“Me…?”
Lure murmured in confusion.
“Are you really pointing at me?”
No matter how many times she checked, nothing changed.
Hayes’s finger was pointed directly at Lure herself.
“What? Lure?”
“Lure is the culprit?”
There were many other students in the lounge. The gazes of the students, who had suddenly heard an accusation, pinned Lure where she stood. Their eyes were filled with shock, disbelief, and doubt.
“That’s impossible! You, what are you talking about right now?”
Lure’s classmate, Ursula, quickly stepped forward to block Lure and snapped at him.
“I knew you were suspicious from the moment you started running your mouth earlier. This time, Shelman was right! If you want to play detective, go do it at home! Don’t go catching innocent people!”
The other classmates also stepped forward to protect Lure, who was usually well-liked.
“Guys. Does anyone actually believe this?”
“That man isn’t even a proper detective. He’s someone whose name isn’t even on the Detective Rankings. He’s just a crazy person talking nonsense, so ignore him. Got it?”
The room began to stir.
The murmuring made Lure anxious, but public opinion was clearly on her side. Nevertheless, Hayes remained calm and unperturbed.
“I knew Miss Lure was the culprit who stole the exam papers from the beginning. However, I have only been watching until now because I hadn’t secured the evidence.”
‘He knew from the beginning?’ Lure stared at Hayes, stunned by those cold words.
Their eyes met.
But for some reason, even though their gazes locked, it didn’t feel like he was looking at her. She could see her own silhouette reflected in those black pupils, but his gaze was so emotionless that it was hard to believe he was looking at a human being.
How could a person look at another person with eyes like that?
‘Is this man really the rookie detective I’ve been trying to teach until now?’
Unable to keep looking into those stoic eyes any longer, Lure lowered her head. Her stomach churned, and a chill ran through her.
“Do you really think I’m the culprit?”
“Yes.”
“You heard the story about my convictions. Didn’t you say those convictions were wonderful?”
Lure felt a sense of betrayal from him.
Criminology is a field of study used to catch criminals and achieve justice. Didn’t she say that a person sincerely devoted to that could never be a criminal?
She would rather he had laughed at her words. He had told her she was wonderful for dreaming of being a detective to achieve justice.
“Even so, you still think I’m the culprit?”
Lure glared at Hayes as she snapped. Hayes looked troubled, but he did not retract his statement.
“…I am not treating you like a criminal without clear evidence.”
A chilling sensation washed over her.
“You have evidence? Evidence that I’m the culprit?”
“In the case of this exam paper theft, the most definitive piece of evidence is, of course, the missing exam papers themselves,” Hayes said calmly. “From the moment I identified the culprit, I thought securing the papers was the most important thing. The person who would know the location of the missing papers would, of course, be the culprit. That is why I asked Miss Lure to be my assistant and guide me through the school as we walked.”
‘I see. So that’s why…’
Lure slowly realized. It wasn’t that he was a rookie detective who didn’t know where to investigate and was being dragged around by her. From the very beginning, his target of investigation wasn’t the inside of the school, but Lure Poiren herself.
‘I foolishly felt goodwill toward him without knowing I was being tested.’
Lure bit her lip. She didn’t want to think about how stupidly she had acted.
“I watched Miss Lure’s reactions the entire time. Soon, I noticed that the path she chose while guiding me was extremely unnatural,” Hayes said in a cold voice. “Starting from the fourth floor of the building where the lab was located, to the stair landing on the floor below. From there, insisting on a witness and going to the opposite building. Afterward, going through the garden, the first floor, and the second floor, only to finish here at the third-floor lounge.”
“…”
“It is a movement path that is strange to anyone who looks at it.”
“You were the one who told me to go wherever my feet took us, Hayes. I simply, for the sake of investigative efficiency…”
“If it were for the sake of an efficient investigation, shouldn’t you have stopped by the third-floor lounge first? Since most of the Criminology students are gathered here, the probability of there being a witness is the highest.”
At those words, Shelman nodded.
“…That’s true. The basics of any investigation start with questioning witnesses. That’s why I also stopped by the lounge first to find the exam papers… Lure, did an honor student like you really forget the order of investigation?”
“That is likely not the case.”
Before Lure could answer, the detective spoke.
“She did suggest we go investigate a witness who might or might not be in the building across the way. She simply went out of her way to skip the lounge on the third floor.”
Lure only bit her lip repeatedly. Even to her own ears, it sounded like very suspicious circumstances.
“In my view, Miss Lure is someone who is very poor at lying. So, didn’t you want to push back the situation where you had to lie as much as possible?”
“…”
“Upon reaching this place, the final destination, Miss Lure’s eye contact became unstable, and her pace quickened. She headed straight for the door without even providing an explanation. I could clearly feel the intention to finish the investigation quickly under the pretext of it being the last stop.”
‘Stop it now. This is enough.’
But the detective’s mouth showed no sign of stopping.
“The situation became even clearer upon entering the lounge. When Miss Lure bumped into Mr. Shelman, Mr. Shelman had a key in his hand. He must have been on his way to open his locker. During the collision, the key in his hand naturally fell. It was a key marked so that the owner could be identified.”
‘A mark to identify the owner?’
Lure looked down at the key in her hand. The locker key Shelman had dropped. A red thread was tied in a knot around the head of that key.
‘That’s strange. I didn’t see that at all earlier.’
‘Why didn’t I see this?’
“The moment Miss Lure saw the locker key fall, she seemed to lose her cool. Even though the key clearly belonged to Mr. Shelman, she picked it up with excessive haste and hid it in her clothes.”
‘Did I… do that?’
“Despite Mr. Shelman’s request to return it, you stubbornly insisted it might be yours.”
“No. There’s no way I…”
Lure hurriedly looked around.
‘Guys, why are you all just standing there? That detective is talking nonsense again! You have to tell him it’s rubbish!’
‘You guys must have seen what happened, too!’
But her classmates remained still. It was as if they were agreeing with the detective’s words.
‘This is impossible. I really did that?’
“It must have been because you were overly tense. The moment the fear that the item you wanted to hide most might have been exposed hit you, you were unable to exercise the judgment expected of an honor student in the Criminology Department.”
As if delivering a verdict, Hayes said, “In front of the lounge, your personal locker. You hid the stolen exam papers there, didn’t you?”
“No, I…”
Lure’s voice became choked. Just as Lure was about to stammer something out in a tearful voice, Shelman couldn’t hold back and stepped forward.
“Move aside! I’ll check for myself if those words are true or not!”
Shelman roughly snatched Lure’s locker key from her hand. Then, before anyone could stop him, he ran to Lure’s locker and inserted the key.
*Click!*
The locker door swung open roughly. Inside were the traces of Lure’s daily life.
Well-worn textbooks, notebooks filled with dense handwriting, and a faded photograph of a detective she admired. Resting atop those tidy items was a contrasting brown document envelope.
Shelman swallowed hard and checked the contents of the envelope.
“…Is it right?” Ursula asked in a trembling voice.
“…”
Shelman turned back to Lure without a word. Despite having stepped forward boldly to check for herself, her face was now clouded with a shock and sense of betrayal that she could not hide.
“…It’s right. It’s the exam papers. The stolen final exam papers.”
The lounge was enveloped in shock.
*Thud!*
Lure could no longer hold herself up and collapsed as the strength left her legs.
“It really isn’t me. Believe me… I didn’t steal them.”
As she sobbed, Lure thought to herself. In truth, she thought it might turn out like this. Even as she denied it the whole time, her heart had been beating anxiously. She had thought that she might be the thief, that what was inside might really be the exam papers.
But truly, she hadn’t had the slightest intention of stealing the exam papers.
“Please! Believe me. Really, I didn’t mean to steal them…!”
With a voice thick with tears, Lure began to confess the whole truth.
***
Yesterday evening, Lure had to stay late in the classroom. It was because of an assignment given by Professor Octopus. To be honest, she didn’t want to do it, but she had no way to withstand the pressure that an honor student should do at least this much.
In the end, it was dark night by the time everything was finished. She was about to hurry back to the dormitory when the professor caught her and spoke.
“Ah, Miss Lure. Now that I think about it, I have to send the materials in my office to the academic society by tomorrow. Could you send them for me?”
“Yes. I’ll do that.”
An errand of that level wasn’t particularly difficult. Lure readily entered the professor’s office and picked up a brown document envelope.
However, by then, it was already late at night. It was a time when the post office would have already closed. If she took it to the dormitory and a mouse nibbled on it, the important thesis materials might be damaged.
On the other hand, if she left the documents on the professor’s desk again, she was worried that she would look like she hadn’t done what she was told to the professor, who would arrive at work at the crack of dawn.
‘Then, I’ll put it in the lounge locker for now and send it after class tomorrow!’
Lure placed the brown document envelope in her locker with a light heart and locked the door. And it was only this morning that she realized that the envelope was a noose tightening around her neck.
‘What? The exam papers in Professor Tophus’s office were stolen?’
Her heart had been racing ever since she heard her classmates’ words. Last night, a brown document envelope had been sitting on the desk in the office. She had naturally assumed it was thesis material and took the envelope.
‘But what if it wasn’t?’
The fear that the documents she took might actually have been the exam papers gripped her. She was even afraid to check the reality. If the contents of the envelope really were the exam papers, the moment she confirmed it, there would be no going back.
She would become the person who saw the exam papers before the exam, and in the eyes of others, she would be an exam paper thief. In the worst-case scenario, expulsion.
‘Would they believe the excuse that I mistook the documents?’
With her heart in her mouth, Lure prayed fervently that she hadn’t taken the wrong documents by mistake. She hoped that the real culprit was someone else. So that not her, but the real culprit who stole the exam papers would be caught.
***
Back to the present in the lounge. Lure wiped away her tears and looked at her classmates.
“I should have told everyone sooner and apologized for my mistake, but I was scared and couldn’t be honest. I know very well that I acted pathetically.”
“Lure…”
A sigh mixed with pity escaped from among her classmates. Lure made one last tearful appeal.
“I’m really sorry for making such a stupid mistake. But really, I didn’t have the slightest intention of stealing the exam papers. Could you… believe me?”
“Of course, you dummy!”
Ursula hugged Lure tightly.
“There’s no way you would have done that with malice!”
Though not as much as Ursula, the gazes of the other classmates had softened noticeably. It was the moment the consistent goodwill Lure had shown usually began to shine.
The students, while half-doubting, were leaning toward the idea that it really was a mistake if it was Lure. Just as the joy of relief began to fill Lure’s eyes.
“Hm? Listening from outside, what on earth are you all talking about?”
The door to the lounge swung open, and the final character appeared.
Professor Tophus.
He spoke while his smooth bald head glistened.
“I asked you to do a mailing errand? Miss Lure, I never asked you to do such a thing?”
At the professor’s stern denial, the warm air in the lounge froze in an instant.