| "A young man will soon pass away. His death will be the beginning of everything. The world will begin to roll like a stone. ...Prepare a large box and float it on the water. Then... set loose eleven hares!" —Mistress Roxane, Episode 01 |
| Death of the Fortune-Teller | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Information | |
| Date Started | 1914 (before First World War) |
| Date Ended | Spring of 1924, afternoon |
| Location | Roxane's estate, Sauville |
| Result | Resolved |
| Media Duration | |
| Light Novel | Volume I |
| Anime | Gosick Episode 01 |
| Manga | (skipped) |
| Involved Persons | |
| Victims | Mistress Roxane |
| Suspects | Lee |
| Chronology | |
| Previous Case | N/A |
| Current Case | Death of the Fortune-Teller |
| Next Case | The Queen Berry's Voyage |
| Case Overview Index | |
The case on the Death of the Fortune-Teller is the first case featured in the Gosick anime series.
Roxane is a woman who is known for her ability to look into the future, even having a sizable amount of followers who devote themselves to hearing her prophecies.
In one of the meetings she organized with her followers, she declared that a man will die in the future, starting a chain of events that would lead to an apocalyptic scenario. She then asks her followers to heed her advice: to let a box float into the sea, and to release eleven hares to "reverse" the grim future that awaits them.
Ten years later, Roxane is later found dead with a gunshot wound to the left eye. It appears that her case is unusual, considering how she was killed, and this was solved by a young girl named Victorique de Blois, even without looking at the scene of the crime.
Background[]
One night, an elderly Roxane is resting on one of the rooms in her family's estate. Beforehand, she received a visit from her granddaughter, and she joins her grandmother's two servants as the only companions of the fortune-teller at home.
Suddenly, they heard a gunshot from nowhere. Frightened by the sound they heard, the servants and the granddaughter gathered to warn the master of the house about the gunshot. The Arab servant talks to her mistress in her native language to approach the door to avoid being shot from outside. Meanwhile, the Indian manservant, who heard the gunshot after tending to the hares Roxane use in her rituals, prepares a hatchet to break the door with, since the door is locked from the inside.
The granddaughter, however, stops the manservant from proceeding, reminding them that since she is the heir to her grandmother's properties, she cannot afford to have the wooden door to be destroyed.
Because of this, the Arab maid resorts to a drastic measure: destroying the lock using a pistol. The maid successfully tore through the lock with the gun, however, when they open the door, a gruesome scene unfolds: Roxane, sitting motionlessly on her wheelchair with a gunshot to her left eye.
Profiles[]
Location of the Crime[]
Roxane is killed in the safety of her own house, inside her bedroom where she stays to rest. According to the servants, they know that at the time of Roxane's murder, the window is locked shut and there are no people inside the room aside from the victim.
Persons Involved[]
- Roxane - an elderly fortune-teller and owner of a large estate located in Sauville. She is usually alone in her estate, except for two servants which are of Arabian and Indian nationalities, respectively. Roxane is revealed to be fluent in Arabic.
- Servants - these two foreign servants are Roxane's only companions in her mansion. One of them is an Indian man who is tasked with tending the hares she usually frees in certain ceremonies, and the other is a woman of Arabic descent, later named as Lee.
- Roxane's Granddaughter - she visited her grandmother at the time of its death. She is presumably the heiress of the estate as she personally attested.
Progress[]
The case is later submitted to the police agency in Sauville, where Detective Grevil de Blois is assigned for the case. After gathering some initial observations in Roxane's estate, he heads to the library tower located in Saint Marguerite Academy. Atop the vast library complex, he encounters Kazuya Kujo and Victorique, whom he talks to regarding the case he is currently handling. (In fact, he is using Victorique's detective abilities to his advantage.)
After unraveling the case and its basic facts to Victorique, she instantly points the Arab maid as the culprit, much to Grevil's surprise. Using the clues that Grevil revealed, Victorique starts to piece together the clues to the solving of the case.
According to Victorique, the gunshot first heard by the inhabitants of the house is made by the Arab maid in another room while the others are away. She then pretends to warn her mistress of imminent danger outside in Arabic, in which only she and Roxane are fluent in. The maid then used this chance to perform the crime, exploiting the elderly fortune-teller's trust with her servants, and shoots Roxane through the keyhole and into the fortune-teller's eye, killing her instantly.
Grevil, thinking that all of the information he needs to solve the case have been laid out, he plans to return to the headquarters. However, he is left with the motive and the target of the first gunshot unknown. Fortunately, Grevil sorts this himself, and because of his "contributions" to the solving of the case, he is richly rewarded by the granddaughter of the fortune-teller with a kiss and a yacht, much to Kazuya's disappointment.
He later tells Victorique about what he discovered, that the first gunshot is to the mirror that Roxane uses in her fortune-telling, and the motive is something that the Arab maid referred to as "revenge of the box".
Conclusion[]
Since Victorique is demanded by Kazuya to be aptly rewarded for solving the case herself, Grevil takes them to the maiden voyage of his newly-owned yacht. However, the escape of the Arab maid puts their voyage on hold. Meanwhile, Victorique is not convinced that the case is resolved with what has unfolded.
She then discovers an invitation to Roxane to an event called the "Miniature Garden Box Evening", a dinner with hare as main course to be held at a luxury boat. Kazuya sees this as a chance to know more about Roxane's background, so they used the invitation to participate.
Implications on Future Events[]
The incident is later linked to the "Miniature Garden Box Evening", with Roxane invited as one of its supposed visitors until her death. The dinner is soon revealed to be an elaborate stage to avenge the events that had happened ten years ago, the Queen Berry's Voyage.