Part 5
Created | Updated Jun 21, 2003
Demon Drawer had last possession of the security camera tape from the Forum and Firkin, where the attempted assassination took place. Of course, he was eager to hand it over once he understood my dedication at finding his attacker.
At first, I used the footage mainly to determine the actions and timing of events at the pub. These were anything but clear based on the audio transcript alone.
However, I eventually noticed something occurring quietly in the corner of the picture. At first, Redbeard poured himself a drink. Then he turned around, with the drink in hand for a moment. He turned his back to the bar and shuffled to the side away from the camera's gaze. What I saw then was less than a second of motion that I couldn't make out in a far corner of the image.
The Footage
I used a special computer program to lift the corner image from the rest of the shot, and then slow it down somewhat. The result is a grainy, jumpy black-and-white image. But what is clear is that someone switched one Guinness for another on the pub counter. And if you look closely, you will notice Redbeard's hallmark wild-haired and spoon-eared profile1 in a single frame of the image. He was almost, but not quite, clever enough to hide his identity during the actual switcheroo.
Findings
Demon Drawer must have returned to the bar, and then noticed the Guinness closest to the center of the bar. He vaguely remembered Amy the Ant pouring him a drink, and the drink certainly looked good enough for consumption. We now know that this is because the drink Demon Drawer quaffed was poured by Redbeard only a moment before.
Redbeard poisoned his own drink with the alien goo he procured from his ship, the S.S. Redbeard. He then switched the drinks, so his drink would be the one Amy the Ant poured, and the poisoned drink would appear to be Amy's drink. This might have caused Redbeard to drink the distastefully old drink. But in the end, this mattered not at all. Redbeard was able to leave the drink unquaffed in his outrageous faux panic over Demon Drawer's collapse.
