Borginian Cloth to clean up the blood as it would be unloaded in Zheng Fa so no one would realize it was tampered with, and once the plane made the stop in Zheng Fa, a rather obvious fake Alif Red Statue was loaded onto where Agent Hicks landed, removing any further suspicion.

Now it was time for Cammy to frame Ms. Teneiro. She first planted Agent Hicks' phone in Ms. Teneiro's locker and stole the elevator keycard to make it look like only she could've done it. She then placed Agent Hicks' body inside one of the spare tacky suitcases Ms. Teneiro designed and went into the elevator with it. The plan was to swap the suitcase containing the body with the one Ms. Teneiro buys on all her flights in the attendants' room, but the plane hit some turbulence. This caused the suitcase to open, sending Agent Hicks and his belongings flying onto the elevator's floor.

With no time to place the body back into the suitcase, Cammy had to adjust her plan. Upon seeing the unconscious Miles Edgeworth in the lounge, she realizes she found another fall guy. She emptied the suitcase and placed it in the gift shop, then took a piggy bank and smeared blood on it to make it look like the murder weapon. She then planted it in the elevator and Agent Hicks' travel wallet onto Edgeworth to frame him and make it look like the elevator was the true scene of the crime. She then snuck back to her flight duties just in time for Edgeworth and Rhoda to discover the body.

But she didn't count on two things: that her fall guy was actually a genius prosecutor and some of the Borginian cloth she used was still in the suitcase in the gift shop. Those two facts would be instrumental in the truth being exposed.

The Kidnapped Turnabout

Part 3-1 - Beginning

The following morning, Edgeworth and Gumshoe went to Gatewater Land amusement park, where Edgeworth ventured forth to drop off the kidnappers' ransom money. He was directed to the Haunted House, where he found nothing more menacing than empty rooms and a slumped Blue Badger doll. He completed the drop off and was turning around to leave when someone struck him across the head, rendering him unconscious for the second time in two days.

He woke some time later to find himself tied to a beam in a small room used by the park staff. He dimly heard voices in the next room but could not make out what they were saying. Fortunately, he soon attracted a rescuer: the self-styled Great Thief Yatagarasu, better known as Kay Faraday, a mischievous teenage girl. She claimed to be the 'real' Yatagarasu (apparently the title is contested?), but also admitted she hadn't actually stolen anything (yet). Edgeworth knew about the Yatagarasu from a string of incidents seven years ago wherein certain businesses were infiltrated and their dark secrets leaked to the press — along with the calling card of a three-legged raven — but he wasn't particularly interested in evaluating the girl's claim, until Kay revealed that she remembered him from somewhere.

Edgeworth retrieved his phone and got back into contact with Gumshoe — and with an Interpol agent named Shi-Long Lang, who was in no hurry to send help since Edgeworth had blundered into the situation alone. Edgeworth and Kay managed to free themselves by finding a ladder hidden under a floor panel. They also observed that this room was where the park's costumed mascots, the Blue Badgers, were kept — and that three costumes were missing.

Once freed, the pair met Lang, his assistant Shih-na, and his army of 99 Men in Black, who had taken control of the investigation. Lang was a tough customer with a wolf motif, the utter devotion of his men, and an endless store of proverbs from his famous ancestor Lang Zi. Edgeworth wondered why someone from Interpol would investigate a domestic kidnapping — especially since this must be the agent Franziska mentioned who was investigating the smuggling ring — but Lang had very little to tell a "filthy prosecutor" and refused to allow Edgeworth to join the investigation. Kay decided to usurp something as well: the 'assistant' role from Gumshoe!

As they idled, Ernest Amano appeared. He was an old associate of Manfred von Karma, and Edgeworth had taken the case out of a sense of obligation to him, since his connections had made it possible for him to study law abroad. The kidnappers had taken his 21-year-old son, Lance, the day before. Also, the house butler, Oliver Deacon, hadn't been seen in some time.

Edgeworth figured they might as well look around the area immediately outside the Wild West Area (the building the kidnappers had used for their hideout). They found clear footprints in the mud, though the information wasn't much help without knowing the culprits' shoes. A costumed Blue Badger mascot was a possible witness — it was Officer Meekins — but he claimed he hadn't seen anything except a second Blue Badger. This roused Edgeworth's suspicions, since the park's "Badger Photo Rally" game rules said that only one of each Badger — Blue, Pink, Proto, and Bad — would be out at one time. He concluded that it was a disguised kidnapper, and that the other kidnappers were probably also in disguise. They returned to the footprints, looking for tracks that a Badger costume would leave, and found two trails: one headed for the stadium and another headed to a nearby garage. They opened the door to find parking spots for three Badgermobiles — and a corpse. It was the lost butler, Oliver Deacon. He had a single bullet wound that entered near his stomach and exited his shoulder, but there was very little blood around his body, which suggested to Edgeworth that he was killed elsewhere. He wore a silver horse pendant with "Colin Devorae" engraved in the back.

The sordid scene was further interrupted by the arrival of Lauren Paups, a distraught young Amano employee with an ill-concealed crush on Lance, and the return of Lang, who spotted the corpse and attempted to have Officer Meekins arrested on the spot. Riled, Edgeworth insisted that Meekins could not be detained without good reason; Lang counter-argued that only an officer would be likely to carry a gun, and that he had not personally inspected Meekins, meaning the logical interpretation was that Meekins ambushed and killed the man at the garage. Edgeworth responded that there was too little blood around the body for this to be the site of the murder. However, he also found Meekins' behavior suspicious: pressing a bit, he learned that Meekins had been out driving the Blue Badgermobile until he lost possession of it. The Badgermobile, which was currently back in the garage, could easily have been used to transport the body — and Meekins didn't help his case by admitting that he had lost his gun. Despite Edgeworth's best efforts, Meekins was detained. Edgeworth and Kay were forced to leave the area.

Part 3-2 - Middle 1

Irritated by Lang's "arrest first, ask questions later" method, Edgeworth vowed to catch the murderer himself. Gumshoe slipped them a tip to check the stadium, where he was pleased to reunite with Ema Skye, a would-be forensic scientist — and far LESS pleased to reunite with Wendy Oldbag, playing the Pink Badger. Unfortunately, she had witnessed the murder at the stadium, so he had to speak with her. According to her testimony, two men confronted each other, there was a gunshot, and then one of the men fell to the ground. Unfortunately, when pressed, she was a less useful source than she appeared: she couldn't describe the men or give many details about the scene.

Kay decided to step in with "Little Thief," a holographic projector that could recreate a scene based on the information she put in. Using Ema's tools for detecting footprints, Oldbag's testimony, and the circumstantial clues, they fine-tuned the image created by Little Thief until Edgeworth was satisfied: ultimately, the shooter and the victim were both disguised as Badgers, and the shooting took place when the victim stood on the stage that was formerly set up in the arena. He shared his conclusion with Agent Lang, who had arrived on the scene, and remarked that the probable interpretation was that one kidnapper had shot another. Lang continued to suspect that Meekins, in costume, had committed the crime and used his Badgermobile to move the body to the garage, but Edgeworth countered with the mud-free tires of the Blue Badgermobile, which would have been dirty if used as Lang hypothesized. And since the Pink Badgermobile was there in the stadium (with Oldbag), this left only the Proto Badgermobile still at large.

Just then, the kidnapped boy, Lance Amano, staggered out from behind the stage and collapsed. He claimed to have escaped from his kidnappers using the underground panel in the Wild West Area staff rooms. He said there had been two kidnappers, in costumes, and one was female. Lang asserted control over the investigation yet again and ran Edgeworth and Kay out of the stadium.

Part 3-3 - Middle 2

Back in the Wild West Area, they met Mr. Amano and Lauren Paups. Lauren was still a fluttery bundle of nerves over Lance, whom she had known since childhood because she and her father were long-time employees in their house. Her father was frequently away on business trips for the Amano group, but ten years previously he had left for another flight on "Pegasus" and never returned. As for Mr. Amano, the only thing he had to contribute was a "love letter" for his son — from a loan company. Kay immediately noticed that it sounded more like a collection threat than a promise of love everlasting. Lance had a motive to "disappear" himself, especially if he could collect a ransom in the process.

They gained access to the kidnappers' hideout thanks to some help from Gumshoe, looking for evidence of the man and woman who took Lance. Gumshoe had also left a report on the victim, Colin Devorae; he was an escaped prisoner who had been imprisoned ten years ago, he'd had a wife and one daughter in the area, and he was likely to be armed. But the picture was that of Oliver Deacon, the missing butler!

When they investigated the lair, all the signs pointed to three kidnappers. The locked door had been forced open by the police, but it appeared to have been locked from the inside through the simple trick of a heavy prop sword wedged in the handle. Abruptly, a staff member in costume as the Proto Badger entered the staff area through the floor panel (startling Edgeworth and Kay) and exclaimed that both Bad Badger costumes were missing. The spare should have been inside — but so should the regular costume, because the Bad Badger only appears for a brief scene once a day. A short investigation turned up one of the missing costumes in the trash. A chunk of cloth over its right paw — where the Bad Badger's prop gun would be — was torn loose. Edgeworth reflected that their investigation had turned up more questions than answers.

Detective Gumshoe met them outside with yet another tip: the police had discovered a discarded Badger costume near the park entrance. They ran to get to the scene before Lang.

Part 3-4 - End 1

The costume was a Blue Badger. There was a pendant inside the neck opening in the shape of a pair of wings. Its silver material and general theme matched the horse pendant worn by Oliver Deacon, and its owner's name, "Lauren D.", was engraved on the back. All eyes turned on Lauren Paups, who stammered and tried to explain herself. Lang, who had once again taken command of the scene, immediately accused her of being one of the kidnappers, which charge she did not deny — but Edgeworth was certain that more was going on. He interrupted Lang before he could take Lauren away, claiming the murder remained unsolved. Lang retorted that suspicion was no longer on Meekins since the careless officer's gun had been found, unfired. Lauren confessed to the murder as well, but Edgeworth insisted upon hearing her side of the story.

Lauren testified that she and the butler, Oliver Deacon, had plotted the kidnapping for money, but once the ransom was in their hands, he turned on her and tried to kill her. However, Edgeworth presented the pendants — or rather, the two pieces of one pendant — and the report on Oliver Deacon's missing ten years: the two of them had been father and daughter, unbeknownst to Lauren. It would be extremely unlikely for him to murder his own daughter. Lang thought it more likely that the two of them had known of their relation and colluded, but Edgeworth pointed out that a third person had been involved, probably as the mastermind of the whole plot — Lance Amano himself. Lance had claimed to see only two kidnappers when the evidence pointed to three; when pressed he testified that there could have been more but he was blindfolded and locked up in the staff area until the kidnappers fled and he was able to escape. Edgeworth was not convinced; why, then, was the door still locked from the inside after this supposed 'escape'? He concluded that Lance had staged the kidnapping out of a desperate need for money. Pinned at last by the prosecutor's logic, Lance admitted that he had indeed done just that.

The young Mr. Amano wasn't finished with his tale yet. He insisted that he'd planned to run away with Lauren and start a new life, until they were attacked by Oliver Deacon just after picking up the ransom money. He claimed that he had restrained Deacon temporarily in the hideout but the man ultimately escaped, with the money, disguised as the Bad Badger. Lauren had already left their hideout in the Blue Badger costume, and Lance tried to warn her that Oliver was armed. But Lauren insisted it couldn't have been that way — because if so, she had shot and killed her own father! She remembered seeing a Bad Badger in the stadium, leaving with the money. He had pointed his gun at her, so she fired a shot of her own (with a gun Lance had given her) and saw the Badger drop dead just before she ran for her life. Edgeworth easily picked through her testimony to find the holes — it couldn't have been the actual Bad Badger since the costume's prop gun was permanently attached to its right paw, and at any rate the right-handed Oliver Deacon wouldn't be a good shot holding the gun in his free left hand, as Lauren saw. The Proto Badger costume, on the other hand, could hold the suitcase and the gun in the way Lauren described, and it could easily be made to look like the Bad Badger simply by using a different costume head. But who was in the Proto Badger costume? Lance.

From this point it all began to unravel quickly. The gun Lance gave Lauren was the prop gun torn from the paw of the other Bad Badger costume. Lauren could never have killed anyone with it; Lance had pretended to be killed as part of a larger plan intended to throw suspicion on Lauren when Deacon's body was eventually discovered. But if Deacon hadn't been murdered in the stadium, then where? Lauren protested that she had seen Deacon restrained in the lair after he and Lance had gone to get the ransom money, but Edgeworth realized that all she had really seen was someone tied to the corner beam, unidentifiable under a costume head: it was himself while he was unconscious.

Mr. Amano interrupted at this point. In a transparent effort to get between Lance and the truth, he provided two key pieces of evidence: the second Bad Badger costume, stained with Oliver Deacon's blood and a gun with Lauren's fingerprints on it. He expressed disappointment at Edgeworth for causing his son such distress. Edgeworth examined the evidence and saw bits of a broken mirror and a bullet hole that seemed to have been fired at point blank range. It gave the lie to any story that Lauren killed Deacon at the stadium — and further, she couldn't have left fingerprints on the gun at the time, since she was in a costume! He concluded that the murder must have taken place in the Haunted House, during or shortly after the ransom drop. Lang reluctantly granted him permission to investigate the Haunted House — only for everything to be cut short by Mr. Amano, who revealed he had just bought that property for a sum that just happened to be the full random payment for Lance. The investigation came to a screeching halt.

Part 3-5 - End 2

Kay and Little Thief intervened a second time. If the investigators couldn't enter the Haunted House itself, they could recreate it using the data on hand. Gumshoe supplied a set of blueprints from the case materials, and they mapped out a rough image based on what Edgeworth could remember just before he was struck. He recalled seeing a collapsed Badger at the far end of the hall, and he knew he had been hit from behind. Lance Amano declared that only Oliver had entered the Haunted House, so Edgeworth's assailant must have been him. But all the evidence pointed to an attack with the prop sword, held in the attacker's right hand — which couldn't be Oliver since he was the Bad Badger and had the prop gun attached to his right hand. Lance admitted that he'd done the deed, which put both men inside the Haunted House.
Lang spoke up with some unwelcome news: one of the attractions of the Haunted House was a "disappearing Badger" — which is to say, a Blue Badger doll at the end of the hallway. All of Edgeworth and Kay's speculations had been based on the premise that the Badger he had seen was a disguised kidnapper, but if it were just a prop, they'd have to rethink everything.
Kay updated the image to show the Blue Badger doll, but now the assailant somehow turned into the Proto Badger while stalking Edgeworth. Further, the "disappearing Badger" looked like a reversed Blue Badger, as if it were a mirror image. This led Edgeworth to suspect that it was just an illusion. There must have been a secret room in the Haunted House, concealed by a mirror wall: when the wall is "open" it reflects the hidden Badger, but when closed, the Badger disappears. Lance and Oliver Deacon must have hid behind that wall. When Edgeworth entered the dining room to leave the money, he heard the crash of the mirror wall breaking, though he had dismissed it as part of the ambient noises. When he emerged and saw a slumped Badger in the same spot, it was no longer the reflected illusion but Oliver Deacon's body! Lance then hid himself in the alcove where the actual doll sat, waited for Edgeworth to turn around, then ambushed him.
Lance broke down and admitted his guilt, though he claimed it was all in self defense after Oliver attacked him. Lang, unimpressed, took both Lance and Ernest Amano into custody. Ernest Amano had been Interpol's target the entire time: he was wanted for questioning for his part in the KG-8 incident, wherein the Amano Group was caught dealing in a smuggling operation. Amano's secretary, Colin Devorae, took the fall and went to prison for ten years. Amano was taken into custody by Jacques Portsman and Buddy Faith, much to the irritation of Lang — who dropped the tidbit that there was a corrupt prosecutor working with Amano and the smuggling ring.

As they wrapped things up, Kay had one final surprise — a piece of cloth she'd promised to return. Edgeworth looked at it and was launched into the memory of a case seven years in the past...

Turnabout Reminiscence

Part 4-1 - Beginning

Seven years earlier, a defendant named Mack Rell admitted to a murder which he claimed to have done under the orders of the Great Thief Yatagarasu. He then named Byrne Faraday, the prosecutor of the case, as the Yatagarasu, raising an uproar and forcing a change of prosecution. Miles Edgeworth — at this point an earnest young disciple of Manfred von Karma — was selected to replace Faraday.

Von Karma quizzed Edgeworth on the facts of the case. A couple days prior, a worker at the Cohdopian embassy was shot and killed. Mack Rell was taken into custody and found to have the murder weapon on him; moreover, he had been seen doing the deed on the security camera. The wrinkle in the case was that the Yatagarasu had infiltrated the embassy: Rell had originally claimed to be the Yatagarasu himself before accusing the prosecutor. Because of similarities to another incident three years prior, the murder was coming to be known as the "second KG-8 incident." KG-8, incidentally, was when the Amano Group was caught in a smuggling scandal (and Colin Devorae was set up to take the fall); a Cohdopian staff member named Manny Coachen was accused of killing the whistleblower, Cece Yew, before she could testify. Byrne Faraday failed to get him convicted. What connected that case to the present one was that the victim, Deid Mann, had also been shot before he could reveal what he knew; the main difference was the presence of the Yatagarasu, who had stolen a single item and sent it to the police on the same day. It seemed obvious to von Karma that the Yatagarasu could have been involved in the murder.

Just before the trial resumed, they were interrupted by a young Kay Faraday, wanting to exchange some coins for a dollar bill. Edgeworth traded with her without thinking much of it and prepared to enter the courtroom. Unfortunately, no one but themselves and the Judge were present. Detective Gumshoe came charging in with shocking news — Byrne Faraday and the defendant had been found dead!

Edgeworth ran to investigate the defendant lobby but got nowhere against the trio of Detective Tyrell Badd, a hardboiled character, Calisto Yew, the defense attorney, and Gumshoe. Gumshoe had been in the hallway guarding the door and could testify to hearing the gunshot, but Detective Badd was the one officially in charge of the crime scene. Yew had very little to say to him (and Edgeworth's formal and rather stiff style of speaking kept sending her into fits of giggles). Badd would reveal only that Faraday had been stabbed and Rell had been shot — and that he had been called in to testify since he works cases connected to the Yatagarasu.

Manfred von Karma reappeared, with his 13-year-old daughter Franziska in tow. Over Badd's objections, he left Edgeworth behind to investigate the murders since he wouldn't be able to stand in court, and Franziska elbowed her way in as well, seeing it as a chance to prove herself superior to her 'little' brother. They examined the crime scene and found the victims lying across each other, with Faraday on top. Rell held a knife and Faraday a gun. Evidence bags were scattered near their bodies but the room was not otherwise in disarray; one of the windows had been left open. The gun had been brought in by Faraday as evidence, but the knife remained unexplained. There were also signs that not everything was as it seemed — Faraday held the gun in his right hand despite ink stains suggesting the left was his dominant hand, and the lack of powder burns on Rell indicated that he was not shot at close range; moreover, the scattered bags around the bodies were at odds with the neat pile on the table. The last bit of oddness was the television in the room: its volume had been set to a high level.

Franziska posed her own theories about a struggle, but the most likely conclusion — that Faraday attacked Rell and Rell counterattacked and killed Faraday before dying himself — was at odds with the position of the bodies: if Rell died second, he should have been on top of Faraday. Nor could it have been a mutual attack with the bodies falling the way they did by chance: the fatal gunshot was fired from two or three yards away. Edgeworth introduced his own theory — a third party had killed one or both of the men and arranged the crime scene to look like a mutual killing; after all, Gumshoe had been outside the door the whole time and hadn't heard a struggle.

Calisto Yew and the Judge entered the scene to point the finger... at Detective Gumshoe! They claimed that Gumshoe had not been guarding the door the entire time as he said: the Judge testified that he had seen an empty hallway at some point during the recess. Edgeworth pointed out that Gumshoe had no motive, but Yew retorted that Faraday had given him a dressing-down for being late about a week ago, and he could have killed Rell afterward to eliminate any witnesses. Edgeworth remained unconvinced: a double murder suggested that the third person had a good reason to want both men dead. To his mind, Manny Coachen fit the bill. Unfortunately, though Coachen was indeed in the courthouse that day, he had been under constant scrutiny; he couldn't have slipped away. Gumshoe was curiously tongue-tied when asked if anyone else had been in the hallway during the recess, and so he was taken away for questioning despite Edgeworth's silent misgivings.

Edgeworth approached Yew about the KG-8 incident, knowing she must be connected somehow since she and the victim, Cece Yew, had the same name. Yew admitted, after more giggles, that Cece had been her sister, but Faraday was unable to get a conviction on Coachen because the key piece of evidence was stolen...

Part 4-2 - Middle

They met Manfred von Karma down in the lobby, who told them the trial was on permanent hiatus and that he considered the matter closed. Edgeworth asked to be allowed to continue his investigation, since he didn't think they had enough evidence on Gumshoe for a perfect conviction, and Franziska lent unexpected support, saying she didn't want to end their competition just yet. Von Karma grudgingly agreed and left them to it.

Yew, who was present, testified that she and Detective Badd had been in the neighboring defendant lobby at the time of the murder. She apparently carried a grudge against Badd for failing to protect her sister. She hinted that Badd had also failed to keep the Yatagarasu from spiriting away the critical piece of evidence that would have convicted Coachen. Gumshoe insisted he was innocent but also seemed to be hiding something; about the only thing of interest they could get from him was a pay slip from his bonus check — a whole $5, which accounted for the only cash he'd had on hand. Edgeworth could tell he was lying about being alone in the hallway and wondered why Gumshoe would hold back information that could help clear his name.

Without any warning, the little girl from earlier crept up behind Edgeworth, kicked him somewhere painful, and ran off. As she fled, she dropped a Swiss Roll snack, still in its wrapper, on the floor.

They went to the hallway outside the defendant lobbies, seeking evidence to confirm whether Gumshoe had left the hallway and/or met anyone else up there. The Judge was already present, speaking with Detective Badd. His testimony was that he had been able to see into the hallway from the restroom window across the courtyard, and that he had seen Gumshoe buying something from the vending machines in the hall, but shortly afterward, the hall was empty. Detective Badd said that he had asked the precinct to send someone to guard the hall because Faraday had been accused; when Gumshoe arrived, they went up to the hallway together. They met Yew outside Lobby #1, but Faraday had already dragged Rell into Lobby #2 for some sort of private argument. One of Badd's men confirmed that Gumshoe had never left the hall — but that just made it seem all the likelier that he had gone into Lobby #2 when he disappeared from sight. Badd and Yew had gone into Lobby #1 and had remained there for about 30 minutes, which is when they heard the gunshot.

Two vending machines stood there, one of which sold food, including Swiss Rolls — at extortionate prices. The Swiss Rolls were the cheapest item, and even they were $6. The open window had allowed a trail of ants to enter in pursuit of some chocolate crumbs on the floor; there was also a sticky handprint on the bench underneath it. A sharp cactus on the windowsill had proven fatal to some child's balloon. The handprint was Gumshoe's, and he could have disappeared from sight by doing nothing more than sitting down, but how could he have afforded Swiss Rolls when he was at least a dollar short? Edgeworth remembered the dollar he had changed for the little girl and concluded that they could have pooled their money — but why would Gumshoe lie about the little girl being there?

Gumshoe refused to relent even when pressured by Edgeworth, Franziska, and the Judge, but the little girl reappeared, still trying to kick Edgeworth. She gave her name as Kay Faraday, Byrne Faraday's daughter, and claimed to be furious because he was mistreating "Gummy;" he was able to pacify her by giving back the Swiss Roll she'd bought — for her daddy. The others didn't know what to say at that, but Kay reveals she already knows what happened. She overhear the guards saying her daddy was dead. As she burst into tears, Edgeworth felt a growing sympathy since her story was so similar to his own. He knelt down to offer her a handkerchief, only for her to blow her nose on his cravat instead. She told them that was going to keep her promises to her father: one was "never cry in front of strangers," and another was "never take anything from a stranger." Edgeworth offered her his now-soiled cravat under the legal fiction that she was just 'borrowing' it to wash and return later. Now Gumshoe's motive for hiding her presence in the hallway was clear: technically speaking, she had taken some of his money to buy the Swiss Rolls, and he didn't want anyone to know she'd broken her promise.

Unfortunately, clearing all these mysteries had not yet cleared Gumshoe's name. If anything, he was in deeper trouble, since it was now confirmed that he was present in the hallway at the time of the gunshot! Yew smugly announced she was going to file the paperwork for his arrest. Time was running out.

Part 4-3 - End 1

Edgeworth and Franziska had a look inside Lobby #1, where the air was filled with an overpowering flowery odor. They witnessed a conversation between Kay and "Uncle Badd" which revealed them to be fairly close and informal with one another — Badd didn't even deny the claim that Kay was his 'assistant.' The flower scent in the air was Yew's spilled perfume, which had been overwhelming enough to get him to open the window. He gave a spare bottle to Franziska (which she, naturally, made Edgeworth tote around for her).

After some pressing, Badd opened up about his part in the KG-8 incident. He and Faraday had nearly dragged out the truth about the Amano Group's connections to the smuggling ring when the key witness was murdered and a hapless secretary was set up to confess to everything. Moreover, Manny Coachen, the man who shot the witness, escaped conviction because Badd failed to keep control of the critical piece of evidence. Badd claimed that he and Faraday continued to pursue the smuggling ring as best they could, and Calisto Yew must have done the same since they finally met again that very day, at the trial for the "second KG-8 incident." He said that all three of them had come up hard against the limits of what the law could do. As for Faraday, he and Badd were very old associates who had had their own reasons for pursuing the mysterious thief known as the Yatgarasu.

Edgeworth raised his theory that the identity of the Yatagarasu was the key to solving the case — why were the two men who claimed that title murdered? Badd replied that the Yatagarasu is a perfect thief: he always knows where his object is, how to disarm the security system, and how to avoid leaving any evidence. In this case he had broken his usual pattern by sending evidence on the smuggling ring to the police instead of to the mass media, but he would not have killed Deid Mann nor would he have ordered Rell to.

When the trial evidence was finally transferred to Edgeworth, the first thing that caught his attention was that Faraday apparently planned to use the "Yatagarasu's Key" to convict Rell. But there was no key present, just the unexplained knife. Edgeworth wondered if the knife and the key might have been the same item. He discovered that the handle of the knife was reversible: if rotated to one end, it hid the key and revealed the blade, but if rotated the other way, it revealed the key and hid the blade. Faraday must have brought it inside in key form... but then who, looking at it, would know it could become a knife and use it as a weapon? Edgeworth concluded that the Yatagarasu was the only one who could know, making him the prime suspect.

Edgeworth also found it odd that the surveillance tape which showed the moment of the murder, gunshot and all, was not present with the evidence. They went upstairs to check Lobby #2 and found Badd talking with Agent Lang, but Lang left without saying much to them. Badd had not known that the key became a knife: he had, in fact, been searching the courtroom (with Kay's help) for the missing "key." It went without saying that Gumshoe wouldn't have known either. Another odd fact came up in their discussion: the defendant lobbies were soundproofed, meaning that very little outside noise could get in or out. Of course, both rooms had their windows open. In a flash of insight, Edgeworth realized that the missing surveillance video must be in Lobby #2's television, with the volume turned up — the video, with its very clear sound of a gunshot, could easily have been used to disguise the time of the murder. Moreover, the window in the next room was conveniently open because Calisto Yew spilled her perfume. The likely course of events was that the killer committed the murders before Badd and Gumshoe came upstairs, opened the window, and left the surveillance tape to play, knowing its audio would be mistaken for the fatal shot.

As he finished explaining his conclusions, Edgeworth was interrupted by a bailiff sent by Yew, asking him to meet her in the courtroom to confirm her theory about the real murderer.

Part 4-4 - End 2

With Franziska and Badd in attendance, Yew and Edgeworth faced off from their respective benches in the courtroom. Yew remained convinced of Gumshoe's guilt, simply because everyone else was accounted for at the time of the gunshot, and because there was no possible exit from Lobby #2. However, she did not have an alibi for most of the people in the courthouse — nor for herself — in the span of time before Gumshoe took up guard duty in the hallway. When Edgeworth demonstrated that the time of death had been fabricated, Yew became visibly nervous. She brought up the matter of the soundproofed rooms, but he countered with the open windows, one of which just happened to be open at the right time as the direct result of Yew spilling her perfume. He charged Calisto Yew with the double murder, shocking everyone in the room.

Yew laughed off his spilled perfume = murderer conclusion and replied that she didn't even know where the knife used to kill Faraday came from, so she couldn't have been his murderer. There was just a key in his evidence bag, after all. Edgeworth pounced, revealing the key-to-knife feature and remarking that Yew had further incriminated herself just by knowing about the key — after all, this information was known only to Faraday and a few high-ranking law enforcement officers. And not even they knew about the knife aspect of the key. Only the Yatagarasu would know the full truth: in other words, Calisto Yew was the Yatagarasu.

Yew broke into a fit of mad laughter. She confessed to dispatching Faraday because he knew the truth about her. Rell's part in the plan was merely to point to finger of suspicion at Faraday, but when it looked like Rell might blab her part of it to him, Yew had to silence him as well. Badd seemed particularly shaken by the news, and it got worse when Yew confessed that she had been the one to hire Rell to silence Deid Mann in the first place — she was working for the smuggling ring!

Unsurprisingly, Yew had no intention of surrendering to justice. She pulled a gun on them. Franziska dived behind the prosecutor's bench, but Edgeworth froze up in shock — until Kay yelled a warning. He fell to his right, narrowly avoiding the bullet, and Yew escaped with the Yatagarasu's Key. Badd gave chase but was unable to stop her.

In the aftermath, Gumshoe thanked Edgeworth for proving his innocence and pledged his eternal loyalty... which Edgeworth was less than pleased to receive.

Back at Gatewater Land amusement park, Gumshoe and Edgeworth made their formal reacquaintance with Kay, who was pleased they still remembered her. But Edgeworth couldn't understand why she had sought him out, nor why she would take the title of Yatagarasu when it belonged to Calisto Yew, her father's murderer. Kay responded that her father was the true Yatagarasu, according to his own diary and his greatest weapon, Little Thief. Yew was just a pretender to the name. The "Yatagarasu" was active again, sending a calling card ahead to the former Cohdopian Embassy, and Kay had hunted down Edgeworth so that he could find out the truth and bring Calisto Yew to justice at last. He protested that he wouldn't get involved in anything criminal, but he did feel indebted to Kay and agreed to do what he could to bring it all to a close.

Turnabout Ablaze

Part 5-1 - Beginning

We are back in the present day, and Edgeworth is in his office enjoying a rare moment of downtime after the whirlwind of the past two days. His peace is soon shattered by the enthusiastic arrival of Kay, who reminds him that he promised to catch the "Yatagarasu;" that is, Calisto Yew falsely laying claim to the title. Edgeworth informs her that someone came to his office just the previous night to steal files related to the KG-8 incident, though they have yet to catch the person. But Kay is more interested in the Yatagarasu's social engagement that evening: a ceremony held at the embassy run jointly by the countries of Allebahst and Babahl (formerly the single nation of Codohpia, which name is now familiar to us because of KG-8, Manny Coachen, and the smuggling ring). Kay insists they go to the fête as well. As they set out, Edgeworth muses on the Yatagarasu's calling card: the one the embassy received is a black raven on white paper, but the one that was left in his office the previous night is a white raven on black paper. But it's probably nothing...

At the Theatrum Neutralis — the theater and lobby shared by the two embassies — Edgeworth and Kay take in the Steel Samurai stage show and walk out marveling at the amazing "Steel Samurai Sushi Slice" finishing move. As part of the night's entertainment, each country is sponsoring a stage production: Allebahst put on the Steel Samurai, and Babahl is producing the Jammin' Ninja. But the real draw of the evening's Goodwill Jubilee is the finale, in which the countries will reunite and form Codohpia once more. The only issue is who will be ambassador for the reunited country: Allebahst's Quercus Alba or Babahl's Colias Palaeno. The leaders have agreed to let the national treasure, the Primidux Statue, decide — each ambassador holds one, but no one knows for certain which is real. The statues have been tested and the results will be announced that night, after which the holder of the real statue will assume office for Codohpia.

The Steel Samurai himself passes through the lobby on his way to the Alabahst side of the embassy, pushing the Iron Infant in a wooden cart. Edgeworth can't resist the opportunity to go up and ask for an autograph (which is addressed to him even though he never once mentioned his name. Hm.) Kay insists on seeing the Jammin' Ninja stage show as well and drags Edgeworth back to the theater; when they emerge, there is still no sign of the Yatagarasu. Edgeworth is about to call it a night, when suddenly—

Two men race into the lobby saying that the Yatagarasu's shadow has appeared in Allebahst. Kay springs into action, but is denied entry to the Allehbast side of the embassy: undaunted, she sprints to the Babahl side, intent on going over the courtyard wall. Edgeworth gives chase and looks up to see the third floor of the Babahlese embassy in flames. Cursing the Yatagarasu and yelling Kay's name, he runs into the building.

He finds Kay in the Secretary's Office, held in custody by Lang's assistant Shih-na. Manny Coachen is lying dead on the floor, but Kay insists the body was already there when she entered. When Edgeworth demands to know why Kay is being held for questioning, Shih-na reminds him that technically they are in Babahl, meaning he has no authority to investigate here.

Franziska von Karma chooses that moment to make her entrance, accompanied by Ambassador Palaeno. Edgeworth, thinking quickly, asks Palaeno to let him join the investigation as Franziska's assistant. Between Palaeno's agreeable nature and Franziska's glee at having her "little" brother as her subordinate, it works. Detective Gumshoe is also present as part of an arrangement between the police and Babahl to provide extra security if the Yatagarasu appears: Edgeworth is only too quick to sneer at how well that's worked out, given that the Secretary's Office is burned out and the secretary himself is dead on the floor.

He examines the body and finds Coachen dead of a stab wound: a knife is on the ground next to him. The handle has Babahl's butterfly symbol, but it looks too clean. It seems that it is one of a set of ceremonial knives jointly owned by the two countries, with interchangeable handles for Allebahst and Babahl. The Yatagarasu's Key, in key mode, is in his pocket — which raises a host of questions. Wasn't it originally taken from Cohdopia by the Yatagarasu? And wasn't it stolen shortly afterward by Calisto Yew, the false Yatagarasu? How then did it end up on the Babahlese secretary's body seven years later? Franziska nudges Edgeworth to ask Ambassador Palaeno what he knows.

Palaeno is happy to answer all of his questions. Coachen was his secretary — such a competent one, in fact, that Palaeno left most of the daily governance to him. He even ran his own printing press, putting out the enormous amount of tourism-related paperwork that Babahl needs to make its income. Palaeno speculates that the key must have belonged to Coachen since his Cohdopian days because it has both a flower and a butterfly design, but he doesn't know much about the details of its theft since he wasn't ambassador at the time.

Edgeworth tries the Yatagarasu's Key in Coachen's safe. It opens easily enough, but the inner space seems unusually shallow. He spies a hexagonal opening on the inner wall which reminds him of the cross section of the knife blade; sure enough, the 'knife' is a second key, allowing them to open the safe's second compartment. They find several pieces of rare, stolen art and an incomplete document. Franziska seemed to be hoping to find more, so he asks her why Interpol is interested in this situation. It transpires that she has visited, along with Agent Lang and Shih-na, to seek out more information about the smuggling ring; the clue that tipped them off was page 2 of an accounting document, printed on paper made only in Cohdopia. Naturally, pages 1 and 3 are in the secret safe, confirming Franziska's suspicion that Coachen was the point man for smuggling Babahlese ink: a rare commodity of high value.

Shih-na thinks Kay's guilt is too obvious to warrant further investigation. The Yatagarasu threatened to visit the embassy that night, and Kay herself claims that title. In addition, she is the only one who was anywhere near the body when it was found. The obvious conclusion is that she used the distraction of the fire to enter the Secretary's Office and kill Coachen, intending to get the Yatagarasu's Key and steal the incriminating documents from his safe. Edgeworth objects that the key was left on Coachen's body and the documents were still in the safe — why would Kay have failed to take the items she was supposedly looking for? Shih-na drops her trump card: she entered the room and saw Kay holding the murder weapon. Kay insists that she chased a mysterious figure in a long black coat into the room and somehow lost the person in the darkness; she hadn't known the body was there until she turned on the light. However, she had picked up the knife, and the mystery person in the coat had vanished into thin air, making her story look incredibly shaky.

The knife itself rescues Kay: the handle is from Babahl, but the blade is from Allebahst. She couldn't have brought an Allebahstian artifact across the border — she wasn't even allowed into Allebahst. Kay's name is cleared, but the questions are beginning to pile up: who really killed Coachen, why swap the handles, where is the person in the black coat, and how was a blade from one country smuggled into another? Franziska and Kay decide to look for their answers in Allebahst, dragging Edgeworth along with them.

Part 5-2 - Middle 1

In the Theatrum Neutralis, they meet Agent Lang with Ambassador Alba. It becomes clear almost immediately that Allebahst is not as welcoming as Babahl: Alba might be a feeble old man walking with a cane, but he is firm about not allowing more people into the investigation, and Lang is no happier to see Edgeworth than he was yesterday. After a direct plea from Palaeno, and with extremely poor grace, Lang allows Edgeworth — and only Edgeworth — to join him and Franziska. Edgeworth knows the smuggling ring is Interpol's real target; was someone in Allebahst also involved?

Franziska admits that the illicit trade in Babahlese ink is not merely because the stuff is a valuable tourist souvenir; the ink can be used to make counterfeit bills which are almost indistinguishable from real currency, and the influx of fake cash is devastating Zheng Fa's economy. The document they found in Coachen's safe is a start, but without any of the ink, the counterfeit bills, or the printing plates used to produce them, they can't close the investigation. Franziska hopes to find these items in Allebahst since they haven't turned up in Babahl. Meanwhile, Kay and Gumshoe decide to conduct their own investigation on the Babahlese side of the embassy.

In the Ambassador's Office on the fifth floor, they unexpectedly run into the Steel Samurai — or rather, Larry Butz in costume as the Steel Samurai. To no one's surprise, he's managed to become a murder suspect. Yes, there is a corpse here too: Mask☆DeMasque II is dead in what looks like attempted burglary, and suspicion has fallen on Larry because he was absent when the Yatagarasu's shadow appeared in Allebahst's rose garden, interrupting the ceremony just before Alba was due to speak. Larry was discovered attempting to climb down a chimney into the Ambassador's Office, and furthermore the Steel Samurai sword was next to DeMasque's body, covered in blood. Lang still resents Edgeworth's involvement, but fortunately Detective Badd is also present, and he apparently respects Edgeworth enough to want him along.

Edgeworth reluctantly takes up the task of clearing Larry's name. Larry has apparently become enamored of the actress who plays the Pink Princess, so he attempted to woo her by descending through a chimney, Santa Claus-style. But the smoke from the chimney put paid to his plan. The fireplace hasn't been used recently, so it's possible he had the wrong chimney. Unfortunately, there's evidence that Larry has indeed been in the room: there is a photograph of him as the Steel Samurai shaking hands with Alba, and the Samurai Spear (with a bent tip) is leaning against a wall alongside other weapons on display. Larry admits to bending the spear by swinging it around a bit too enthusiastically; he also admits to forgetting to take the sword with him when he left. The ceremonial knives are here too, and one blade is missing. The knife that killed Coachen must have come from this set.

DeMasque was killed by a blow to the back of his head. His body is holding a handwritten note which directs him to the location of the Primidux Statue in this office; a scribble on the back suggests he was hired by someone else to steal it. Badd knows him as Ka-Shi Nou, one of several copycat thieves using the DeMasque name.

The Pink Princess herself joins them — and under the mask is Wendy Oldbag. Poor Edgeworth. But Larry's surprised to see her too — Oldbag was a last-minute substitution. She's in possession of an odd note from her 'loving knight,' promising to "descend on her from above;" it doesn't take much to realize that this was a misguided attempt by Larry to court Mindy, the woman he thought was in that costume. She says she was in the next room over at the time of the murder, warming her bad hip by the fire. If the embassy is designed so that two fireplaces share a chimney, that would explain how Larry saw smoke. Police dog Missile sniffs around in the cold fireplace and finds Oldbag's undershirt; assuming Oldbag is correct that her hip was too stiff for her to walk, she couldn't have entered the office itself. But she does admit to leaving her undershirt to dry by the fire, and since the hearths share a chimney... Edgeworth has a look at the fireplace and finds a switch that can rotate the back wall, leaving a space that would easily permit something the size of a shirt to pass through.

After a discussion that runs far longer than it needs to thanks to Larry's own interference, Edgeworth forces his confession that he had planned to go down the chimney to meet "Mindy," not to commit murder. But the issue of the murder weapon remains. It seems unlikely to Edgeworth that the Samurai Sword killed DeMasque — after all, the sword and spear are just hollow props — but then where is the real weapon? Lang reports that his men tested everything for blood and found nothing, but Edgeworth's mind lights on an odd fact: the Primidux Statue is in different position now than it was in the promotional photo with Larry and Alba, as if it had been moved. Lang's men wouldn't have been allowed to test it, since only the ambassador and his staff are allowed to handle such a national treasure. Could the statue be the weapon? Lang's men are unable to get Alba's consent to examine the statue, but Lang presses on in the interest of knowing the whole truth, with Edgeworth volunteering to take the blame. Sure enough, they find evidence of blood on the head of the statue and fingerprints on the base.

The prints don't belong to Larry. They belong to Manny Coachen, the victim of the second killing, whose body was found on the Babahl side of the embassy. The statue in this room is Babahl's Primidux Statue! How were two men killed in one night by artifacts from a different country? The questions just kept coming...

Part 5-3 - Middle 2

Edgeworth returns alone to Babahl, not sure which lead to pursue now except Babahl's (or rather, Allebahst's) Primidux Statue. He finds Kay and Gumshoe, plus Palaeno, near the open-air stage in the courtyard of Babahl's side of the embassy, and checks on their side of the investigation.

Palaeno updates him on the meaning of the Primidux Statues and what it will mean for the country found to be holding the genuine statue when Codohpia is reunited. He is already aware that the statue in Coachen's office is actually Allebahst's — further, he knows that it is the real one and Babahl's is the fake — and had planned to meet with Alba to find a way for Babahl to 'lose' without losing too much face. As for Coachen, he supposes a man as capable as that would be able to conceal his participation in a smuggling ring, especially since Palaeno himself was so busy preparing for the reunification.

Gumshoe is holding a little souvenir lantern that burns whitcrystal oil; the same component that makes Babahlese ink. It burns a vivid shade of green. Edgeworth files that bit of trivia away for later and sends Gumshoe on an info-gathering errand. Kay has found a small gold object about the shape and size of a guitar pick near the open air stage. It catches his attention because it's a bit damp, but he isn't sure how it relates to the case.

The silhouettes cast by the souvenir lantern remind Edgeworth of something, so he returns to Allebahst to check the rose garden on their side of the courtyard. The stage for the night's speech is still up, and there is a large cistern in the center which is used as an emergency water source during fires. Automated taps have been filling it because some water was drained to put out the fires on the Babahlese side of the embassy. Just as the cistern taps shut off, Larry abruptly emerges from the pool, searching for the Iron Infant and his cart. He misplaced both around the same time as his meeting with Ambassador Alba — why he would be looking in the water is anyone's guess.

Edgeworth's suspicions have fallen on the fake Yatagarasu, who apparently visited both countries that night — Babahl as a mysterious figure in a black coat and Allebahst as a shadow in the rose garden. Could the shadow have been cast by something else? Working with Franziska, he moves the spotlights around and finds that the crossing beams plus two of the garden statues make a half-decent "Yatagarasu." Perhaps an accomplice was involved to arrange the lights, but the Great Thief himself was probably not there. Just then, Detective Badd greets them with a new piece of evidence — a photograph taken by a bystander showing a black object flying through the air above the courtyard. It seems to be crossing from Babahl to Allebahst. Neither Franziska nor Edgeworth are pleased to see this after handling cases with other "flying" persons in the past. Badd informs them that it was taken after the fires on the fourth and fifth floor of the Babahlese side were put out.

Back in Babahl, Palaeno informs him that there were two fires that night; one just at the start of the Jammin' Ninja stage show which involved the top two floors, and then a second one toward the end of that show which burned the third floor, including Coachen's office. He can account for Coachen's whereabouts up until the start of the Steel Samurai stage show. Upon seeing a sealed bottle of ink on Coachen's desk, however, Palaeno revises his testimony — he thought he saw his secretary run into his office during the third fire, but when Palaeno tried to follow, the doorway filled up with green flames. If they didn't come from the ink, then where?

Palaeno also recognizes Coachen's handwriting on the note found on DeMasque's body, but his best guess for a motive was that Coachen was trying to get the real statue to Babahl so that Palaeno could be ambassador of Codophia. Edgeworth doubts his reasons were so altruistic.

Edgeworth and Kay explore the Secretary's Office during the fire with the aid of Little Thief and the collected information on the room (which was the errand that had been occupying Gumshoe). There is a sizable swath of green flames across the doorway, which he assumes were made by the burning of a stash of counterfeit bills — probably a deliberate fire set by Coachen or an accomplice to hide the evidence. They also find a long length of wire concealed inside the clock.

The next order of business is to look for the mystery figure in the black coat who disappeared when Kay chased it into the room. They are on the third floor, so going out the window was probably not an option — and 'flying' is out of the question. But what about the odd fireplace trick he learned in Allebahst? The bilateral symmetry of the embassy suggests that the fireplace back walls should rotate here as well, which they do. Edgeworth sends Gumshoe into the hearth to see if an adult-sized person could crawl through that space; Gumshoe gets through to the next room with nothing worse than ashes and blotches of ink on the hem of his coat. Further, there is proof that the rotating wall was used that day, since the ashes and spilled ink Palaeno remembered from a morning housecleaning are not there. And Gumshoe testified that he saw Shih-na come out of the room next door when she moved to apprehend Kay...

Part 5-4 - Middle 3

While Gumshoe runs a handwriting analysis test on Coachen's note, Edgeworth and Kay meet Franziska, Lang, and Shih-na in the Theatrum Neutralis. Lang reveals how desperately personal the matter has become: Zheng Fa's economy is in shambles due to the counterfeit bills and he has put the honor of the Lang name is on the line for his chance to find the mastermind, but now Coachen is dead and he himself must return to Zheng Fa with no answers.

Edgeworth gets their attention by accusing Shih-na. He lays out his case: Kay pursued a mysterious figure in a black coat into the Babahlese embassy, where the person ran into the third-floor Secretary's Office and then disappeared. Moments later, Shih-na came out of the neighboring room and apprehended Kay. Since the connected fireplaces must have been the fake Yatagarasu's escape route, how could Shih-na have failed to encounter the other person? She must have been the one in the coat! The false Yatagarasu!

Shih-na snickers... and bursts into a fit of wild laughter that reminds Edgeworth irresistibly of another laughing woman, seven years ago. Yes, Shih-na is Calisto Yew, the murderer of Byrne Faraday and Mack Rell. Lang's unwillingness to believe one of his own could be a criminal stalls the truth, and Shih-na herself denies any wrongdoing, claiming that Interpol swept the room thoroughly and found nothing out of place. Edgeworth responds with the hidden length of wire — a clue that could easily have been found — and speculates that those rooms were never searched at all. Shih-na herself had the power to take command of the third floor offices and send the other agents elsewhere. Therefore, he dispatches Gumshoe to look for evidence in the room next to the Secretary's Office; in due course Gumshoe returns with a coat, shoes, and some makeup. Shih-na does not deny ownership, but she explains away the soot marks as residue from the Babahlese fires. Edgeworth puts paid to her claim by holding a lit match to a sample of the coat and is able to demonstrate the presence of Babahlese ink in spectacular fashion as the fabric goes up in green flame.

Now Kay plays the trump card she has been holding for seven years: the bottle of Calisto Yew's spilled perfume, carefully preserved to save the fingerprints. All they have to do to prove Shih-na's identity is to compare her fingerprints to the ones on that bottle. Cornered at last, Yew cackles wildly. Lang realizes the awful truth — his subordinate was a mole for the smuggling ring all along. But she laughs off any name they try to pin on her: Shih-na and Calisto Yew were just two of her aliases. She is and has always been the Great Thief Yatagarasu! Kay, thoroughly riled, charges her — a bad move, since Yew seizes her as soon as she gets within reach and puts a gun to her head.

Yew, her escape at hand, decides to taunt them, asking Edgeworth if he knows why the Yatagarasu has three legs. He grasps the truth at last: the Yatagarasu is a collective identity. Calisto Yew and Byrne Faraday were both the real Yatagarasu. But... three legs... who was the third..? He gets his answer seconds later: Detective Badd appears behind Yew with his gun drawn. A shot rings out...

Lang has intervened. Kay is safe on the ground, and Lang is bleeding from a bullet wound on his leg, but Yew is finally in the grip of justice. As everyone boggles that he would save a proven criminal, Lang says only that he must protect his subordinates from harm, no matter what they've done. A body search of Yew reveals the missing Babahlese knife blade. She admits to her motive for framing Kay — to take Little Thief, the Yatagarasu's weapon — but denies murdering Coachen and claims she never truly worked for him. Her boss... her real boss... has always been the head of the smuggling ring. As a parting shot, she leaves behind a few more tidbits: two slender, pointed hair sticks and a hint to look for Coachen's real murderer. Lang escorts her out of the building but promises to return before the night is over, despite his injury and his orders to return to Zheng Fa.

By now it is midnight, and Detective Badd decides that the time has come to retire the Yatagarasu. Professing himself willing to leave the endgame in Edgeworth's hands, he turns himself in to Gumshoe, who seems moved to tears at the thought of having to place Badd in handcuffs. But he has some parting gifts of his own — the pages from the KG-8 incident files that had been stolen from Edgeworth's office only the previous night. Yes, Badd was the one who held Edgeworth at gunpoint. Hidden behind a photograph on one of the pages is a priceless piece of evidence: a 'directives' card, sent from the head of the smuggling ring to one of its agents whenever there was a job to do. It depicts the white three-legged raven on black paper. Coachen was carrying it after the death of Cece Yew, and the bloodstain on its reverse is unmistakable even ten years later. When Yew, Faraday, and Badd decided it was time to go outside the law to bring the smuggling ring down, they chose the black three-legged raven on white paper as their calling card, wanting the ring to know that its days were numbered. Badd also entrusts Gumshoe with the definitive piece of evidence they had obtained to convict Coachen until it was stolen: a videotape. It had turned up in Ernest Amano's possession yesterday, and later that evening Jacques Portsman had murdered Buddy Faith in an attempt to steal it — yes, Portsman was in on the ring as well, as demonstrated by the directives card Portsman had in his possession, ordering him to search the KG-8 case files and retrieve Coachen's card.

As Badd leaves, Edgeworth stands wondering if he's capable of finishing the work that's been handed to him; particularly, whether he can justify using what any objective source would call illegal evidence to take down someone who may be out of reach of the law.

Part 5-5 - End 1

Edgeworth pauses to reorganize his notes a second time. The mystery of the Yatagarasu has been settled, but there are still two unsolved murders and the identity of the real head of the smuggling ring to puzzle out. Gumshoe plays the evidence videotape on a screen in the Theatrum Neutralis lobby — it appears to be security footage from an entryway. There is a clear shot of Manny Coachen with a knife in one hand and the directives card in the other; Franziska clarifies that it depicts Coachen minutes before he murdered Cece Yew in her own apartment. Even though the footage seems relevant only to KG-8, Edgeworth knows there must be something incriminating there if the smuggling ringleader was trying to seize it as recently as yesterday. Eventually he spies it: a government car just outside the door, identifiable by the flag of Codohpia on its front fender.

Ambassador Alba interrupts, informing them politely but firmly that he thinks it is time for them to go home and leave the rest of the investigation to Babahl and Allebahst. Neither Franziska nor Edgeworth are happy to hear this, but they have no authority to override Alba. Nor does Agent Lang, who has returned full of determination to settle the case for good. But Lang isn't cowed. He laughs and replies that he already knows who committed the murders. Coachen was killed by Shih-na, but DeMasque was killed by — Franziska?!

Everyone in the room is shocked, not least Franziska. Lang suggests to Alba that he'll need access to his office to fully make his case, which the ambassador grants, and the whole group goes upstairs to watch this play out.

Lang's case against Franziska is that several objects moved freely across the border that evening — the Primidux statues and the blades of the ornamental knives — so suspicion naturally falls on her because she had considerable freedom of movement too, not to mention a brief unsupervised period in the Ambassador's Office in Allebahst. Edgeworth realizes that he needs a counterexplanation for the transport of those items from one side of the embassy to the other — not only to acquit Franziska but also to keep the investigation going and hopefully move closer to the truth.

Edgeworth calls attention to another figure who was clearly working both sides of the embassy that night: the Yatagarasu. The photograph Badd gave him unmistakably depicts something crossing from Babahl to Allebahst through the air — what else could it be but the Babahlese replica statue under some sort of cloth? Lang challenges him to explain the transit method, and after some thought Edgeworth decides that the length of wire is the key — strung up in a loop between the ceiling fans in each office, it could make a rotating belt. As for how the wire itself crossed the courtyard, Edgeworth offers the pointed hair sticks Shih-na left behind. A bit of dirt clinging to them suggests that they are actually plant stakes... stakes which just happen to match the ones propping up Alba's beautiful passionflower vines in the window box. They could be fired like bolts using the crossbow hanging on Alba's wall, each carrying one end of the wire, and then the two statues could be exchanged at the same time, with the gravity-assisted drag of the heavy, real Allebahst statue being more than able to pull the lighter, fake Babahl statue up. But of course, all of this assumes that Shih-na had an accomplice on the Allebahst side. Edgeworth hesitates a long moment before naming the accomplice, but the truth is inescapable; no one else would have known the layout of the embassy so well nor had such free access to this particular office. He points his finger at Ambassador Alba.

Alba fails to react to the accusation, so Edgeworth presses on. The issue now is one of motive — why hatch a plot to obtain the fake statue? A bit of searching inside the hollow shell reveals a reason: there are printing plates stashed inside — plates for printing counterfeit bills. As for DeMasque, Franziska's testimony indicates that the two plant stakes used as arrows were pulled just prior to the murder; it's highly plausible that the thief came in while Alba was moving the statue and was killed for his knowledge. Alba then left the Steel Samurai sword near his body to throw suspicion on Larry.

Lang finally admits that he suspected Alba from the start and accused Franziska as a ruse to gain access to his office and continue the investigation. But the ambassador remains unmoved; impressed as he is that they've put all of this together, they have no evidence to prove he runs the smuggling ring. There seems to be no way to take him down, unless...

Edgeworth ponders his next move. He has in his possession two critical pieces of evidence, but neither of them were obtained legally. If he presents them, they will be illegal evidence, but if he doesn't, Alba's crimes will never be known. All the blood, sweat, and tears shed in the last decade have brought them to this moment, but... can he really step outside the law in the name of the truth? Can he really forfeit the truth in the name of keeping the law??

The law must serve the truth, he decides, and forges on ahead. He informs Alba that he holds the directives card sent to Coachen and the surveillance video from the day of Cece Yew's murder, and that the pieces of evidence together will prove his guilt. When Alba asks how he came to possess those, Edgeworth replies that they were gifts from the Yatagarasu.

Everyone returns to the Theatrum Neutralis lobby, where Edgeworth uses the videotape to demonstrate, first, Coachen's presence in Cece Yew's apartment building, and secondly, his presence in the back of the Cohdopian government vehicle driving away. He adds that it will be only too easy to confirm that the blood on the card was Yew's and that the vehicle was licensed to Alba, making it certain that Alba was also involved. But if he hopes the ambassador will surrender quietly, those hopes are in vain.

Alba decides to show his true face. He straightens up and goes in an instant from a doddering old man to a frightening general. The vehicle registration records will be long gone since Codohpia no longer exists, he claims, so there is nothing to connect him to the car. Edgeworth persists: it is possible to see a medal reflected in the car window — a Cohdopian medal of valor which just happens to match the one prominently affixed to Alba's chest. Even though Alba undoubtedly destroyed the vehicle registration records to eliminate the evidence, there is still a way to demonstrate his presence at the crime scene!

Alba's response is to confess.... to killing DeMasque II in self defense; he reveals a small wound near his collarbone to prove that DeMasque struck first. But it's all academic anyway, since technically the murder took place in Allebahst. That means it will also be tried in Allebahst, where Alba undoubtedly has the courts eating out of his hand. The subtext is clear: they will never be able to bring Alba to justice for his participation in the smuggling ring because only Allebahst can legally prosecute him (and an Allebahstian court would never convict him). The most they could do is make him persona non grata in this particular embassy, and even then, it would be nothing worse for Alba than an inconvenience; all he has to do is transfer to a different Allebahstian embassy and pick up where he left off. He truly is beyond the reach of the law.

Safe behind his extraterritorial rights, Alba strolls away, smugly announcing that he'll be back soon to see them forcibly removed.

Part 5-6 - End 2

Dispirited, the investigators share their mutual frustration. Kay pronounces herself ready to take on the Yatagarasu's mantle and bring down Alba by her own lawless means — when Edgeworth's sharp retort puts a stop to that, she persuades the group that they may as well continue their investigation in the time they have left. Gumshoe and Franziska depart to pursue their own leads in Babahl and Allebahst, respectively, and Lang slips off without telling anyone where he is going. That leaves Edgeworth and Kay to check the Theatrum Neutralis.

Edgeworth sizes up the situation. They cannot prosecute anyone for a crime committed inside the embassy since the building is legally Allebahst and Babahl — whatever happens on either side is considered to happen in the home country and must be tried in the home court. Further, Alba himself cannot be tried anywhere but in Allebahst due to his status as ambassador, no matter where he was when he committed the crime. This double layer of protection seems impenetrable... so why did Alba seem just a bit agitated while he was talking to them?

He mulls it over for a bit. Interpol was closing in on the smuggling ring, and the Babahlese side of the embassy was about to begin renovations. Coachen had been concealing the evidence of his own wrongdoings — the counterfeit money and the ink and paper used to produce them — but the renovations would have provided a good opportunity for someone to "discover" them. It can't be a coincidence that Coachen was murdered just before those renovations were to begin — with him dead and the evidence uncovered, all suspicion would fall on him as the leader of the smuggling ring and no one would look any further. Alba himself is the one with the most to gain from his death, so it's reasonable to assume he was the murderer. That must be why the ambassador was uncomfortable: he was worried they would discover the truth about Coachen's murder. It seems odd that their business partnership would fracture after so many years, but perhaps Coachen was making his own power play, thinking to take over and run the ring himself from a secure spot as the secretary to the ambassador of the newly-reunited Codohpia. After all, he had plotted to get the real statue into Ambassador Palaeno's holding, and it probably wasn't because he liked Palaeno.

Now their investigation has a goal: to discover whether Alba killed Coachen and how he could have done it. Edgeworth starts looking around the lobby and spies a publicity photo of both ambassadors presenting bouquets of flowers to the Steel Samurai. Palaeno had mentioned that both of them made an appearance at the end of the Steel Samurai stage show. But hidden in Alba's bouquet is something very odd indeed — Allebahst's flower symbol — and not just as a patriotic gesture. It's the pommel of the ceremonial knife! Alba smuggled the knife that murdered Coachen into the theater. And if he murdered Coachen in the theater, on neutral soil, he was legally outside of Allebahst and Babahl at the time, removing one of his layers of protection.

Franziska rejoins them with the information she went after: the security videos showing all the persons who crossed from the theater into Allebahst and Babahl. Edgeworth checks the time just after the Steel Samurai stage show ended and sees Alba returning to Allebahst, followed a moment or two later by the Steel Samurai himself wheeling his pushcart. Larry had mentioned using the cart to deliver promotional boxes of Samurai Dogs in Allebaht, but even so, the cart seems overfilled. The poor Iron Infant is perched awkwardly on an odd-shaped lump; Edgeworth suspects that the lump is something else entirely, though without the cart itself he cannot confirm his suspicions. The footage of the Babahlese side, on the other hand, shows nothing — which is to say, no Coachen. If no security camera captured Coachen returning to Babahl, how did his body find its way back there?

But now Alba has returned with a small army from Allebahst, intending to make good on his threat to throw them out. Edgeworth protests that the Theatrum Neutralis isn't Allebahstian soil, but it's pointless: Alba has decided to make his escape, and there's nothing he or Franziska can do to keep him from leavi—

HOLD IT!

Ambassador Palaeno has arrived, with his own contingent of Babahlese soldiers. He warns Alba (in the nicest possible way) that departing with such haste will surely cause a nasty international incident. With extremely poor grace, Alba agrees to answer just one more question.

Edgeworth asks for his whereabouts when Manny Coachen was killed. Alba replies that he was in Allebahst the entire time, and that he can't see why he should be a suspect since he has no motive and couldn't have killed anyone in Babahl anyway. Edgeworth can demonstrate motive easily enough: Coachen's handwritten note telling DeMasque to steal the real statue proves there was a power struggle going on. But Alba shrugs it off — a motive to kill someone and actually killing someone are two different things — and now that he's answered Edgeworth's one question, he considers himself free to g—

HOLD IT!

Kay Faraday interrupts, wanting to do her part to bring down the man who ordered the murder of her father. She presents Byrne Faraday's organizer, full of notes on Alba's misdeeds, and Little Thief, the Yatagarasu's weapon; if Alba leaves now, she threatens to send everything to Allebahst. On the other hand, if he lets Edgeworth question him again and wins, she will give both of those over to him. Grudgingly, Alba testifies a bit further: he did see Coachen briefly in the theater but did not see him afterward, and at any rate he was in Allebahst the rest of the evening. He never went back into the Theatrum Neutralis, let alone into Babahl.

But why should Alba need to go to Babahl, Edgeworth replies, when he most likely killed Coachen in the theater itself? Did he not bring the murder weapon in with him, concealed in his bouquet of flowers? The commemorative photograph proves it! Alba staggers... and then rights himself. They cannot try him, or even hold him for questioning — he is an ambassador, and as such he is subject only to Allebahstian authority. He has every right to simply turn and walk aw—

NOT SO FAST!

Now it's Agent Lang's turn to step in. His men in black are barring Alba's exit, and that's not all. It seems that Lang was off having words with the Kingdom of Allebahst about Alba's activities: whatever he said must have been persuasive, because the royal household has stripped Alba of his ambassadorship, effective immediately. Allebahst will no longer offer him diplomatic immunity. It's a severe blow to Alba... but even then, he manages to shake it off: just because they could arrest him now doesn't mean they can; there is still no evidence against him. If he brought a knife into the theater, so what? Someone else could have used that knife. And if he killed Coachen in the theater, how did his body end up in Babahl?

Edgeworth deploys the video footage of the Steel Samurai and the odd lump in his pushcart. It's possible to demonstrate a method of moving the body, at the very least. Alba, unsurprisingly, asks for some evidence that the body really was in the cart, which Edgeworth doesn't have since the cart hasn't been seen since Larry took it to Allebahst. Yet again, Alba declares it's time for him to make his ex—

HOLD IT!

It's Gumshoe! With timing that could not have been better, he rushes in from the Babahlese side of the embassy, rolling the Steel Samurai's pushcart ahead of him. His detective instincts had prompted him to go looking for it, and it eventually turned up in the open-air stage area in Babahl's courtyard. How the cart moved from Allebahst to Babahl is a mystery in itself, but Edgeworth leaves it be for the moment while he looks inside; sure enough, there are signs of blood at the bottom of the cart. Alba must have tricked or forced Larry to move the body into Allebahst until such time as Alba could smuggle it back across to Babahl. Explaining how the body was moved back is a tall order, but there must have been a way.

Edgeworth orders Alba to testify about what he was doing after the Steel Samurai stage show. Alba claims he had his picture taken with the Steel Samurai in his office, went to the rose garden to prepare for his speech, and then hurried back to his office after the Yatagarasu's shadow appeared, fearing the national treasures would be stolen. Unfortunately for Edgeworth, this part of his story holds up — yes, he omitted his meeting with Franziska and the murder of DeMasque II, but there's no obvious flaw in his testimony. Despair begins to set in again as it seems they can't actually convict Alba for anyth—

HOLD IT!

The Steel Samurai and the Pink Princess have come to save the day! Or rather, Larry and Wendy Oldbag. Edgeworth isn't thrilled to see them, but any allies will do in a pinch... and they've brought the Iron Infant too. The Iron Infant is completely waterlogged, as he should be since he turned up at the bottom of a pool. Larry was last seen searching the rose garden cistern in Allebahst for his missing "son," so this isn't too surprising. What is surprising is that the Infant was found in a pool on the Babahlese side of the embassy. There is yet another way to move items between the two countries!

Gumshoe takes off to the open-air stage area to confirm Edgeworth's hypothesis; yes, the bilateral symmetry of the embassy floorplan means that there is also a cistern in Babahl's courtyard. The two cisterns must be connected, since the Iron Infant managed to pass from one to the other. Coachen's body could have been smuggled through the water and then Alba's accomplice Shih-na could have used the pushcart to take the body up to his office. However, as Lang reluctantly points out, an opening large enough to let a doll pass through isn't necessarily large enough to admit an adult's body, let alone a body in a large pushcart. Fortunately, Edgeworth still has the 'guitar pick' that sharp-eyed Kay found for him — not a pick at all, but a decorative petal from the Allebahstian knife handle. The murder weapon. And since it was damp when she found it, it is strong evidence that the body did indeed pass through the cisterns.

Yet how could anyone have used the cisterns as a transit route without drowning in the process? Abruptly, Edgeworth remembers the fires in Babahl, and how the automated taps were still refilling the Allebahst cistern when he came by. If the water was drawn to fight those fires, there is no reason to assume those cisterns had a significant amount of water in them at the time. And Shih-na in all likelihood set those fires herself. Was it just to destroy the evidence and cause a distraction, or was it also to drain the reservoir at a time of her choosing? All she would have to do is wait in the Babahlese cistern for the water to drop, cross over and retrieve the body, and then wait for the pool to refill so she could climb back out. And all Alba would have to do is push the cart into the cistern on the Allbahst side and perhaps manipulate the automatic taps to keep the pool from refilling too soon — something he could do without raising any suspicion since by his own admission he was already in the rose garden to prepare for his speech.

Alba takes another hit, but he still won't break. Edgeworth starts to wonder just how much evidence it will take to bring him down.

Part 5-7 - End 3

The last possible place to nail Alba is on the charge that he murdered Coachen. His alibi was that he was in the theater itself, watching the Steel Samurai stage show; he even offers some tidbits of the plot as proof. But when he describes the incredible finishing move as the "Early Summer Rain Jab," both Kay and Edgeworth go on alert, fully aware that the play concluded with the "Steel Samurai Sushi Slice." Edgeworth knows that it couldn't have been the Early Summer Rain Jab since that move requires the Samurai Spear, which Larry had carelessly bent during rehearsal. Even Larry admits that the Sushi Slice was a last minute substitution forced by his carelessness. Alba's alibi isn't looking so good.

Alba backpedals a bit and suggests he watched most of the show but missed the finishing move because of a need to visit the restroom. Edgeworth bristles — no real fan would skip the big moment of the Steel Samurai stage show! — before realizing that it was odd for Alba to have made his first mistake at all. How could a non-fan like Alba know that Early Summer Rain Jab was one of the Steel Samurai's finishing moves? And how could he know that the cast had planned to stage it until Larry's exuberance with the key prop made that impossible? Even Larry admitted that very few of the cast had known, and they had kept it secret for fear that using a substitute move would anger the ticketholders. There wouldn't have been any way to even know the name unless he had read it on the backstage whiteboard...

Eureka! By attempting to support his alibi, Alba had accidentally let slip that he was in the dressing rooms at some point during the Steel Samurai stage show. And this is the only window of opportunity he would have had to conceal the body in the pushcart so that Larry could unwittingly move it for him. He must have slipped backstage to murder Coachen, stuffed his body into the cart, and then allowed it to be wheeled onstage with no one the wiser. From there, it went to Allebahst, where Alba found some pretext to part Larry from the cart and then sent it, with the body, back across to Babahl as previously described.

Alba still refuses to yield. All that's been proven is that he caught a glimpse of the whiteboard in the dressing room. Nothing connects him to the murder. Even Lang's men found no evidence when they combed the backstage area earlier. Since Edgeworth can't prove that Alba killed Coachen in the theater, there's nothing to hold him. And Alba, radiating confidence, declares his intent to wal—

HOLD IT!

Wendy Oldbag has decided to speak up and present a gesture of love to her Edgey-poo. "Edgey-poo" isn't happy about this, especially since all she has to offer is yet another box of those promotional Samurai Dogs. He's so irritated that he almost misses the significance of the piece of evidence she's come to offer — a bit of evidence that she's unwittingly carried from the scene of the crime — marked out because the Rising Sun on the box logo is filled in while all the others are blank. While she assumes she's handed him a rare collectible, he realizes he's holding something else entirely. His logic train finds its tracks at last: the cart was filled with boxes of promotional Samurai Dogs because Larry and Oldbag were supposed to distribute them in Allebahst after the show, but the killer must have dumped them out on the floor to make room for Coachen's body. It would be possible for some of Coachen's blood to get on the boxes as his body was moved, proving the murder took place backstage. By sheerest coincidence, a drop of blood fell on this particular box in just the right place to be mistaken for part of the design.

Relieved to have some decisive evidence at last, Edgeworth offers a gracious thank-you to Oldbag. Lang sends the box to forensics immediately to see if the blood is a match for Coachen's. But to no one's surprise, Alba still won't surrender. He points out that they've only proven half of what they need to with that piece of evidence — that Coachen died in the theater. They still have nothing to identify the killer. They can't prove that Alba did it, and even when forensics comes back and confirms that the red dot was blood, they are no closer to the truth. Alba is smug again. He knows they can't hold him any longer, and this time he really is going to take his lea—

HOLD IT!

Oh, what now?!

It's Lang's forensics man. He hasn't finished his report. Yes, the substance was blood — but it wasn't Coachen's blood. This floors everyone: after all, now they don't even have the evidence to prove that Coachen was murdered backstage. The blood could be anyone's. It could have fallen at any time. Lang snarls in helpless rage and vows to track Alba down, but the former ambassador just laughs, triumphant at last.

Edgeworth finds himself longing for a certain defense attorney's famous ability to take a desperate situation and turn it around — and in a flash of insight, it comes to him. He knows the scenario he's found must be correct, and if so, only one other person could have dripped blood onto that box. If the blood isn't Coachen's, it must be Alba's.

He interrupts Alba in mid-gloat to announce that he has his decisive evidence: just as he'd surmised, Alba attacked and killed Coachen backstage, but Coachen fought back and managed to injure his killer, leaving a wound that dripped blood onto a certain box of Samurai Dogs. Alba had even shown them the wound earlier, claiming it was DeMasque II's doing. It wouldn't have been possible except that Coachen also had a weapon, one which most people wouldn't know about. He was carrying the Yatagarasu's Key. And if the shape of its blade were matched to Alba's wound, it would probably be a very good fit indeed.

So, at this point the only question left for Alba is this: which country would he like to stand trial in... first? Either way, the game is finally over.

Alba breaks down at long last. Reduced once more to a feeble old man, he snarls that Coachen had attempted to seize control of the smuggling ring and should have died for his betrayal at the talons of the "Yatagarasu". Alba had even gone so far as to leave the Yatagarasu's Key on his body, knowing the police would need to find it and open the secret safe to find the smuggling document Alba had left there, linking him to the illegal trade in Babahlese ink and paper. He was so close to pinning all the guilt on his subordinate and getting away clean... if it weren't for those meddling prosecutors.

Behind the Turnabout

At least ten years ago, decorated war veteran Quercus Alba became an ambassador for the nation of Codohpia and took up residence in an embassy in California. There, unbeknownst to most, he established an extensive smuggling ring trafficking in, among other things, art and rare artifacts. The small nation of Zheng Fa became one of their transfer points, and to facilitate matters Alba began circulating counterfeit bills. The fake currency, made with Cohdopian paper and ink, was almost indistinguishable from real money, and the country's economy began to suffer. This inspired a young man named Shi-Long Lang, a descendant of the famous Lang Zi, to devote himself to a career in international law enforcement in order to bring the ring down.

The ring gathered many major financial backers into its fold. One was Ernest Amano, a wealthy associate of Manfred von Karma who fancied himself a philanthropist. However, the increased participants meant increased risk; a brave employee of the Amano Group, Cece Yew, discovered the smuggling ring and threatened to expose it. Alba directed Manny Coachen, an embassy staff member, to silence Yew; Coachen was arrested and tried but acquitted because the surveillance video on which he appeared was stolen. The video fell into the hands of Ernest Amano, who planned to keep it as a bit of insurance. Amano also sacrificed his secretary, Colin Devorae, on the altar of silence; Devorae pled guilty to everything that had become known about the smuggling ring and was sent to prison. The KG-8 incident, as it became known, was a severe blow to detective Tyrell Badd and prosecutor Byrne Faraday, who had been tracking the smuggling ring themselves. Their only gain was the Directives Card which ordered Coachen to murder Yew, which Badd hid under a photograph among the KG-8 case files.

Alba had sent a female operative to pose as the victim's sister under the name "Calisto Yew." Her job was to gain the sympathies of Badd and Faraday; they were taken in by her show of distress when her 'sister's killer was acquitted and brought her in as a co-conspirator. Together, the three of them became the Great Thief Yatagarasu, a noble thief of information and dirty secrets. For the following three years, they infiltrated companies, stole damning information about them, and released it to the media along with their own card: the black three-legged raven on white paper, the reverse of Alba's own. Yet while Badd and Faraday imagined they were sending a message to the leader of the smuggling ring, Yew was quietly keeping him informed on everything they were doing.

Things came to a head when a second whistleblower tried to break the silence three years later. His name was Deid Mann, and he worked for the Cohdopian embassy. Yew hired Mack Rell to murder him, but the very day of the murder Byrne Faraday broke into the embassy, stole a special key belonging to Coachen, and sent it directly to the police. For the trial of this "second KG-8 incident," Faraday was again the prosecutor, with Yew posing as the defense, but Rell (on Yew's orders) muddied the waters by accusing Faraday of being the Yatagarasu. This forced a recess so that a new prosecutor could be found; in the intervening time Yew murdered Faraday for his knowledge, Rell for being a witness, and arranged the crime scene so that it would look like they fought and killed each other.

Unfortunately for Yew, the substitute prosecutor was a 20-year-old Miles Edgeworth, who picked his way through the jumble of evidence along with Franziska von Karma and Kay Faraday, Byrne's daughter. He discovered that she was not only the murderer but also the Yatagarasu; with her cover blown, Yew fled, though not before retrieving the Yatagarasu's Key. Badd was hit particularly hard by the revelation that someone he trusted was a traitor.

Edgeworth picked up the trail of the investigation by sheerest coincidence seven years later, when he happened to share an international flight with Zinc Lablanc II, an art dealer, and Akbey Hicks, an undercover Interpol agent. Hicks was investigating a possible smuggling route wherein a piece of art purchased in Borginia was stolen before it was loaded and was replaced at Zheng Fa by a forgery. He had in his possession a photograph of the original statue and was in the process of photographing the statue-less cargo hold before the stopover when he was observed by Cammy Meele, a minor member of the ring working as a flight attendant. In a moment of panic, she pushed him over a railing to his death. Meele's initial attempt to frame a fellow flight attendant went awry, so she did what she could to cast suspicion on Edgeworth. He was able to clear his name and identify Meele as the real culprit, but Franziska's appearance in the investigation tipped him off that something larger was going on.

Meanwhile, Colin Devorae had escaped from prison and returned to the Amano household under the guise of their butler, Oliver Deacon. He did it to keep an eye on his only daughter, Lauren, but Ernest Amano still planned to use him. When Lance Amano, his teenage son, fell into money problems, Ernest forced the cooperation of Lauren and "Oliver" to stage a kidnapping so that he could justify giving a significant sum of money away as a 'ransom.' Interpol had taken an interest in the case, so Amano contacted Edgeworth in hopes of securing a sympathetic investigator, knowing the prosecutor felt a debt of gratitude to him for financing his studies abroad (and unaware that he was no longer a faithful disciple of von Karma). While Edgeworth blundered through the situation by himself, Devorae turned on Lance Amano when Lauren was absent; in the ensuing fight, Lance shot and killed Devorae. He then knocked the unsuspecting Edgeworth unconscious and took him captive in order to convince Lauren that Oliver Deacon had betrayed them; Lauren, given a prop gun, shot and "killed" Deacon herself, unaware that it was all staged. Edgeworth was rescued by Kay Faraday, who had sought him out for her own reasons.

Shi-Long Lang was investigating the case for Interpol, hoping Ernest Amano would do something incriminating so they could justify taking him in. Unbeknownst to him, Alba had again sent his female operative to pose as a member of Interpol and gain his trust, this time under the name Shih-na. Lang was bitterly distrustful of prosecutors because one of them had disgraced his family name; doubly so in this case because he knew that at least one in the Prosecutor's Office was a member of the ring. He did his best to keep Edgeworth out of the investigation entirely, but the prosecutor managed to work through the web of lies to uncover Lance's crime. He was aided by Kay, who used her father's "Little Thief" hologram projector to revisit areas Edgeworth couldn't physically access. Ernest Amano finally showed his hand by openly obstructing the investigation, but the police took him into custody before Lang could question him, and the evidence was hustled off by local prosecutor Jacques Portsman and detective Buddy Faith.

That evening, Portsman received an order from Alba to find and retrieve the videotape taken from Amano and Coachen's directives card hidden in the KG-8 files. The files were currently held by Edgeworth (he had inherited them with the office), so Portsman tricked Maggey Byrde into opening the door for him. He rifled the files and attempted to open the evidence locker but found nothing. As he was putting the files away, Buddy Faith confronted him, so he shot and killed the detective and confiscated the evidence he was carrying from the Amano case. A few moments later, Detective Badd (who had swiped the master key) entered the office and rifled the files himself. Edgeworth himself returned to his office at this inopportune time and was shocked to discover the body; Badd held him at gunpoint to keep Edgeworth from seeing his face and made off with one of the binders.

Edgeworth eventually deduced that Portsman had been the killer, but at this point he didn't know the identity of the other intruder, nor the significance of the videotape Portsman had tried to hide. When he met Kay the next morning, he told her he thought the Yatagarasu had paid him a visit the previous evening to look at the KG-8 files, based on the black directives card Portsman had dropped.

In the seven years between the second KG-8 incident and the present day, Codohpia had split into two countries called Allehbast and Babahl. Alba was now ambassador of Allehbast, while an affable man with no connection to the smuggling ring, Colias Palaeno, was ambassador of Babahl. They shared offices at the California embassy, which was symmetrical enough to give each country its own half, with a neutral theater between them. Coachen was Palaeno's secretary and Alba's second in the smuggling ring, and he convinced Palaeno to go to a tourism-based economy based on many flyers and coupons and bottles of souvenir ink. This would enable him to keep large amounts of ink and paper on hand, and to run his own printing press, largely in the service of the smuggling ring. Palaeno was unaware of his subordinate's activities, but Alba feared Coachen's ambitions and hatched a plot to get rid of him.

The "Yatagarasu" had primed the pump by sending a card ahead to the joint embassy, warning that he was coming to steal their darkest secrets. This prompted Kay Faraday to seek out Edgeworth, knowing this could be their chance to catch the person who last laid claim to the title: Calisto Yew. There was to be a reunification ceremony, where the ambassador whose country held the genuine Primidux Statue would be named ambassador of the new Codohpia. Palaeno already knew that Babahl had the fake one, but Coachen had secretly hired DeMasque II to steal the one in Allehbast. Alba, in the meanwhile, knew that Interpol was close to uncovering the smuggling ring and that the upcoming renovations on the Babahlese side of the embassy would be a good opportunity for someone to 'discover' Coachen's crimes, particularly if he were killed by the vengeful "Yatagarasu."

That evening, Edgeworth and Kay went to the embassy. Lang, Shih-na, and Franziska were already there with Interpol, as were Detectives Badd and Gumshoe because of the Yatagarasu threat. Early in the evening, during the Steel Samurai stage show, Alba ambushed Coachen backstage and killed him with a knife, though Coachen managed to leave a minor wound on Alba before he died. He concealed the body in a pushcart that the Steel Samurai (actually Larry Butz in costume) was due to bring into Allebahst as part of a publicity event. Then he had his embassy staff clear the room, though not before a hungry Wendy Oldbag took possession of several boxes of Samurai Dogs which had been left behind.

Shortly afterward, Shih-na took command of the third floor of the Babahl side of the embassy, where Coachen's office and the Babahlese Primidux Statue were kept. To facilitate the smuggling of Coachen's body back to his office where it could be discovered, she set fires on the fourth and fifth floors, activating the fire control systems and preoccupying everyone else. After taking care to be seen helping fight the fires, she descended to the courtyard and jumped into a concealed cistern which was draining as water was pulled to suppress the flames. Meanwhile, in Allebahst, Alba pushed the cart into the cistern in the rose garden. When both reservoirs were nearly empty, the pipe connecting the two opened, allowing her to retrieve the body; Alba then opened the taps again to raise the water and let her escape. She then used the elevators to take the body upstairs, dumped it in the office, and altered the murder weapon to make it look like it had come from Babahl.\\

The next order of business was to swap the statues so that it would seem Coachen had been successful in stealing the real one. Alba used two small bolts disguised as plant stakes to pass a wire across the courtyard to Coachen's window, and they used the wire to make a belt with the aid of the office fans. Shih-na covered the Babahl statue with cloth and attached it to the wire while Alba was doing the same with the Allebahst statue. When he released his statue, its descending weight rotated the belt, pulling the lighter fake statue up. Shih-na hid the wire in the office and concealed the bolts on her person. Alba was discovered by DeMasque while handling his own statue, but he overpowered and killed the man. To keep his wound from raising suspicion, he smeared blood on his garden shears in preparation for a claim of self defense; then he realized Larry had left his prop sword behind and bloodied it as well, thinking to frame him. Larry unwittingly made that even easier when he was caught climbing down a chimney, thinking to woo the actress who played the Pink Princess.

With the statues moved, Alba and Shih-na worked simultaneously to cause a panic. Shih-na set more fires on the third floor, while Alba turned on some spotlights he had carefully manipulated to cast a Yatagarasu shadow on the stage. Edgeworth and Kay emerged from the Jammin' Ninja stage show about this time, unaware of what had happened; Shih-na, disguised in a black coat, allowed herself to be seen near the open air stage to tempt Kay into giving chase. She ran into Coachen's office, locked the door, and set fire to a large amount of counterfeit bills; then she used a hidden door in the fireplace to move to the next room, where she discarded the coat. Ambassador Palaeno, thinking he had seen Coachen go into the office, ran after him and unlocked the door but could not get in due to the high flames across the doorway; Kay ran in once the fire had died out and stumbled across the body. Shih-na came out of her hiding spot and arrested Kay, hoping to blame the murder on this self-styled Yatagarasu and seize Little Thief for her own.

Shih-na had left the Yatagarasu's Key on Coachen and planted an incriminating document in his safe where it would be noticed. Franziska, at the least, was distracted by evidence that Coachen was the head of the ink trade, but Edgeworth was more interested in finding information that would clear Kay's name. Unfortunately for Shih-na, his eyes were sharp enough to notice that the murder weapon came from Allebahst. Things continued to unravel for Shih-na after that; once Edgeworth had been to Allebahst and seen the fireplace trick, he grasped that only she could be the person in the coat and forced her confession with the aid of Kay. Alba did not come to her defense, so she let slip that she wasn't the one who had killed Coachen.

Alba wisely tried to run them out after this, but Lang tempted him with the possibility of getting Franziska framed for the murder of DeMasque. It backfired, as Edgeworth was able to grasp the means of exchanging the statues once he had more information on Alba's office. The ambassador knew his position was risky since he had killed Coachen in the theater — technically in California, not Allebahst or Babahl — so he redoubled his efforts to force the investigators out or leave himself. But he had underestimated their persistence and the role of random chance: slowly the evidence piled up against him, and at last he was convicted by the most unlikely clue of all — a drop of blood on a box of novelty hot dogs.

Epilogue

In the wake of the investigation, Edgeworth prosecutes Alba, with Lang and Kay in attendance to watch the former ambassador get his due. Alba is scheduled for a second trial a week later in Allebahst, which Franziska will be conducting. Lucky man.

As for the others whose lives have been affected...

Rhoda Teneiro has unexpectedly made her name by selling her suitcases online, where the garish design is considered avant-garde. The airline has even chosen her to do the decor for their new line of jumbo jets.

Zinc Lablanc II has come into possession of the Primidux Statue, which Ambassador Palaeno sold to him at a very good price. (It's a bit light, though...)

Franziska von Karma has received another offer to work with Interpol, though for the moment she's relishing the thought of her day in court with Alba.

Officer Meekins is now ex-officer Meekins, since he somehow managed to drop and lose his badge as well as his gun.

Ema Skye is returning to her studies in Europe, a bit disappointed she didn't get much investigation time but certain she'll assist Edgeworth as a real forensic scientist someday.

Lauren Paups received a relatively mild sentence for her involvement in Lance Amano's 'kidnapping,' but she's still not over her habit of falling for the wrong guy...

The Judge is feeling a bit left out that so much goes on outside the court. Perhaps he should team up with a bailiff and go fight crime!

Maggey Byrde was fired from her security job in the Prosecutor's Office, but at this point she's almost excited to see what her next job will turn out to be.

Colias Palaeno has become ambassador for the newly-reunited Codohpia and is happily using the embassy's notoriety to attract the tourist crowd.

Larry Butz, unsurprisingly, never won the heart of Mindy, but he and his latest girl, Miharu, have big plans to run a hot dog shop in France. Blue hotdogs on blue buns should be a big hit, right?

Detective Badd testified in Alba's trial, and from Lang's dialogue he may still be needed as a consultant to help mop up the last of the smuggling ring.

Wendy Oldbag received a letter from Edgey-poo, asking her to take care of her hip... and to take her costume head off sooner next time. She doesn't see why he should be so concerned...

And Kay Faraday is unshaken in her resolve to become the next Great Thief Yatagarasu... once she finds the right two other people to ally with... but she insists that she'll be a noble thief who only steals the truth that dirty businesses and other shady organizations try to hide. The world she wants to make is a world where the Yatagarasu isn't needed, which Edgeworth agrees is a dream worth fighting for.

As a final indignity, she and Gumshoe drag Edgeworth into a group photo. Needless to say, it's not flattering.

---