Help stopping a Murder!

[MarcosMK]

My party and I have been commanded by the local tycoon to stop the murder of the person that deals with all his dirty works.
This came about because we stayed retraining stuff in his town while he supplied us with trainers, information and the like, instead of going to do the quest he had requested from us.
The "murder victim" is called Gafrey, he received a letter that stated he would die after 3 days, while performing his daily ritual, once the ritual candle went out.
He believes it had to be one of his 3 Lieutenants and we also distrust his Halfling assistant . . . it's always the butler!
They all live in the same inn.

Our party consists of 4 player, one Bloodrager, an Inquisitor, a Alchemist/Granadier and my Unchained Rogue.
Between the 4 of us, we feel like the 3 stooges, since not only cant we find any good ideas how to start resolving the issue . . . we even messed up our best opportunity by cremating one enemy we wanted to interrogate!!!

Long story short, we decided to work for Gafrey with the Lieutenants to see how they acted.
The first night we went together with one Lieutenant and one of her henchman to an exchange outside of town, but the other party demanded my Rogues head (part of the enemies were from the old pirate crew I was together, but they shouldn't have hard feelings for me, since they abandoned me to buy them time to escape once.)

After killing everyone and stabilizing 1 of them, we let the Lieutenant and Henchman go and told them that if they found horses, they should leave some for us.
We looted the corpses (and in my defense it was around 3am and I was dead tired!), my party demanded an explanation so I told them about my back-story and since we didn't wanted them to turn into undead, we burned them all.
On our way back to town, we found horse tracks and realized that the once we let go ahead had taken 2 horses and scared away the rest.
We hurried back to town and as we were getting close I realized . . . we cremated the dude we wanted to interrogate!!!

As a bonus, or Inquisitor is an actor both IRL and in the RP and became well known in town, so his idea is to stage it as if we will uncover the "killer" before he acts in a public staged play in order to smoke him out.
Not sure how likely that is to succeed, but since I had no better idea, I thought about asking here.

Time until our next session: 4 days!
4th of October.

Thanks in advanced for any idea you can come up with!

[MarcosMK]

We are level 4, close to reach level 5.

[Ray-gun]

Make sure all the suspects are watching the "play".
Make sure the person with the best sense motive or maybe even detect thoughts is watching them, to see if or why the react.
Sounds to me like multi part poison. Maybe change his ritual candles out. Hit him with delay poison and maybe antivenom before his final time, if it comes to that.

Can you search the suspects and or their rooms?
Just some thoughts

[Quixote]

Is there any reason the target can't be relocated? Just opt out of this daily ritual?

Augury isn't a very good divination spell, but it could be helpful. Detect Thoughts would be better if you can idly chat with your suspects and carefully steer the conversation.

Pulling a Hamlet sounds fun and it could work; I think watching a play about the crime you're about to commit would certainly warrant a circumstance penalty to a Bluff check.

[Cavall]

Switch that candle out!

[Kayerloth]

Agree with much of the above.

Replace the Candle ... test it for toxins if at all possible. Detect Poison could be used on either Candle, the Victim or the Letter. Or
the room or ritual area in general.

Have Delay Poison and or Lesser Restoration available as well as Antitoxin. Many poisons do Ability damage, hence the Lesser Restoration.

Learn more about the Letter. Who delivered it? If it was a messenger then who talked to or hired them? Any scent on the Letter? Can the scent be tracked or recognized (perfume etc.). Is it contaminated with the first poison in a multiple part poison. In any case it's your best link to the perpetrator that you know about at the moment.

Status before the daily ritual. Any change in his condition more likely to be picked up before it becomes fatal. Or have someone volunteer to play stand-in for Gafrey

Haven't annoyed any high level Monks right or rather Gafrey hasn't? (That's in jest, if you've annoyed a 15th+ lvl Monk all bets are off.)

[Dave Justus]

Kill the proposed victim yourself first, thus completely foiling the crime!

[Kimera757]

Good advice on moving him or switching the candle out.

Cast Delay Poison on him.

[MarcosMK]

Thanks a lot for all the input, I have shared it with my other party members.

Dave Justus wrote:

Kill the proposed victim yourself first, thus completely foiling the crime!

That was similar to one of my proposed ideas!

Have one of our party member kill Gafrey and turn him in, specifically our Alchemist, since he has been branded with a magical run that we believe means he will turn into an undead after death or when triggered.
So since he already has a feet in the ground he can be our scapegoat!
He can just keep going as an undead until we bring him back to life . . .

Well, not exactly what you said, but similar.