Chapter 4
So buying a few dresses was, without a doubt, an investment for the Count and Countess Brough — a small investment made in order to sell off what they had at a higher price.
Given how eager they seemed, it was possible that marriage negotiations were already underway behind the scenes. Perhaps the ball itself was nothing more than an excuse, staged to look like a chance encounter.
While I settled for a small smile in place of thanking them properly, the young maid assigned specifically to me in this household approached.
“I’ll prepare for your outing as well, my lady.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Watching her bow politely, bending her knee slightly before withdrawing, a strange feeling washed over me.
Only a few days ago, I had been in the same position as that maid.
* * *
Behind the typists clattering away at their typewriters, someone shouting for a person, and officers exchanging conversation in grave voices, postmen and newspaper reporters hurried back and forth.
Amid all that noise, Ash was reading through the documents Louis had handed him, seemingly determined not to miss a single word.
“Everyone inside the building did die, but the structure of the case isn’t complicated.”
Louis viewed this as a simple accidental fire. Most likely, he thought, caused by a mistake made by the maid the baron’s daughter had brought with her from the countryside.
But to Ash, something about this case felt off.
‘They say the fire seems to have started in Rosalyn Tessis’s room — so why did the flames spread that fast?’
What flammable materials could there possibly be in a noble young lady’s bedroom?
If the fire had started in the kitchen, say, there’d at least be room for understanding — but in that room, where at most there’d have been an oil lamp, why on earth would it—?
That wasn’t the only thing that bothered him.
The bodies of the baron and his wife, found in front of Rosalyn Tessis’s door, could be explained as having died trying to save their daughter. But the two servants’ bodies found inside that same daughter’s room, and the single maid’s body found in her own room, didn’t sit right.
‘Why didn’t any of them make it out of their rooms?’
The maid on the first floor, especially, made no sense. Since the fire was presumed to have started on the second floor, it would only be natural for a maid in her own room on the first floor to rush outside. And yet she’d died right there, in her own room.
‘None of this adds up.’
Having finished reading through the documents, Ash’s fingertip came to rest on the name of the only one to survive among those present — Rosalyn Tessis. She, too, was strange in her own way.
‘Why was this woman the only one who survived?’
Perhaps it really was pure coincidence. As written here, she might have simply gone out alone for a walk when the fire broke out, and happened to be lucky.
Or, perhaps, it wasn’t coincidence at all.
For now, he transcribed the key details into his own notebook.
Just then, Detective Greg Norman approached, his expression somewhat awkward.
“Lieutenant McCallen. I heard the Brough townhouse fire case was transferred to you.”
“That’s right. What can I do for you?”
“There’s some overlap with a case of mine.”
He handed Ash a thin case file.
“Emma Hampton, who was working as a maid for the baron’s family, has gone missing — and it seems she may be connected to that case.”
“…Was this maid dismissed a week before the incident?”
According to the documents, Emma had already left the household and spent six days in a police holding cell. Then, on the very last day of her restitution deadline — the same day the townhouse caught fire — she had applied for bail, put up three million gilden, and gained a single day of freedom.
“Yes. On the day of the incident, she requested bail, saying she’d try to raise the restitution money, so we released her for twenty-four hours. She never came back.”
Greg continued his explanation, scratching his cheek with an awkward expression.
At first, he’d assumed she’d simply fled out of fear of being unable to pay — but then the mansion had caught fire, and he’d remembered that Emma had said she was going to try borrowing money from the baron and his wife.
“We suspect she might have set the fire after things didn’t go the way she wanted when trying to borrow money. Actually, the woman claimed the dress payment wasn’t hers to make in the first place — she said it was the young lady of the house who was responsible.”
“You mean she was framed?”
“It’s possible she was made a scapegoat. If we question Lady Heather Dartmouth, the one who filed the report, we might get a clearer picture.”
Ash frowned and asked, sharply.
“And why is this only coming up now? It’s been a full week since Emma Hampton was arrested — what exactly was being done in that time?”
“Ah, well, that’s…”
“You arrested Emma Hampton based solely on the word of the baron’s daughter?”
“But the circumstances pointed that way. And it was Lady Heather Dartmouth herself who filed the complaint against Emma Hampton.”
“And the grounds for arrest? If there was a week’s deadline for restitution, shouldn’t you have waited until that period had passed before making an arrest?”
“Come on, sir — where would a maid fresh from the countryside get fifty million gilden? Saying we’d give her a week was just a formality.”
Greg’s excuses were, without exception, made entirely for the sake of the nobles. No one seemed to care in the least about Emma Hampton, whose life had been ruined by a petty power struggle between two young ladies.
It wasn’t as though Ash felt some noble sense of duty to save the downtrodden, either. He simply found it pathetic that a police force so often lost sight of the essence of a case, all because of one-sided perspectives.
“…For now, leave this file here. It might turn out to be a clue in the fire case.”
“Understood.”
Greg left, looking rather sheepish.
Ash watched him go for a moment, then turned his eyes back to the documents.
‘Everyone believed one of the bodies at the fire scene was Emma Hampton. Louis didn’t know she’d been dismissed, and Greg assumed it because she’d said she was going there to borrow money. But strictly speaking…’
His eyes darted quickly between the lines of text.
‘There’s no actual evidence that body really was Emma Hampton, is there?’
Ash wrote this question down in his notebook. It seemed he’d need to take a closer look at both the recovered remains and the scene itself.
* * *
Ten days after the ball was first mentioned, I found myself wearing the splendid dress Countess Brough had bought me, heading toward the McCallen earldom together with them.
Anyone watching would think I was actually their daughter — which, in truth, was probably exactly the picture they wanted to paint.
“Is this the McCallen earldom?”
“That’s right. The McCallen family is quite an old and distinguished house. There’s certainly no harm in making a good impression here.”
I supposed that was true. No matter how much the standing of nobility had declined compared to before, every important post in the kingdom was still held by nobles, and a family of earldom rank was to be considered a formidable power in its own right.
Just the sight of the mansion, grand as a palace, was enough to make me feel a little small.
“Is there anything I should know beforehand?”
“Just stay by my side and greet people properly. Oh! There is one thing you should know.”
Count Brough lowered his voice slightly as he spoke.
“This household has three sons, and the youngest was born outside of wedlock. So it would be best to avoid mentioning the youngest son in front of Lady McCallen as much as possible.”
“There shouldn’t be much reason to bring him up anyway.”
“That would certainly be for the best — but as it happens, that very son is the detective in charge of our townhouse fire case.”
“What? Really?”
“Yes. Not that it’ll cause any awkwardness between our families over it, mind you.”
A police officer, hm…
The man I’d seen at the temple cemetery during the Baron and Baroness Tessis’s funeral came to mind.
At the time, I’d instinctively known he was the new detective assigned to the case, the one I’d only heard about.
I couldn’t recall every detail of his appearance, but the distinctive grayish-brown hair, his sturdy build, his soldier-like stride, and the clear impression of a rather handsome face had all stayed vividly in my mind.
“Even if he’s illegitimate, doesn’t living here mean he’s been acknowledged as a member of this family? Why would someone like that become a police officer?”
“That’s exactly what I keep saying. If he’d simply stayed in the military, he’d have gone much further in life.”
“The military? Was he a soldier before?”
“He was. He enlisted voluntarily when he was young, and surprisingly he distinguished himself and rose through the ranks quickly. It seemed like the McCallen family was about to extend its influence into the military as well — and then, one day, out of nowhere, he simply resigned.”
At that, the countess clicked her tongue disapprovingly and shook her head.
“With that handsome face of his, I thought surely they’d marry him into some decent family — and then, of all things, he goes and becomes a mere police officer? You’ve no idea how upset Lady McCallen was at the time.”
Of course, even within the police force, all the important posts were held by nobles, and reaching a senior position naturally brought honor and power along with it — but high-ranking nobles still didn’t look kindly on working alongside commoners. Nor were the cases the police handled particularly dignified affairs.
So I found myself curious about him too.
‘Did he turn out this way because he’s illegitimate?’
At the same time, I felt an odd sort of satisfaction in confirming that my earlier impression of him as having a soldier’s bearing hadn’t been wrong.
Count Brough leaned in to whisper to me once more.
“In any case, try not to stare at him too much. I know he’s handsome enough to catch the eye, but still.”
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