[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

maybe I'm missing something but if this "non-murderer" is aware of the murderer, and the murderer is aware of the endgame explosion, then the non-murderer has nothing to cover.

Yes, but only if the non-murderer is also aware of the endgame explosion.

Actually, my current best guess about the endgame explosion is that it is primed the moment someone opens up the gold storage, sort of like a failsafe against someone who opens up the door without actually having finished solving the epitaph -- and someone always finds the gold and forgets about the remaining lines...

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

I think it's important to consider the context here, because it generates three perfectly good reasons for non-murderers to stake people. This is a closed circle serial murder, so before anyone can worry about the police, they have to worry about staying alive.

*snip*

Third, the servants' prime suspect in that situation should be Battler, the only person other than Maria and the victims who they know left Natsuhi's supervision at some point. They'd already been psyching him out about Beatrice before the murders were discovered, so building on that would give them an opportunity to scare him and prevent him from committing more murders. He might even accidentally reveal something he shouldn't know about the second twilight. This idea is backed up by the fourth twilight, since staking Kinzo is meaningless unless it's directed at someone who didn't know Kinzo was dead.

Well, I imagine yes, I missed that bit of context.

Mind you, about Kinzo's corpse. There's something else odd about it. I am now pretty convinced that it is actually stored in the study, marinating in the embalming liquid -- formaldehyde and glutaraldehyde mostly -- and is generally tossed out of the window of his study and burned because the siblings are closing in and now's the last moment to do so before it is actually discovered, or, alternatively, because someone thinks of another clever use for it like in Ep3 or possibly Ep4. In most cases, the one burning the corpse expects it stays undiscovered until it's pure ash, which can then be disposed of at leisure. That fits the available hints quite well.

What doesn't is that I still don't see a rational or emotional reason not to burn or bury it immediately at all if the intent really was to declare Kinzo missing from the start. Something must have prevented that or made it a bad idea to do.

What could it be at all?

Originally Posted by Bluemail

But it should be Beatrice setting the ending explosion though, otherwise it wouldn't be "Beatrice" killing Battler in the end of EP4. Unless it is really some other method there, which I can't think of.

Doesn't have to be if Beatrice is the one who finds the gold and then forgets to reset the timer. That is, Beatrice doesn't have to intentionally kill Battler by the endgame explosion even if she is the one who causes it.