However, twenty minutes had passed and Mister Gu returned shaking his head. There was nothing. The manager pursed his lips and thought with deep contemplation, "Under her bed, the same way the hammer was found."
Shu and Qi shared a glance. Both growing slightly agitated before hurrying inside and did as he said. When they returned, their faces were covered in dust as Shu answered, "There was nothing."
Seeing the two, Si handed them each a plastic bag of wet handkerchiefs. Willow watched the manager for a while before she finally spoke, "Mister Gu. Please check the condition of the table."
"Again?" Gu looked to her in confusion.
"I mean to say this one." She said as she gestured over to the table before them with a sigh, "I want you to remove the table cloth and tell me the condition of the table."
Gu stared at her in surprise as the manager raised a brow, "I've never said that the game would be limited to the rooms. Just that we don't handle things ourselves."
Hearing this, the manager scowled and stared at her. Mister Gu frowned in exasperation from seeing the conflict between the two and walked over to the table He pulled off the cloth just as the manager was about to stop him.
"Wait!"
But it was too late. What was revealed shortly after he pulled off the cloth was the bare wooden table and a strange imprint on it. Mister Gu raised a brow, "There's a dent in the table."
He touched the dent with his bare hand and could feel the slightly neat edge. Surprised, the others hurried over to see. Shu, who observed it carefully, raised a brow, "The edges are neat. I assume that something heavy was stamped against it. If not, the edges would've been jagged or the wood would've already lifted the table surface."
Willow nodded, "The table itself isn't very cheap. Not what you would find in most hostels."
That's why Willow wondered what the owner was thining placing something of value in a hostel. It wasn't just the material. The designs and carved patterns were of great detail. Hardly passable for someone who could tell the value and doesn't have enough to resort to stealing. Yet, the table was damaged, which lowered its price a great deal.
The details on each pattern were different even though the design was to be a repeat on somewhere else on the body. It was only a guess, but she assumed that the thing was custom made and many custom made items aren't cheap unless you're purchasing a counterfeit.
So, why would the owner have it placed out here?
It was only after Willow had said her words aloud that the manager said out loud, "What's that gotta do with this? Can't the owner make this decision?"
"Of course." Willow agreed, "If that's what the owner wants to do, then that fine too."
After hearing her words, the manager glared at her, but Willow raised a brow. After all, what was there to be upset about with an owner's decision? Willow smiled, "Your turn."
The manager scowled before he turned to Shu, "The window in the girls' room."
"All right." Shu sighed as she took Qi with her.
This time, after the two went in, there was a bit of a conversation and something squeaking loudly. Finally, after five minutes, the two returned as Qi spoke up, "The window is stuck and dusty. There are no marks on it either other than our own."
"How far did it open?" Willow questioned curiously.
"A quarter of the way." Qi responded bluntly.
"Mister Gu," Willow spoke up, "Please go check the coat hanger in the closet."
Hearing this, the manager's eyes lit up in surprise. Mister Gu nodded and returned to them with two jackets, a couple of wallets, a couple of cash, and coins.
The manager glared, "This isn't the money."
"I know." Willow responded bluntly, "Just put it on the table for now."
As mister Gu did as he was told, the manager sighed, "We'll check the coat hanger too."
Surprised by this, Si glanced over to Willow who chose not to glance over back to her.
"He said the coat hanger." The mysterious man spoke up demanding.
"I understand!" Qi said nervously and hurried back into their room before coming back out with a jacket and two scarfs.
From the jacket, she took out a chapstick and a few coins. This time, the manager rested back with a weak scowl. Seeing this, Willow sighed, "I guess the game is starting to get a bit boring. Mister Gu, this will be your last errand."
"What?!" The manager jumped up in bewilderment, "What do you mean?"
"This will be Mister Gu's last errand to the mens' room for me." Willow said with a smile, "Since I have some errands to run, I'd rather get this done before I forget."
Hearing her words, the manager froze with wide eyes as he stared at her in confusion. What did she mean?
"So, you know where the money is and who stole it?" Mister Wu spoke up in surprise, "Why didn't you say so earlier?"
"If I did, then people would still be suspecting me, right?" Willow said with a sigh, "Traveling does take money, but I plan to return to my teacher's place shortly after a month. Why should I be stealing money?"
"So, tell us what happened?" Miss Shu questioned curiously as she heard this, "Do you still say that it was the manager who did this or someone else."
Hearing her words, the manager scowled, "It can't have been me obviously!"
"Who says it wasn't you." Willow sighed, "The story is like this. This isn't something that had been planned on the spot. The manager was the one who mediated this from the start. It doesn't just have to be me either. Sadly, he just had to use me."
"What do you mean?" The manager raised a brow.
She turned to the door, "Wanna bet? If my hypothesis is right, then you would not hurt anyone here and you'll have to do me a favor. But, if I'm wrong, you're free to do whatever you want with them?"
The people in the room froze as they heard the man's voice.
"Including yourself?" The mysterious man questioned.
"Can you hurt me?" She questioned back with a smirk.
Hearing the amusement in her voice, the man chuckled, "Fine. Let's make it a deal, then."
His response brought fear into the two young girls as they turned to Willow.
"What do you mean?" Qi questioned her nervously.
"You didn't think he'd just let us off scotfree did you?" Willow sighed as she leaned to the back of the chair, "He's obviously going to try and do something to us after our game."
"It's like this." Willow frowned, "Last night, you planned to start this and locked yourself in the bathroom. This place has no kitchen, but two rooms and a living room. So, the bathroom was the only place for you to hide. You didn't come out for the majority of the night. Instead, you went out to the living room during midnight and broke open the box with the small hammer. Then, the stashed the money into your pocket and was about to return to the bathroom and hide your money when you heard the door open and snuck away into the bathroom thinking it was probably a thief. However, when you peeked you didn't see a thief. Mister Manager, can you tell me what animal you saw it was?"
The manager frowned, "It was obviously a mouse. Someone threw a mouse from outside to prank us. You said so, remember?"
"Huh?" Mister Wu frowned, "Manager, Miss Willow said that it was a cat."
"What?" The manager frowned and pointed to Willow with a trembling finger, "But, you said it was a mouse!"
"Obviously, I lied." Willow smirked as she placed an arm on the small table side next to her, "It wasn't a cat, but you knew that didn't you? All you remember was that I lied because that was what was important to you. Because it was unusual..."
"You lied?" Miss Qi looked to Willow with surprise across her face.
Hearing this, Si stared at her with narrowed eyes of suspicion, but Willow chose not to pay attention.
Willow smiled and asked, "Well, then? Since the manager didn't tell us what he really saw, I'll just continue with my hypothesis. When the manager saw the animal that snuck out, he was surprised, but even more so when he saw me walk out and close the window after it. then, he came up with the bright idea to pin the blame on me. Not only did I keep my distance, but I came out of the women's room after curfew. With that in mind, he decided to play along and waited till after I went back to sleep that he tossed a couple of bucks under my bed. Then, he returned to his bed, hid the hammer in the empty mattress above him, and went back to sleep."
As she said this, Willow sighed, "Of course, I caught onto it, and gave him back his generosity."
"What?!" The manager shot up in bewilderment as he stared at her in disbelief.
Hearing this, all eyes turned to the manager when they noticed him stand up so quickly. It was then that they've already noticed that something was off about him, but nobody dared say another word. This time was the same.
Not because he had the power, but that they couldn't be certain just yet. It could be that the manager was really guilty or that this woman was pinning her crime on him, instead.
"Something's not right." Mister Wu spoke up, "Didn't he left his money box on the bed last night?"
"Of course." Willow smiled, "And, that's where I'll get my hypothesis proven."
She turned to Gu and smiled, "Mister Gu, please check what's between the crevice the wall and the empty bed."
After hearing this, the manager's face began to pale and sweat flowed from his forehead. Seeing this, Willow knew that he was anxious and the contracted pupils in his eyes showed his fear. There was something she learned when she was in college and it served well when she stepped into Elijah's company.
Using her knowledge from her classes and trials and errors, she learned how to tell obvious emotions of people from their appearance and reactions. She supposes that it had been for the better or worse that the company was just filled with her comrades and friends. Now that the old man had resorted to such an awful trick, she really had no more time to spend on teaching him. Thus, she decided to wrap all this up quickly.
He looked like he wanted to stop Mister Gu, but, in the end, he couldn't bring himself to do anything. All he could manage was stare at the woman before him in terror. It was as if the woman had eyes everywhere and had watched his movement the moment she stepped through the door! Just who was she?!