Chapter 8- The phantom of the opera part 4

Lightning struck. "Milord this room give me the creeps... So what's in this diary?" Said Judith shivering.

The diary was marked with the initials H. Fenton.

Before opening it, Sophia gulped and hesitated but if it was a clue to solving this serial murder case then she had no choice but to read it.

" As days passed, I found myself thinking about R more and more, it was a bit suffocating but when I finally mustered up the courage to face R, he accepted my feelings and we began courting each other in secret as he is a commoner and I am the daughter of a Viscount." Read Sophia.

Who is R? Thought Sophia deeply nd continued reading " Today we went to watch sunset at the beach..."

"Ah! I get it, the killer is definitely the R miss Fenton was referring to in her diary, a lover, but who could be R? one hint is that he is a commoner, but all of the drama club members are commoners..." exclaimed Sophia.

"Then the initials of the club members are F.M, M.Y, L.L, T.H, A.S, E.C, G.R, G.R, S.D, M.A, no one with R as their first names... normally one would call a lover by their first names." Said Judith.

"The victims were Elizabeth, Lai Li, and Frederick so far... if this is revenge then... Ahhh, let's just try to get some sleep or my brain will not function tomorrow!" exclaimed Sophia while ruffling her hair in frustration.

The next morning, miss Marianne Apricot's corpse was found slowly swinging from the jujube dates tree across her room window, with a thin wire making a creaking noise as it swayed in the wind.

"Ahhhhhh I cannot take it anymore!" cried Sara-Jane Druitt and ran off, shivering, eyes dilated and opened wide as if she was hiding something. There were footprints from the door step to the tree, and it was proven to be footprints from Marianne's own sandals but judging from the scene, it was definitely murder, for the tree on which she was hanged was too tall and there was no way she could have climbed alone up there to hang herself.

"This, this killer is mimicking murder scenes from the play and is acting exactly like the phantom of the opera." Said Gray. "How so?" asked Sophia. "Well in the play, the phantom who's love for Christine is not returned starts to kill people. He killed another opera singer who was Christine's rival by dropping the chandelier on her, the next one was hanged, then the next one was drowned, but the one where a corpse fell from a chimney is not in the play. And the order is a bit messed up." said Gabriel.

Judith went to Sara-Jane who was crouched and shivering in the corner and patted her head.

"I am next, I will be killed next....it's all my fault, please forgive me and let me live!" cried Sara-Jane.

"Are you hiding something? Please tell me the truth or you will really die next." Demanded Sophia.

"I, I, it was all my fault. I just wanted to scare her a little but I did not expect... I hated her, so did Marianne, and Elizabeth. She kept shining as an actress, and took the lead role of Christine. so we invited her to the chemistry lab and threw some sulfuric acid on her dress just to scare her but, with the shock, she lost her footing and knocked the table and fell, the sulfuric acid bottle that was on the table

crashed on her face causing her to be disfigured and later causing her suicide... and Fred, he, he played with her, she was beautiful so boys were after her, she trusted Fred, but he was two timing, he took the liberty of taking her virtue and was engaged to Elizabeth, Helena was with a child too thanks to Fred but Elizabeth caused here to miscarry and no noble men wanted to marry her, even her father lost hope for her but she was still shining on stage...." said Sara-Jane and she started crying.

"Oh my god, how..." aid Judith who was left with no words. "Stay in Judith's room from now on, Judith guard her well, I am going to re inspect the crime scenes for now." asked Sophia.

" Hey, something is wrong, the costume and mask of the phantom has disappeared from the props cupboard!" exclaimed professor Phantomhive. "The killer is probably the one who did this in tat case." Said Alexander and everyone's belongings was searched but the costume was nowhere to be found.

"Oi oi, this is a joke! We are the only guests here... and I don't believe any of us would be a serial killer. is there a ghost here?" Cried Anthony. "Oh actually there was another guest who checked in yesterday, his name was Featherington, but he asked us to not disturb him as he has a lot of work to do and he will be eating in his room." said Madame Lafleur. Sophia the asked if there was anything particular about him, the maids then said that his face was covered in bandages. On hearing this, Sophia felt like something was definitely eerie about this and rushed to Mr. Featherington's room. The door was not locked and on opening, a disaster was found. The room was trashed, the suitcase was empty, the windows wide opened. "That means this Featherington is the killer, no doubt about it then since we all have alibis too when Elizabeth was killed and, no way I am going to let myself be killed like this, I am going to live this island, I do not want to live on the same island where a serial killer is lurking in the dark and laughing at us as we are being slaughtered one by one." cried Anthony while running outside but to his surprise the boat was gone and the storm was too strong for anyone from mainland to come as if the killer wanted to isolate them and really slaughter them one by one.

'A corpse falling from the chimney is not in the play, if the killer was really mimicking the play and his motive is really revenge then Lai Li had nothing to do with it. But then that means Lai Li may have found something as a clue to the killer's identity or alibi trick so the killer was hasty to silence her' thought Sophia while inspecting the opera house. "Mathilda, I need your help with an experiment, can you stand on the stage?" asked Sophia suddenly and Mathilda surprised, but agreed.

Later that night, a sound of glass shattering and a scream was heard; it came from Judith's room so Sophia rushed there to see what was going on and to her surprise, standing in the middle of Judith's room was a tall person dressed as the phantom in the play, upon seeing Sophia, he ran out the room and blocked Sophia against the wall in the corridor with a dagger, stared in her eyes for a while and kept running away along the corridor. Sophia removed the dagger that pinned her robe to the wall behind her and ran after the phantom but alas on the turn in the corridor, she lost him completely and bumped into Gabriel who came from the other side of the corridor, followed by the others.

The muddy footprints of the suspect stopped at the window and underneath was a cliff and the rough sea. The phantom's mask was seen floating in water. "ha, hahahahahaa, we are safe now right? there is no way this Mr. Featherington could have survived this fall, the killer is dead, we are safe." exclaimed Gray and Anthony in unison, feeling a sudden relief. However on inspecting that window and the footprints properly, Sophia was not convinced that the killer died.

'Those were not the eyes of someone who could die easily.' thought Sophia upon recalling the suspect's eyes when he stared into hers. 'Those were definitely the eyes of someone who will not give up until his vengeance is complete, I could feel his blood thirst.'