Chapter 46: CASE 3. The Third Bride (21)

Lure’s bright smile vanished the moment our eyes met.

“Teacher! My goodness, what on earth happened to you?!”

“What happened to me? Is my state that— ah.”

Looking at myself now, I was quite a sight.

‘I jumped off a cliff, so I suppose it couldn’t be helped.’

My clothes were torn here and there, and blood was slightly seeping through. However, because it was a pristine white princely uniform that was shredded, it looked far more dramatic than it actually was.

“What in the world happened?!”

“A lot of things happened…”

But this wasn’t the place to tell the story.

“Let’s talk inside first.”

I moved to Mari’s room with Lure. There were no longer any onlookers loitering in front of the door.

‘Did the Archduke say something? Or was it because of the commotion caused by that self-proclaimed detective?’

I didn’t know the reason, but it was a good thing for me.

I entered the room, leaned against the inner window frame, and explained the situation to Lure.

“…And that’s how it happened.”

Lure muttered as if she had lost her mind.

“How can this be? For Mari to be kidnapped…”

“The Archduke was likely waiting for an opportunity.”

For Lure and the guards to leave their posts. That had been an opportunity not just for us, but for the Archduke as well.

“It’s my fault. I should have been more cautious.”

I exhaled a short sigh.

“…Teacher. Will Mari be alright?”

“Of course. She’ll definitely be safe.”

I answered Lure’s anxiety-filled question with conviction.

“There must be a reason they took her instead of just killing her.”

I didn’t know how they had spirited Mari away yet, but if they could do it so perfectly, it certainly wouldn’t have been difficult to kill her on the spot.

Yet, they went through the trouble of kidnapping her quietly and creating a fake corpse.

‘It means they want something more than just Mari’s death.’

In most cases, Mari would still be safe.

The worst-case scenario I could imagine was that the Archduke kidnapped her because he wanted to kill her “personally.”

If we assumed the Archduke’s true identity was Taylor John, it wasn’t an impossible theory. Taylor John was a murderer obsessively fixated on his methods of killing.

‘But even in that case, there’s a high possibility Mari is still alive.’

Mari must have been kidnapped between late night and dawn. It was likely something that happened about 1 or 2 hours before I woke up. Considering the time spent moving while kidnapped, the window was even tighter.

Yet, when I woke up and looked for Mari, the Archduke appeared immediately. He was able to appear before people and put on a plausible act of innocence.

‘He wasn’t covered in blood.’

Could he have murdered Mari and then perfectly removed all traces within that short time?

It was impossible.

Therefore, Mari was still alive.

[What if he finished everything before the bug could even predict it?]

…She had to be. Please.

“But, Teacher,” Lure asked, breaking my train of thought. “How on earth did that person know about Mari’s nightmares?”

“Hmm?”

“You said the Head Maid testified to it. That she saw Mari saying Lady Elise was calling to her from a dark, cold, and deep place.”

That testimony was certainly a lie, but we had heard that story before.

“That’s the story Mari told us on the first day we arrived here.”

[Sister Elise smiles coldly at me. She tells me to join her and tries to drag me away by force. To a dark place. A dark, cold, and deep place.]

“How could they possibly know that? That was a story only the three of us heard.”

It was as Mari said. That conversation had definitely happened when only the three of us were in this room.

‘I didn’t even mention that much to the Archduke last night.’

“Was there someone eavesdropping that day?”

I tried to recall any vague memories.

It was the day we arrived and had our first meeting with the Archduke. That day, I had questioned Mari too much, and she began to hyperventilate.

I had left the room to give her space and paced the hallway for a long time in my agitation…

‘I didn’t see anyone suspicious in the hallway.’

Had they fled before I stepped out?

“Ah, wait a minute!” Lure suddenly cried out. “If there was someone eavesdropping on the first night… I have a suspicion!”

“What?”

“Actually, it happened about 1 hour after you left the room, Teacher…”

Lure began to recount the events.

***

“You should probably sleep for today, Mari.”

Immediately after the Teacher left, Lure encouraged Mari to sleep. Everyone was exhausted from the long journey, and their emotions were frayed because of it.

‘Once she sleeps and thinks with a clear mind, she’ll feel much better!’

Thinking positively, Lure prepared to sleep with Mari. Although a separate maid’s room had been provided, Mari seemed to need the warmth of another person tonight.

Lure’s judgment proved to be correct a short while later.

“Gasp, huff…”

“Mmm, Mari?”

Lure opened her eyes at the strange sound she heard in her sleep.

‘I must have been tired too. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.’

When she turned over, she saw Mari.

The faint light of the fireplace by the head of the bed illuminated her. Mari was pale, her eyes wide, and she was panting heavily.

“…! Mari! Calm down!”

Lure hurried to light the lantern. Then she patted Mari’s back and whispered.

“Calm down, calm down. No one is going to hurt you.”

As she spoke softly and comforted her like an adult, Mari seemed to find more stability.

“Sister, Sister…”

Mari gripped the front of Lure’s clothes and sobbed.

“I heard Sister Elise’s voice.”

Mari muttered incoherently.

“No, maybe it wasn’t Sister Elise. It was a voice that sounded like her but also didn’t, but it kept cackling and whispering…”

“So, you heard a woman’s voice while you were trying to sleep?”

Mari nodded weakly.

Lure quietly listened to the sounds outside.

The dark night was silent and still.

*Whooooo.*

The only thing to be heard was the shrill sound of the wind.

“You probably misheard the wind in your sleep. Since we’re high up in the castle, the wind is quite loud.”

“But…”

Mari bit her lip hard.

‘If I let her sleep like this, she’ll have another nightmare…’

Lure checked her pocket watch by the lantern light. Only 1 hour had passed since they had gone to bed.

‘It’s alright to stay up a bit later.’

Lure took Mari’s hands.

“Now, let’s stop thinking about nightmares and do something fun. Ah, right. I’ll teach you how to braid hair. Why don’t you focus on that?”

“In the middle of the night?”

“It’s better because it’s night. If you braid your hair my way and sleep, you’ll have shimmering wavy hair the next morning. How about it? Don’t you want to know?”

Mari hesitated for a moment but soon nodded.

“…Yes. Please teach me, Sister.”

***

“…So that night, we braided hair together and fell asleep. That was all.”

Lure looked back at me with a serious expression.

“But thinking about it now, I wonder if that wasn’t just a nightmare. What if it wasn’t the sound of the wind, but really a person’s voice?”

“You mean that might have been the person eavesdropping on this room?”

Lure nodded vigorously.

“It bothers me that I didn’t check the hallway that night. If there was someone with their ear to the door, listening to what was happening inside? It’s creepy!”

Well, let’s see…

“You said it was only 1 hour later? I was standing in the hallway right in front of the door until then.”

I had been so agitated that night that I didn’t think I could sleep at all. I had stood in front of the hallway window until the stars faded and the dawn sun rose.

“Really?”

Lure looked embarrassed.

“Then, I guess I thought wrong. It was just a nightmare—”

“No, that’s not it.”

Lure’s guess was wrong, but her testimony pointed out an important detail.

“I didn’t hear any of the sounds you mentioned.”

Not the woman’s laughter, nor Mari’s groans from the nightmare, nor the sound of Lure comforting Mari.

None of it reached this hallway.

“It seems that the sounds from inside the room don’t carry well to the hallway.”

“Really? With just a single door in between?”

To be sure, we immediately conducted a test.

As expected, even if we made a fairly loud noise inside the room, it couldn’t be heard well in the hallway.

The combination of the solid stone walls and the thick door lined with cloth to block drafts was cutting off almost all noise.

‘At this rate, even if silver tableware had dropped the night before, nothing would have been heard.’

“Unless someone is screaming, you wouldn’t know.”

“It means there can’t be anyone eavesdropping from the hallway, at least.”

And yet, someone had overheard Mari’s story and used it.

“Oh, then what happened? Was there no eavesdropper? Could the Archduke have obtained information about Mari’s nightmares through some other route?”

“I wonder…”

It was plausible, but the possibility was low.

“He investigated what kind of nightmares Mari has, but he didn’t know that she sleeps in striped pajamas instead of pink ones?”

That was the kind of mistake that happened when one eavesdropped with their ears rather than their eyes.

“The content of the nightmare bothers me too.”

Mari said she always had the same nightmare. The one where Lady Elise appears and takes her somewhere.

But a laugh in the middle of the night that she couldn’t even identify as Elise? That isn’t the usual content of her nightmares.

“As I thought, there’s a high possibility that was reality rather than a dream.”

Therefore, the conclusion.

“It’s hidden somewhere in this room. A secret connecting passage closer than the hallway, where the sounds of the room can leak out as much as they want.”

I stood up.

*Clang!!*

At the same time, the silver tableware I had left leaning against the window frame fell and made a loud noise.

“…The only way they could kidnap Mari without using the window or the door is through that path.”

“A secret passage in this room…”

Lure gulped.

“It doesn’t look like there’s anything special at a glance.”

As Lure said, the room looked like a typical room for a noblewoman.

When I thought of a secret passage, the first thing that came to my mind was a ventilation shaft. But this room didn’t have a vent or anything similar.

Although a cord by the bed ran along the wall and through a door at the foot of the bed, the inside of that door was the maid’s room where Lure stayed.

That small side room was also a complete dead end and wasn’t connected to anywhere else.

‘If it’s not a vent…’

The fireplace chimney caught my eye.

Could a person come and go through this fireplace?

‘No. We’ve never put out the fire in the fireplace.’

The fireplace was still burning with an orange glow, spitting sparks around. Not even Santa Claus could pass through this chimney.

‘I’m really not sure…’

It was at that moment, while I was staring blankly at the fireplace in frustration.

“I’ve been thinking this for a while, but isn’t the position of the fireplace a bit strange?”

“Huh? The position of the fireplace?”

What was strange about it? It was right there against the wall.

“Think about the structure of the room. The fireplace shouldn’t be here.”

Even when she said that, I didn’t get it.

‘What’s wrong with the structure of this room?’

I looked around the room.

It looked like an ordinary room no matter where I looked. I roughly sketched the layout of the room in the notebook I carried.

—[ Window ][Fireplace]—
| 「 Bed |
| 」 |
| [Door] |
————[Door]————
[Hallway]

‘…I still don’t know.’

What on earth was the problem?

Lure spoke as if she were frustrated.

“The fireplace is too close to the window and the bed!”

“Is that not allowed?”

“Of course not!”

Lure walked to the window and pulled the curtain.

“Look at this curtain. The hem of the curtain is covered in scorch marks.”

I hadn’t noticed because I had never paid attention to the curtains. But looking at the spot Lure pointed out, it was full of dirty, black, round marks.

“It’s because sparks from the fireplace jumped onto it. If you leave something like this alone, a fire could start.”

“Would the people of the Archduke’s household not know that?”

“There’s no way! That’s why the curtains are so short. They should be longer than this to completely block out the cold, but they had to shorten the length because they were afraid the curtain fabric would get sucked into the fireplace. It means they were aware of the problem.”

Aha. I nodded only then.

“Putting fabric near a fireplace is dangerous.”

Then shouldn’t the bed also not be placed nearby? Bedding is all fabric as well. When I asked that, Lure nodded as if it were obvious.

“Besides, if you sleep in front of a fireplace, your skin gets as dry as a parched desert. It’s hot, and sparks can fly. This arrangement is strange.”

Indeed. Hearing it now, it really was strange.

I looked at the room’s layout once more.

—[ Window ][Fireplace]—
| 「 Bed |
| 」 |
| [Door] |
————[Door]————
[Hallway]

“Ah.”

I think I understood.

I stroked my staff, which always felt heavy in my hand. Then I raised the staff and struck the wall opposite the bed.

*Thud—!*

“Kyaa! Te-Teacher?”

The wall was perfectly fine without a single scratch.

“Are you crazy? Who just hits a stone wall like that?”

“No.”

“Pardon?”

“This. It’s not a stone wall.”

It was stone, but it wasn’t a solid, heavy stone.

The feedback I felt in my hand was different.

I struck the wall with my staff again.

Once, twice, and then a third time.

*Crack!*

The wall crumbled.

“Ha.”

A path was revealed behind the wall.

A dark and narrow passage, like a cave.

It was a secret passage.