Ru, Darian, Rhiannon, and Cliff escort Camilla to the dining room to revive, while Eugene, Fr. Berman, Skyler, and Calahan examine the privy.
With a little care and removal from the shock, Camilla reawakens. "Oh, Dear Lady... Is my lord... is he really... Oh, oh no..."
Carefully ushering the remaining worms aside, Eugene examines the porcelain bowl. The stench of death and feces is grueling.
Listening carefully to the police's questions, Camilla replies, "Um, if you mean his daily menu, he has always had a taste for the exotic. He rather prides himself on being able to swallow any, eh, delicacy."
Eugene determines that there is little more to be seen from here, and looks for a mechanism for the toilet. Calahan kicks the bloody walls, but they hold solid as stone.
"He's had a number of aristocrats through lately. Lady Nostra, Archbishop d'Henri, Mr. Sceleris, Chancellor Markuzi. Commissioner Gis stopped by last night, but I suppose you know that."
Fr. Berman notices a small receptacle in the wall above eye level. With a quick boost, he confirms that it is filled with water, only slightly reddened by spatter. A short chain protrudes from the wall below the vessel, ending in a well-worn wooden finial.
"As for the privy, it's the new popular design for bedchambers. A separate room in which to relieve oneself, hidden behind a panel. The servant pours a pitcher of water into a high receptacle, eliminate into the basin, and pull the chain. Your effluence is dispatched directly into the sewer, washed clean with the water. Your servant refills the receptacle once you are finished. I believe Mr. Sceleris himself invented the system."
Pulling the chain, indeed, empties the receptacle into the porcelain basin, and its gory contents flow down the hole--although plenty of stains remain. Eugene confirms that the basin could be removed from its place and put aside for a better look at the sewer connection.
"And... I would never mention this, a servant would lose her position for this... but the nobles would meet to discuss something they would only refer to as the White Tinker. They thought the White Tinker disgraceful and bound for the gallows, or perhaps... useful."
The bowl is lifted from its moorings and moved to the side. The sewer shaft descends into the depths. Too dark at first, light is brought in. The shaft, although only about a single hand-span in diameter and at least two storeys long, glistens in red all the way until the light disappears into the sewer's darkness.