“I snuck out of the house that night as soon as it got dark. I was determined to meet with His Highness the Grand Duke and break off the engagement once and for all.
However, His Highness was not staying at his usual lodgings.
‘Grand Duke Kalan is currently out,’ the butler said.
‘When will he return?’
‘Well… it is difficult to give a definitive answer.’
The butler hesitated, looking troubled.
I became anxious that His Highness might not return until late at night. If that happened, he might tell me to speak with him tomorrow since it was already late.
Since I had arrived without notice, I wouldn’t have been able to complain, but I couldn’t guarantee that I would have another chance to go out tomorrow.
If I returned home late, my father would undoubtedly notice my absence. If he sensed anything strange, he would surely try to lock me up in the house.
In the worst-case scenario, the thought that I might be confined until the wedding day, never getting another chance to speak with His Highness, gripped my mind.
Driven by the need to meet him at any cost, I pressed the butler to tell me where His Highness was.
‘This is quite… well, it’s normally not allowed, but since you are his fiancée… To tell you the truth, His Highness is currently holding a secret meeting at Duke McDowell’s mansion.’
‘A secret meeting?’
‘His Highness has the proud blood of the Imperial Family flowing through his veins, after all. As a member of the royalty, he is busy preparing for the upcoming Sun-Moon Festival,’ the butler said, his voice brimming with pride.
That was when I learned that His Highness does not particularly enjoy coming up to the capital.
Well, it makes sense. As you have seen, Sir, the journey between the capital and the North is neither comfortable nor short.
Why would he want to come to the capital when it’s obvious he would only be ignored as a ‘Grand Duke in name only’ after going through all that trouble?
The Grand Duke only came to the capital when there was an event he had to attend as a member of the Imperial Family, and this time was no exception.
The marriage to me was just something to be handled along the way. The most important schedule on his itinerary was the preparation for the upcoming Sun-Moon Festival.
To think the marriage was just an extra. If I had been a lady who actually had feelings for him, I might have shed tears at such coldness.
But for me, having already decided on a breakup, it didn’t matter.
The only thing that mattered was that His Highness was currently at the McDowell mansion.
‘I must go to the McDowell mansion.’
‘Pardon? But Miss Elise, even if you are his fiancée, you won’t even be able to climb the mansion walls if you aren’t an invited guest.’
‘I don’t necessarily need to climb the walls. I will wait in front of the mansion gates.’
It was early spring, so the weather wasn’t that cold anyway.
There was no affection between His Highness and me, but he was a gentleman. He surely wouldn’t turn away a lady who had been waiting for him in front of the mansion the whole time.
‘In fact, this might be better.’
If it looked like I had been waiting in front of someone else’s gate for a long time, wouldn’t I look pitiful and desperate in his eyes? He might be more inclined toward the annulment.
With that thought, I walked toward the McDowell mansion. Since I had snuck out, I hadn’t brought any money, so I couldn’t take a carriage.
I didn’t think it was that far, but walking there was harder than I expected.
I arrived in front of the mansion only after walking for over 1 hour. By then, my legs were so sore and I was so exhausted that I wanted to sit down and rest anywhere.
‘I have business with Grand Duke Kalan. Could you go and tell him?’
I abandoned my plan to wait until he came out and made that request to the McDowell family’s gatekeeper. But this gatekeeper looked me up and down with a very rude attitude and snorted.
‘I don’t think His Highness has any business with someone like you.’
My appearance probably didn’t look very good.
I had worn shabby clothes like a maid’s to sneak past my father, and since I had walked all the way here without a carriage, I must have looked quite ridiculous to him.
‘Don’t regret this and call His Highness. I am his fiancée.’
The gatekeeper laughed for a while, mocking me, before finally speaking.
‘Even if by some miracle you really are his fiancée, I can’t call him. Grand Duke Kalan returned home a long time ago.’
I felt all the strength leave my body.
But at the same time, a thought occurred to me.
‘Is what that gatekeeper said really true?’
He was clearly ignoring me as if I were some strange person.
I thought that perhaps His Highness was still inside and the man was lying. So, I decided to check for myself.
Pardon? What was that?
No, of course not. It was a secret meeting; how could I sneak in to see him? Sneaking into someone else’s house is something only a thief would do.
I just intended to avoid the gatekeeper’s gaze and check the area where the carriages were kept.
If the Grand Duke’s carriage was parked there, it meant he was still inside. If not, then he had gone home as the gatekeeper said.
It wasn’t very difficult to avoid the gatekeeper’s eyes.
The McDowell estate was very large with many walls to climb without being noticed, and I knew the layout roughly since I had visited a few times before.
Parties are often held at the McDowell mansion.
So, of course, I knew where the guest carriages were kept.
After climbing over the wall and reaching my destination, I saw a single black carriage sitting there.
It didn’t have a family crest on it, so I couldn’t be sure whose carriage it was, but it was definitely not the Grand Duke’s.
In the end, the gatekeeper’s words had been true.
‘I can’t believe it. I have to walk for another 1 hour?’
I felt drained. But suddenly, a small path caught my eye.
‘If I go this way… I think the garden was there.’
Of course, that was the McDowell family’s private property, a path I shouldn’t have taken.
However, I thought that if I cut across that massive garden and escaped through a side path, I could save nearly 20 minutes.
‘Yeah. I’ve already done something wrong by coming this far. What’s one more little mistake on top of that? It won’t even be noticed.’
I rationalized it to myself and stepped into the garden. If I had known what I would see in there, I never would have done it…
What did I see? A body.
I saw a body, Sir Hayes.
At first, I didn’t even realize it was a corpse.
While I was walking along the garden path, my foot caught on something.
In that moment, I thought the McDowell family’s gardener must be behind on his wages. I figured that was why he hadn’t even cleared away a large branch fallen in the middle of the path.
Our family gardener often did that.
But it wasn’t.
What my foot had caught on wasn’t a branch, but Miss Arie’s left arm.
The knotted bracelet was still on her wrist. It was the same knotted bracelet she had bragged about making herself at a knitting circle a few weeks prior.
‘Aaaaah!’
I screamed hysterically.
It was a very foolish thing to do. The culprit who had done that to Miss Arie was still nearby.
While I was screaming, I suddenly felt a chill and ran forward. In that instant, I heard the sound of something cutting through the air, and my spine went cold.
It was only a moment later that I realized my back had been slashed by a sharp weapon.
‘Tch.’
I heard a man’s thick groan of frustration from behind.
‘Aaah! Help! No!’
I ran forward, screaming frantically. I heard the sound of footsteps chasing after me.
Only after running and running for a long time and escaping the garden did I realize that the only sound I could hear was my own footsteps.
The culprit had clearly been chasing me at first, but at some point, I was the only one running.
‘Why? Why did he stop chasing me?’
I didn’t feel for a second that I had lost him.
Rather than being relieved that no one was behind me, I stopped walking out of anxiety.
A sense of dread that I had missed something washed over me.
Looking back, it was that very instinct that saved me. Because only 2 or 3 minutes later, I heard the sound of a horse galloping.
*Clop! Clop!*
A horse was running wildly through the night.
Following a momentary intuition, I hid myself in the bushes. As I lay flat in the thicket, a carriage passed right by me.
It was a black carriage.
The very same carriage I had seen earlier.
The carriage raced past me, then made a large circle. It was as if it was searching for someone hidden somewhere around here.
*Neigh!*
The horse snorted near me.
I froze. I buried my face into the stinging grass. By some miracle, the person in the carriage didn’t seem to see me.
The person circled the area a few more times, and then, perhaps thinking I had already escaped, drove the carriage violently away.
Once the sound of the carriage had completely faded, I ran in the opposite direction with all my might. You already know the rest of the story, Sir.”
—
“The next morning, I saw the newspaper. There was an obituary stating that Miss Arie had been murdered by Tailor John,” Elise said in a tired voice.
“According to the paper, Miss Arie’s body had been boldly dumped in the middle of a main road. It said no one had seen the culprit, and it wasn’t even clear where the actual murder had taken place.”
“Only you saw the truth.”
“And I unintentionally learned Tailor John’s identity. According to the Grand Duke, there were only three guests at the McDowell mansion that day. They were all such powerful figures that I wouldn’t even dare to report them.”
Elise told me the names of those suspects one by one. They were indeed formidable names that made me understand why Elise had hesitated.
“It couldn’t have been an easy story to tell, so thank you very much for your honesty, Miss Elise. However, there is one thing I find strange.”
“What is it? Since I’ve already spilled everything, feel free to ask whatever else you want to know. I’ll gladly answer.”
“How did you know the culprit was Tailor John?”
Elise had known the culprit was Tailor John even before she saw the newspaper article.
She had told Marie she saw Tailor John, so that was certain. But…
“Listening to your story, Miss Elise, there doesn’t seem to be a clue that would allow you to be certain of the culprit’s identity. Did you happen to see the wounds on Miss Arie while she was lying there?”
“Oh, it’s not that. I forgot to mention it. I didn’t know the culprit was Tailor John while I was being chased either. But before I met Marie… wait a moment.”
“W-What are you doing?!”
I looked away in surprise. It was because Elise had suddenly started unbuttoning her dress.
“Why are you so surprised by something like this?”
Elise chuckled and spoke to me.
“Now, stop being shy and look at this, Sir.”
At her calm tone, I regained my composure and turned my gaze.
“…This is?!”
Elise was sitting with her back to me, showing her bare back. A vivid scar was etched into her skin.
“Can you see it? Well, there’s no way you could miss a scar this big.”
Her tone was half-playful, half-self-deprecating.
“It’s the scar Tailor John left that night. I confirmed this wound before I met Marie. A thin, long slash wound—the trademark of Tailor John.”
“This is… Tailor John’s mark…”
It was a mark I had heard about many times. However, I had never seen it with my own eyes.
They say it was in the newspapers every day 5 years ago, but recently, the police had been denying that Tailor John had returned, so the wounds were never shown in the press.
Even with Detective Beren’s files, I had to leave in a hurry to meet Marie before I could examine them in detail.
So I had heard about it several times, but I had never personally confirmed the scar that was said to be Tailor John’s trademark…
The moment I actually saw it, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
The reason was simple. That scar.
‘It’s exactly like mine.’
It was the exact same shape as the slash wound on my chest.