A music box disk was evidence in the trial of Gina Lestrade for the murder of Pop Windibank. It was a disk meant to encrypt government secrets alongside a second disk not included in the court record.
History[]
In the Runaway Room[]
Magnus McGilded made a deal with a telegraph technician called Ashley Graydon; if Graydon was able to steal government secrets then McGilded would pay handsomely for them. Graydon was able to intercept a secret telegram from England to Japan and had his father, Mason Milverton, embed the information into two separate music discs for security, as the information could only be accessed if both discs were used as the same time. McGilded subsequently made the first of the two transactions with Graydon onboard an omnibus and obtained the first music disc.
On a cold February night, McGilded met with Milverton inside an omnibus to proceed with the second transaction. However, an argument ensued, ultimately resulting in McGilded stabbing the man in the chest with a knife, killing him instantly. At that moment, a scream emanated from under his seat; lifting up the cushion revealed a hidden Gina Lestrade alongside her pickpocket tools. McGilded dragged her out and forced the young woman to sit beside Milverton's corpse, getting his blood on her hands in the process.
Fellow passengers Bruce Fairplay and Lay D. Furst looked down inside the carriage from the window above after hearing the commotion and quickly left to get the police. Knowing that the authorities would soon be arriving, McGilded gave his black coat containing the second disc to Beppo, telling him to deposit it with Windibank's Pawnbrokery and paying him to do so. He then told Lestrade not tell the police or anyone else what she had seen or heard. McGilded gave her the deposit receipt for the coat and ordered her to hold it for two months. In the event that he was unable to do it himself, Lestrade would go to the pawn shop in his place and extend the deposit time to prevent it from being sold off as unwanted merchandise. McGilded was soon after arrested for Milverton's murder. With the help of evidence tampering, blackmail, and bribing the witnesses into keeping quiet, Naruhodo got him acquitted, but Graydon burned him alive in the omnibus.
Related to the Unspeakable Story[]
Two months later, Lestrade went to the pawn shop just as she was told to. However, Graydon, under the alias of "Eggert Benedict", came in claiming they were his. After saying the correct password for them, Lestrade reluctantly handed him the disc. However, when "Benedict" demanded something else from her, Lestrade attacked him and got the disc back, getting "Benedict's" blood on it. Sholmes and Naruhodo deduced that it belonged to McGilded and it was confiscated by Tobias Gregson after "Benedict" became desperate with a gun.
A calender with the same blood on the disk.
Later, it was revealed that Sholmes made a replica mold of the disk out of caramel. However, none of the music boxes he could find in London seemed to work with it. After Lestrade got arrested for Windibank death, she revealed that she saw the same disk next to Mason, McGilded hid it and forced her to keep it a secret. During her trial, Barok van Zieks presented it as evidence for a motive despite Gregson's protests. At one point, Naruhodo tried to use one of Sholmes' inventions to prove that the blood on the disk and the blood on the calender in the shop were the same. However, van Zieks and the Judge dismissed Sholmes' inventions as untrustworthy evidence.
When was called as a witness Ashley Graydon, Naruhodo deduced that the blood belonged to him. Since Graydon assured them that he was the disk's owner, van Zieks has him testify. He claimed that Lestrade stole the redemption ticket from him, so he rushed to the shop to attempt to withdraw it, but the disc ended up taken by the police. However, Naruhodo and Iris knew he was lying because McGilded ordered Lestrade to deposit the disc.
Eventually, the music box was received and despite Gregson telling them not to play it, they do it anyway. However, it only played one note over and over again and everyone found it weird. Naruhodo realized that it was Morse Code and found a place to put a second disc. It was actually on Gregson, he decided to shake Nash Skulkin, putting the disc on him, pretend to get him to say why he didn't tell the police about the third gun. This way, when Naruhodo realized Gregson's involvement, he would order a search on him, a detective of the yard, and be ruined when it wasn't found. However, Naruhodo saw through this and order a search of Nash instead. Gregson said he was ordered not to reveal the existence of the disc in court and refused to admit he passed it onto Nash. To get him to confess, Naruhodo decided to play both discs on the music box. The disk Graydon's blood on it played the dots and the clean one Gregson had played the dashes.
The discs actually contained the names of the assassins in the plot to cover up who was responsible for the Professor Killings. It was sent from Mael Stronghart to Seishiro Jigoku.