| Spring Palace | |
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| Available evidence | Contest rules Inscription Crime Scene Notes Lunar teapot Fingermarks Mansion key |
| Locations in Zodiac Art Gallery | |
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The Spring Palace is one of four rooms in Jeffrey Master's mansion connected to the fountain patio. From the entrance to the patio, it is the leftmost of the four rooms. In 2000, Master used it during the finals of his confectionery design competition for building his own entry - a scene of a ship complete with water and a treasure chest, all made of chocolate - as a baseline for the other finalists. During judging, however, the body of Isaac Dover, one of the finalists, was discovered inside the chocolate chest, leading to Master's conviction for his murder. As well, Dover's contest entry, consisting of frozen sherbet sculptures of the signs of the zodiac, disappeared. Over 18 years later, Katherine Hall, Master's adopted daughter, opened the Zodiac Art Gallery inside the mansion, claiming to have made replicas of Dover's sculptures. The sculptures representing the signs of the spring months were displayed inside the Spring Palace.
The deadly contest[]
- Main article: IS-7 Incident
When Jeffrey Master's parents died, he inherited not only the mansion, but also the Master Group pharmaceutical company and the "Angel's Recipe", a document containing procedures to make medicines not yet available to the public. Master, being a world-renowned pastry chef by trade, had no use for the Angel's Recipe, but also did not want to give it to just anyone, so he held a confectionery design competition in his mansion with it as the prize. The Angel's Recipe was held inside a chocolate frame in the room that Master would use for his own "entry" during the finals. When the time came for the finals, Master assigned each of the three remaining contestants a room and went into the room that he had designated for himself to making his chocolate ship design.
One of the contestants, Dane Gustavia, suffered from ageusia, a disorder that robbed him of his sense of taste. He entered the contest seeking the Angel's Recipe for a cure to his affliction. He secretly had his son taste-test his entries. However, his son went missing during the finals, leaving him with no reasonable shot at winning.
Before the judging, while Master had tea outside with Hall and another contestant, Delicia Scones, Gustavia sneaked into Master's room to look at the Angel's Recipe. Finding a cure for his disorder within its pages, he found a camera in the room and began taking photos so that he would at least get what he had been seeking. However, Isaac Dover entered the room and caught him in the act. Realizing what was going on, Dover mocked Gustavia, causing the desperate chef to try to attack him, only to be hit first and sent crashing into one of two rock salt lamps in the room. Dover then threatened to expose Gustavia's secret unless he was paid a handsome amount in cash. This pushed Gustavia over the edge, and he took the other lamp and struck his adversary on the head, killing him.
Gustavia temporarily hid the body inside Master's chocolate treasure chest while he took the lamps outside. Earlier, Scones had been disqualified for cheating, so in contempt he planted the lamps inside her dessert entry to direct suspicion on her. Later, Scones entered Master's room and sampled every chocolate ornament inside, including the Angel Recipe's chocolate frame, a chocolate candlestick and a chocolate stand holding the ship up. Soon afterward, the stand broke and the ship toppled over, breaking the lid of the treasure chest. Hall, who was right outside, heard the noise and entered the room to discover the body. She took a photo of the scene and reported the crime to the police.
After the discovery, Gustavia went into Dover's room to hide the body inside one of his frozen sherbet sculptures. He also broke off part of the treasure chest that was stained with the victim's blood, and threw it into the stream leading to the fountain in the patio, where it dissolved. Once the authorities arrived, Gustavia assisted Detective Tyrell Badd in the investigation. The police neglected to tell anyone in charge of the investigation that the body had gone missing, leading them to assume that the body had already been taken in for an autopsy.
Master was charged with the murder, and defense attorney Gregory Edgeworth took his case and visited the crime scene while Gustavia and Badd were there discussing the bits and pieces that were now missing from the various chocolate ornaments. Badd was initially suspicious of Edgeworth, but allowed him to investigate the crime scene. However, Edgeworth's skill in argument impressed Badd to the point that the latter allowed the former to come with him to investigate Scones' cream castle. Eventually, Edgeworth managed to figure out that the body had gone missing due to the presence of the dissolved chocolate chunk in the fountain, as well as the fact that no autopsy report had been released. By the time the case went to court, however, the police had produced a forged autopsy report, preventing Edgeworth from using this fact in his defense.