Chapter 28

Chapter 28

“Welcome, Inspector McCallen.”

I greeted Ash, who had come to visit ‘again,’ with a smile.

Do police officers normally meet witnesses this often when investigating a case? At this rate, I might grow attached to him.

Thanks to this man, my date with Arthur had ended successfully, but the truth was that I wanted to avoid him if possible, since he kept showing up at all hours and asking uncomfortable questions.

Huh? Wait. Then what if I turned the tables and made that man uncomfortable instead?

“What brings you here again today?”

“It seems I’m becoming a nuisance to you.”

“A nuisance? Of course not. It’s just that I was wondering when you were going to confess to me.”

“Confess?”

I smiled brightly.

“No matter how I think about it, there’s no way you would investigate a witness this often. If that’s the case, then you must have another intention, and if it’s an intention that could arise between a young man and woman, well, it’s obvious what it is.”

“That…….”

“Ah! I should have pretended not to know?”

A man like Ash, who was full of self-love, could never like a woman who was full of herself and had her head in the clouds. So wouldn’t this make him avoid seeing me?

But Ash, whom I had expected to become stern, quietly looked at me before answering with a peculiar smile.

“That is certainly something you could reasonably think.”

Wow……! If I hadn’t been myself, I would have been spellbound by that face and voice just now. Even I was in danger!

“However, I try to avoid becoming involved in a special relationship with someone connected to a case. So you don’t need to worry about that.”

Seeing myself feel a little disappointed by his answer, perhaps I had already half fallen for him, too. Oh dear, I need to keep my wits about me.

“Oh my, what a shame. Still, you never know what might happen in the future. There’s no such thing as ‘never’ in this world.”

“I agree, but I don’t think that applies ‘right now.’ Anyway.”

He easily brushed aside my attack and handed me the bundle he had brought.

“I came today to give you this, along with an apology.”

“What? What is this?”

“These are the personal effects of the late Baron and Baroness Tessis. I should have returned them to you sooner, and I apologize for being late.”

I was a little flustered by the unexpected reason for his visit.

Then I wondered if even this might be a trap intended to test me, so I quickly racked my brain and summoned up my emotions.

“Ah, ah…….”

Quickly, tears! Tears!

“I, I had forgotten, too. How could I have forgotten this……! Sob…….”

Fortunately, tears began to fall at exactly the right moment.

I opened the bundle he held out to me and touched the half-burned objects inside with trembling hands.

Baron Tessis’s pipe and family seal, Baroness Tessis’s brooch and wedding ring…….

The belongings left behind by people I had known for more than two years were enough to give me a faint shock even if they had not been my parents.

“Only…… this much was left? There’s barely anything left for me to remember my parents by…….”

“I’m sorry. Everything else was burned to the point that there was no reason to recover it…….”

“Sob, sob……. Mom……. Dad…….”

I buried my face in both hands and sobbed loudly.

At first, it was an act, but later, for some reason, I genuinely became sorrowful, and the tears began to overflow naturally.

At that moment, Ash offered me a handkerchief. To show the dignity of a gentleman even to a woman he did not particularly like, as expected of a well-bred man!

“Thank, you.”

“You’re welcome. I’m only sorry that it seems I’m always the one bringing you sad news, Miss Rosalyn.”

“No! I know that you’re investigating the case seriously and diligently, Inspector. I’m always grateful to you.”

Somehow, swept up in the atmosphere, words I did not truly mean flowed smoothly from my mouth.

Well, perhaps that was enough emotional acting for now.

I wiped my face with the handkerchief, sniffed, and took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to show you such a disheveled state.”

“I understand.”

At that moment, Maya, who had gone to prepare tea and refreshments when Ash arrived, entered the drawing room, pushing a tray.

I recommended tea to him with a bright expression to lighten the mood.

“You must have gone through the trouble of coming all the way here, so please have a cup of tea before you leave. The refreshments at the Brough estate should be much better than what you had at the Tessis estate.”

“I thought the ones at the Tessis estate were quite good, actually. To be honest, I’m rather ignorant about things like this.”

Unexpected. He looked like the type who would elegantly scrutinize the quality of tea and the butter content of cookies.

“Rather…… have you found a personal maid? She doesn’t look like she belongs to the Brough household…….”

“How did you know?”

“Her clothes are a little different.”

Perhaps because he was a police officer, Ash had keenly noticed Maya’s maid uniform, which was of slightly lower quality than the Brough household’s maid uniform.

Every time I saw this side of him, my guard immediately went up.

“I’ll have more personal errands to deal with because of the territory from now on, and I can’t have the Brough household’s maid do those things.”

“I see. That makes sense. Did you go through an employment agency?”

“No. I found her through a personal connection.”

He did not particularly pry into that ‘connection.’ Of course, I had no intention of telling him anyway.

In any case, I needed to make some light conversation while drinking tea, so what would be a good topic?

“How have you been lately? You’re not really spending all your time on the fire case, are you?”

I had tried to indirectly ask whether this was the only case he had been assigned, but his answer was unexpected.

“Several children have recently gone missing, and I’ve been assigned to that case as well. So I may be a little delayed in progressing with the fire case, and I would like to ask for your understanding in advance.”

“Huh? You’re handling that case, Inspector McCallen?”

“You know about it?”

“I saw it in the newspaper. It said the children seemed to have been swept away by the swollen river…….”

Ash did not answer one way or the other and merely gave a slight nod.

Why had the case I had tried to forget appeared before me again? Could this perhaps be fate?

I smiled awkwardly and probed him.

“Have the children…… been found?”

“As a rule, all information concerning an ongoing investigation is kept confidential, so it is difficult for me to tell you.”

“If they haven’t appeared in the newspaper, then they probably haven’t been found yet. But do you really believe the children fell into the water and were swept away?”

At those words, Ash’s golden eyes turned toward me.

I did not avert my gaze from the look that held a hint of suspicion and wariness.

“It seems you have something you want to say.”

“Actually, children disappearing is quite common in the provinces.”

He uncrossed his legs and set down his teacup. It seemed to mean that I should say more.

“It’s embarrassing to say this as a lord, but usually…… it’s often a case of human trafficking.”

“How did you come to know about human trafficking?”

“It’s an open secret in the provinces. Look into missing-person cases and human trafficking cases handled by local police departments. There are far more than you’d expect, and what you find will be very shocking.”

Ash took a notebook and pen from inside his coat and quickly wrote something down.

Seeing that he seemed to be taking my words seriously gave me courage, and perhaps he had developed some trust in me as well, because he shared his own thoughts.

“I was already considering the possibility of kidnapping. Although the possibility is slim, I thought it would be better to assume the worst when considering what might happen.”

This man seemed to have sharper instincts than most people. Perhaps he was a natural detective.

If so, wouldn’t he properly understand the information I gave him and put it to good use?

“Human trafficking usually begins with a guardian selling a child or with kidnapping. In the case of kidnapping, the children’s lives become even more endangered. People don’t value things they got for free.”

“‘Things’…….”

“To human traffickers, those children are nothing more than things. Things that are good to acquire cheaply and sell at a high price, and if a defective one comes out along the way, they can simply throw it away.”

“You know a lot about this.”

At Ash’s sharp gaze, I swallowed nervously.

I was doing something dangerous right now. Of course it would be suspicious for a young lady of a baron’s family to speak so knowledgeably about such a crime. I was well aware of that.

But even so, I could not keep my mouth shut and pretend I knew nothing.

“Please let us go! Send us home!”

“I want my mom. Mom!”

Inside a secluded tent belonging to the Mulberry troupe, the voices of the children locked inside cages still seemed to echo in my ears.

Gale, the troupe’s director and the leader of a criminal organization, would drag me to the tent where those children were imprisoned whenever I made a mistake and threaten me.

“If you don’t do it properly, you could end up like them, too! Do you want to be sold to a pervert?”

Because of my fear, I had no choice but to turn away from those children, and whenever their voices occasionally sounded like hallucinations, I felt nauseous. I was so resentful and tormented by myself for being unable to help them, and by the miserable reality we had lived through.

That was why I could not turn a blind eye to this incident.