In this episode’s establishing scenes, the part between the cousins at the beach was very important, as this time around Battler specifically noted that a.) Shannon was his first love, and more importantly b.) that he believed that his memory could be jogged to the point where he could remember what he said six years ago, which might just been enough motivation to explain how the Beatrice persona was able to cast away the other two personae, explaining how both of them ‘died’ during the first twilight.
Alternatively, if you subscribe to the idea that Yasu is not so crazy and that her personae are just facets of her true personality instead of separate entities, it is entirely possible that the “death” of both Shannon and Kanon was a lot more pragmatic, necessitated by the First Twilight’s closed room chain.
Six bodies are found in locked rooms, with magic circles painted on the doors. The first body is Shannon’s, it was found on the first floor parlor by breaking through a window. She had her master key and an envelope with the key for the second floor guest room. In that room, Kumasawa’s body was found with her master key and another envelope with the key for the third floor waiting room. In that room, Gohda’s corpse was found with his master key and an envelope with the key to the second floor VIP room. In that room, Genji’s corpse was found with his master key and an envelope with the key to the underground boiler room. In that room, Kinzo’s body was found, with the key to the chapel. Finally, inside the chapel, Kanon’s body was found with his master key and the key to the first floor parlor, which closed the circle.
Before I dissect this, I have to say that this was my favorite closed room in the entire series. :)
That said, its trick was relatively simple to figure out once one takes the sequence of the rooms into account, namely that there was only one order they could be opened. The chain had to start with the first floor parlor, as it was the only room which had windows that could be reached from the outside. After Shannon’s (fake) corpse was found inside, the adults had moved on the the next room. Notice the sequence: first floor, second floor, third floor, second floor, basement. Because of this, they had to spend a considerable amount of time moving from place to place, and after they left the parlor, it stopped being a closed room because of the broken window. Thus Shannon got up, left the room through said window, changed into Kanon and entered the chapel, all the while the adults kept running around in the mansion, giving her ample time to do so. The chapel door was, once again, open from the beginning, so she just had to enter, close the door behind her and then fake Kanon’s death.
In this episode, Eva apparently solved the Epitaph and found the hidden room on the island with the gold. It is established for sure that the VIP room and the gold is real. Also, Eva’s train of thought falls exactly in line with the official explanation of the riddle, therefore it is fairly sure that she really did find the gold.
Maria and Rosa’s corpses were found in the rose garden. Rosa’s body was on the fence, with her medulla oblongata skewered by a pointy ornament on the fence (for the less medically inclined, the medulla oblongata is the area where the brain and the spinal cord connect to each other, stabbing through here is more or less 100% fatal, it’s literally stabbing into the brain itself through the hole at the bottom of the skull). Maria was apparently strangled barehanded.
Funnily enough, Eva practically spells out what happened. The culprit attacked Rosa, she fell back and accidentally skewered her head on the fence. The witness, Maria, was killed via strangling because the guest house was too close and the culprit wanted to avoid firing a gun and gain the adults’ attention. As for who the culprit was, Eva is the obvious answer.
We were shown that she had a meta-event during the murders (“dreaming” about the death of the two), only Hideyoshi was providing her alibi, and she could easily get out through the window and get back unnoticed (btw, the Umineko Wiki’s red truth page is mistaken in #4 when referring to this twilight, as Hideyoshi’s and Eva’s room was actually on the 1st floor).
The reason why Eva attacked Rosa was probably because of her paranoid mistrust of her telling the siblings about the gold. It is also quite possible that at least Rosa’s death was accidental, as in Eva only tried to get the gun from Rosa, who then slipped and accidentally hit her head the worst way possible. After this things just spiraled out of control by themselves.
Also note the change in modus operandi: This is the first time the stakes weren’t involved in a twilight past the first one, which is also a clue about there being a different culprit.
Also, if we try to incorporate the meta-even into the explanation, it is possible that Maria was actually strangled by Yasu instead of Eva, though it makes little difference either way.
(This twilight is pretty well explained in the episode itself, but I will still write it down for completion’s sake.)
The bodies of Rudolf, Kyrie and Hideyoshi were found in the hall of the mansion, with the usual staking pattern, after they volunteered to go there and get food.
The murders were committed by Eva, possibly with the help of Yasu. Eva could freely exit her room through the window in her room in the guest house and enter the mansion through the parlor’s broken window. It also isn’t wholly unthinkable that the victims were killed elsewhere and were hauled into the hall later, explaining their disheveled clothes. The stakes were drilled into their bullet holes postmortem by Yasu, as usual.
The reason why Kyrie and Rudlof wanted to get out was because they suspected that Hideyoshi was covering for Eva and wanted to detain and question him (explaining #1-3). Eva killed the two to cover her tracks.
Hideyoshi is a special case, as it is assumed that Kyrie, who didn’t receive a fatal wound, tried to shoot Eva, but Hideyoshi shielded her. However, he didn’t die instantly, so Eva returned to the guest house and rushed everyone to the crime scene to save him (note that she specifically requested Nanjo to come along), but by the time they got there Yasu had already done the stakings and thus killed Hideyoshi for good.
Krauss and Natsuhi had disappeared from the lobby, apparently during the few minutes while Eva was away in the bathroom. Their bodies were found under the arbor in the rose garden. The cause of death was strangulation by wire and they had the usual staking.
It was actually noted that Eva made coffee for everyone, allowing her to drug them with sleeping pills (which could have come from either Rosa, since it was shown she had ‘tantrum pills’ for Maria, or Nanjo). Note that the cousins who had from the same coffee also fell asleep. Once the two had fallen unconscious Eva strangled them and dragged them outside.
Again, the staking was done postmortem by Yasu.
George disappeared from the guest house at the same time as Krauss and Natsuhi. His body was found in the mansion’s parlor, with the numbers 07151129 freshly written on the locked door.
Tricky wording. George really didn’t “go” down the stairs, he was carried down by Yasu while still unconscious during the time Eva was hauling the bodies of Krauss and Natsuhi out to the arbor.
She then took him back to the parlor where he was killed.
Since Eva doesn’t call Shannon out on the murder in the parlor, it is safe to assume that while Eva probably met Yasu when she discovered the gold, she doesn’t know about Yasu’s alternate identities.
The number on the door has two different significances. If you break it up into two parts, as 0715 and 1129, it creates two dates, Battler’s birthday (July 15th) and the day Shannon solved the epitaph (November 29th), linking the two. However, as it is later revealed, it is also the pin-code of the safes that were sent to the families of the victims as “compensation”.
I hereby present my case of why Yasu and Eva worked together but Eva was unaware of Yasu also being Shannon and Kanon by logical order:
However, she had to know Yasu, as:
Conclusion: Yasu and Eva were working together, however Eva didn’t know about Yasu being Shannon and Yasu was also following her own objectives on her own (see the staking of Hideyoshi and the murder of George).
Nanjo was killed in the servants’ room, the blinded Jessica somehow escaped to the parlor.
(Holy hell, that’s a lot of red… -.-‘)
One word: Yasu. She shot Nanjo (from outside the room, thus fulfilling #16), then led Jessica to the parlor while acting as Kanon, so her existence simply sidesteps the entire mountain of red truths.
It’s actually a little hilarious that #31 pretty much denies witches, but Battler is so caught up in the apparent logical error that he doesn’t even notice it. :P