“Wait! Wait, wait, wait!” Albrecht shouted.
“Sorry to interrupt, but something about this story seems off to me.”
“What’s so strange about it?”
“Well… you’re claiming that Taylor John used the black carriage that Grand Duke Catherine arrived in to transport the corpse, aren’t you?”
A nod.
“Then that means Grand Duke Catherine must also have been an accomplice to the crime, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
“So…?”
“Grand Duke Catherine Eduard is either an accomplice to the murder or, at the very least, a bystander.”
The shocking statement caused a stir among the crowd.
‘Actually, I’ve suspected that for a while now.’
Grand Duke Catherine mobilized the Herbert Clan to retrieve her son’s photo, threatened Walter into commissioning the case, and even kidnapped him when things went wrong.
There’s no way she would have done that if she didn’t know what the photo was.
She must have known all along that the photo captured the scene of her son’s murder.
Grand Duke Catherine was definitely Taylor John’s accomplice.
‘But it’s strange. Why can’t I see her shadow?’
The figure of the Grand Duke’s Son, Wilhelm, was obscured and invisible.
But Grand Duke Catherine was clearly visible, as if stung by every eerie gaze that fell upon her.
“You need to get a grip on your delusions,” Grand Duke Catherine said through gritted teeth.
“My son is a murderer, and I helped with the murder? And your evidence is the contents of a novel Grand Duke Calan brought?”
“That wasn’t a novel. Elise wrote it herself.”
“Grand Duke Calan. I was well aware your mind was unstable, but I didn’t know it was this bad. Have you gone mad after your wife’s death? She died a long time ago! How can a dead woman write?”
“That’s exactly why I said she wasn’t dead. She merely fled from Taylor John. I swear on my honor that everything I just testified is true. Also, that marriage was a sham, so do not refer to Elise as my wife ever again.”
The last sentence carried a particular weight.
Unfortunately, Grand Duke Catherine paid little attention to the young Grand Duke’s words.
“Hmph. Then I too swear on my honor that your claims are groundless. If you truly want me to believe your absurd story, go ahead and bring your living wife here. Then I’ll consider believing you.”
Grand Duke Calan gritted his teeth in frustration.
‘Certainly, if Elise were here, she would have been a great help.’
But there was no way Elise, who had fled to the far north to escape Taylor John, could suddenly appear at the Imperial Capital’s palace overnight.
So…
“His Highness Grand Duke Catherine is correct.” I spoke calmly.
“The authenticity of Miss Elise’s statement is not yet certain.”
I decided not to harp on that statement.
‘The statement has already played its role anyway.’
As long as it planted a small seed of doubt in the public’s mind, that was enough.
“I believe there is only one clear and indisputable statement from the previous exchange.”
“One? What could that be?” Albrecht asked with a curious tone.
“Your statement, sir.”
“Huh? Me?”
“Yes. On the day of the secret meeting, you testified that His Highness the Grand Duke arrived in a black carriage.”
“Well, that’s true, but…”
The sculptor glanced nervously at the Grand Duke.
“So what?” the Grand Duke snapped irritably.
“Is there a problem with me riding a black carriage?”
It was practically an admission.
“What’s interesting is the whereabouts of that black carriage. Since His Highness wouldn’t have ridden a borrowed carriage, and the first carriage you rode in April this year wouldn’t have been scrapped due to age, yet among the officially registered carriages of the Grand Duchy, not a single one is black.”
I looked straight into the Grand Duke’s eyes and asked, “Where is that black carriage now?”
“Are you asking me that?”
Grand Duke Catherine let out a scoff as if it was absurd.
“Do I look like a stable boy to you instead of a Grand Duke? Managing carriages is the servants’ job, not a noble’s.”
“So you don’t know. Then you probably also don’t know whether the black carriage found wrecked on the roadside yesterday belongs to you.”
The Grand Duke paused for a moment but soon answered, “…Yes. This is the first time I’m hearing about such an accident. Perhaps my incompetent servant took the carriage out and crashed it. But it’s more likely it belonged to some poor undertaker’s carriage.”
Neither affirming nor denying hastily.
A cautious tone.
“Bloodstains and a coffin were found inside that carriage.”
“Ha!”
The Grand Duke scoffed again.
“Then there was no need to confirm with me, was there? The carriage probably belonged to an undertaker. A carriage used to transport corpses would naturally have bloodstains and a coffin. Nothing strange about that, is there?”
“That would be the case for a normal coffin. But what if that coffin was designed so it couldn’t be opened from the inside?”
“!”
“Upon direct inspection, that coffin was clearly a specially designed item. Not for holding a corpse, but for trapping a living person.”
Last evening.
I had returned to the wreckage of the shattered carriage.
And with my own hands, I dug through the debris.
Just in case, one in a million.
That Lur might be buried in that wreckage.
When I found the half-smashed coffin in the debris, my heart pounded wildly with anxiety and unease.
In the end, the inside of the coffin was empty.
But I could obtain a crucial clue.
‘At least, the carriage being left wrecked like that wasn’t something the culprit wanted or predicted.’
Because that coffin was too important and damning a piece of evidence to be abandoned so carelessly.
“There was a special wooden lock inside the coffin. It could be opened from the outside, but from the inside, it couldn’t be opened without releasing the lock at the bottom of the coffin.”
But in a dark, motionless coffin, how could one possibly unlock a mechanism located at their feet?
“This was clearly a coffin made for criminal purposes. What’s even more interesting is that dozens of coffins exactly like this one were found in the abandoned temple at Park Cemetery.”
“Park Cemetery… you mean?”
“Yes. The place less than thirty steps from the Edouard Grand Duke’s mansion.”
“Are you spouting delusions without evidence again?!” Grand Duke Catherine shouted sharply.
“I cannot trust your testimony at all!”
“Thinking you might say that, I have brought another witness.”
Step, step.
In the pitch-black garden, the only place lit.
Here, where I and the sculptor stood, a man who looked roughly dressed like a laborer stepped up.
“Um…”
The nervous man swallowed dryly once and then hesitantly pulled back his hood.
“…Huh? That’s?”
The police badge on the man’s collar glinted in the light.
Emphasizing the badge, he introduced himself.
“Hello! I’m Charlie from the Crossburn Police Station! Currently part of the Taylor John investigation team!”
A voice loud enough to burst eardrums.
But it certainly had an effect.
“The police? He said police?”
“He said the Taylor John investigation team…”
He often seems lackluster and easily forgotten.
But in fact, among those chasing Taylor John with me, no one had more legal legitimacy than Charlie.
“I cooperated with Mr. Hayes and verified everything he just testified with my own eyes!”
Another stir arose.
Just as I was about to ask Charlie for additional testimony.
“Ah!”
Albrecht let out a gasp and shouted.
“You! You’re that stalker from before!”
“I’ve told you before, I’m not a stalker! I only tailed Mr. Albrecht because I was certain one of the three who visited the McDowell Ducal residence that day was Taylor John!”
By now, everyone must have guessed.
Charlie had been caught tailing right from the start.
‘Not surprising. It’s Charlie.’
I was rather more curious what Detective Beron was thinking, trusting Charlie with such an important task.
Apparently, Charlie was arrested on suspicion of stalking by a police station in another district, and only released after showing his badge.
After that, he couldn’t even muster the courage to try tailing again and stayed at the station, where I found him and brought him back.
‘It’s a shame he couldn’t join up with Detective Beron…’
But Charlie was a great help.
“You were a policeman! So what about that story of crossing a line due to excessive interest and passion for my work? Was that just a lame excuse?”
“Well, that part is also true. I really am a huge fan of your work, sir…”
“Hmph, it wasn’t in vain to show leniency then.”
Even the current ridiculous banter between them was proof.
Charlie had a talent for capturing people’s attention in absurd ways, like a sleazy producer.
‘Though it often backfires in bad ways…’
Right now, it wasn’t so bad.
Everyone learned that this bumbling policeman had been caught tailing Lord Albrecht.
And that the reason for the tailing was because Lord Albrecht had attended the secret meeting at the McDowell house and was suspected of being Taylor John.
This lent weight to Elise’s statement.
After all, it meant that the police, who were searching for Taylor John, found that statement credible.
Just as I thought things were going well.
“I see. Now I understand,” Grand Duke Catherine said.
In a rather amused tone.
“I’ve been wondering what evidence you had to link me and my son to Taylor John. Since there’s no grudge between us, I figured you must have at least some minimal excuse to come at me like a starving dog.”
She cackled, casually hurling insults.
“Now I get it. It was the carriage and the park! My goodness, the carriage and the park.”
“What’s so funny about that?”
“Well, isn’t it? Being accused of being a criminal just because a criminal set up base in a park near my house. Do you even know how that park cemetery was established?”
The Grand Duke said with a mocking smile.
“That park cemetery was His Majesty the Emperor’s ingenious solution to accommodate the ever-increasing number of dead within the capital. Unfortunately, many couldn’t keep up with His Majesty’s forward-thinking idea. As a member of the imperial family, I set an example by accepting the park cemetery on my land. Regrettably, people avoided the area, making it desolate and dangerous. In the end, it was perhaps inevitable that criminals would settle there.”
“So you’re claiming it’s all just a coincidence? Even about the black carriage?”
“You yourself admitted that your own testimony from Grand Duke Calan’s dead wife’s statement lacks credibility. So the only common point between the culprit and me is the carriage’s color. Of course, you want to claim that’s very special, but it’s not. It’s common for those who wish to avoid being seen to choose black.”
I?
Grand Duke Catherine was a formidable opponent.
That made it even harder to understand.
‘Why insist on an argument that’s so easy to refute?’
Wouldn’t it be better to pin it on a murderer among the Grand Duchy’s servants?
“Wouldn’t the story change if there’s a secret passage connecting the murderer’s base to the Grand Duke’s mansion?”
“…What?!”
Grand Duke Catherine’s eyes widened.
She looked genuinely surprised.
“A secret passage? Did you see it with your own eyes?”
“I didn’t. It was blocked when I went. But I have a witness.”
Flash!
A light turned on a short distance from where I stood.
“Is everyone well?”
Walter Bell stood there.
He was a long-renowned detective.
Since there were many nobles from the Eastern Region here, people soon recognized him and began whispering.
“Janus!”
“Walter Bell, the Janus of the East? What’s he doing here…”
Walter’s face flushed red instantly, but he didn’t forget his role.
“I am Walter Bell, as you mentioned. I primarily operate in the Eastern Region. And yes, I am the witness Mr. Hayes just referred to. Because I recently experienced a very unpleasant incident at the Edouard Grand Duke’s mansion.”
Walter slowly unfolded his story.
How he was hired by Grand Duke Catherine, but when things went wrong, he was kidnapped and confined in the Grand Duke’s mansion.
How he escaped through a secret passage in the mansion to the abandoned temple.
And how he realized that abandoned temple was the very criminal base I had mentioned moments ago.
“As you all know, such secret passages are usually passed down only to direct descendants of a family. Moreover, I personally witnessed the Grand Duke’s Son, Wilhelm, in that abandoned temple.”
Although we were both detectives, our reputations differed.
People believed Walter’s story.
Gradually, the looks directed at Grand Duke Catherine grew sharper.
Even Grand Duke Catherine’s dazzling eloquence seemed unable to calm the situation.
Once again, I couldn’t help but feel a question.
‘Didn’t she anticipate this situation?’
Grand Duke Catherine looked flustered.
As if she had not expected Walter’s appearance at all.
But didn’t she know I was working with Walter?
Even if others didn’t, Wilhelm, the Grand Duke’s Son, surely would have known.
After all, just yesterday morning, they had a chase with Walter driving the carriage.
‘…The information isn’t being shared between them?’
At that moment, I realized something important.
The culprit I had accused was definitely Wilhelm, the Grand Duke’s Son.
But the only one who had spoken with me so far was Grand Duke Catherine.
The Grand Duke’s Son remained in his spot, silent and motionless.
It was far too strange a reaction for someone accused of murder.
‘What are the Grand Duke’s Son and the Grand Duke thinking?’
“Hey, Janus,” Albrecht’s voice cut through my thoughts.
“I’m really curious… no, as the mediator of this case, I want to fulfill my duty by asking. What exactly was the commission you failed that led to you being kidnapped by the Grand Duke’s mansion?”
“That’s precisely the interesting part,” Walter said, as if waiting for the question.
“The Grand Duke hired me to retrieve a photo taken five years ago of the Grand Duke’s Son, Wilhelm, with his lover.”
“Oh, that…”
The sculptor made a sour face.
“I suppose he was afraid the Princess would discover his improper conduct.”
“I think so. After all, it would be troublesome if it was revealed that the Grand Duke’s Son is a murderer.”
“!”
Walter declared confidently, “The photo taken five years ago of the Grand Duke’s Son Wilhelm with his lover contained traces of murder.”
He looked at me.
I grinned and shouted at the crowd, “And that photo is right here.”
Two photos.
It was finally time to solve the mystery within those photos in front of everyone and capture Taylor John.
But then…
“Don’t be ridiculous…!”
A voice came from an unexpected place.
The black shadow that had been eerily silent until now.
Taylor John himself.
“You’re going to accuse me with that photo? You? Me?!”
He gritted his teeth and shouted.
“If you’re in your right mind, you can’t possibly do that!”
What was this nonsense?