Chapter 26 – In which murder mystery solvers assemble!
“She called him… names… many names I would rather not say.”
Craya tightly grasped her tea cup, as if just thinking about it made her angry.
She didn’t seem willing to share what exactly was said, but it seemed that ‘fucking dog’ was pretty mild.
“Do you know why Golderodi loathed Sir Waxion?”
Before Saffra felt uncomfortable using the name of the recently deceased, but now she couldn’t care less if calling the name of the dead would affect her soul or not.
“Not really. After Her Majesty Saffaron’s demise, my family faded into obscurity. I don’t know about any feuds. Of course, assuming the rumors of betrayal are tru–”
“They’re not.”
Saffra frowned.
She understood that people of this era may believe in something as ridiculous as Waxion’s betrayal and driven by their ‘Saffaron’s fanaticism’ try to eradicate presumed traitors, but still…
She switched the topic.
“When was the last time you saw Golderodi?”
“... Last night, around midnight.”
Saffra blinked.
“I thought you weren’t close?”
What were you doing then hanging out at night together?
Or… was it a one-time type of thing…?
“My Lady, it wasn’t that sort of thing.”
Did her thoughts show on her face?
While Saffra did her best to control her face, which apparently wasn’t cooperating with her today, Craya explained:
“She suddenly knocked at my door at midnight. She asked if I could go with her somewhere, but considering that I was going to attend to My Lady early in the morning, I refused.”
“She came here at midnight?”
Apric and Tangeri seemed surprised by it.
“Yes. I was surprised too. She was also almost begging me to go with her, but something about her behavior made me very uncomfortable, so I refused and closed the door without any further interaction.”
“Did she seem anxious?”
“No… She tried to appear so, but she wasn’t. She looked rather excited.”
Craya served Saffra for a few years now. Her skills to recognize when someone is distressed or anxious were quite high.
Honed by the need to recognize the mental state of someone, who wasn’t able to realize it on her own.
She was certain to recognize when someone was in a disastrous situation and needed help.
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Saffra continued her questions.
“Did she say where and why she wanted you to go with her?”
“She just said she wanted to talk about something. Where there are no people.”
But Craya’s room or even the corridor where Craya’s room was also didn’t have any people at midnight.
“Was there anything that struck you as strange?”
“Ribbon.”
Ribbon?
Craya frowned as she recalled.
“Golderodi was very good at tying hair with ribbons. My Lady’s hair doesn't tolerate ribbons, so I planned to ask her for a few tips. But that night, the ribbon bow was very messy.”
Interesting.
Saffra nodded and then organized the information in her head.
Deceased was Golderodi from a new small nobility. She worked at the manor for only a few months and the only person she really talked to was Craya.
For some reason, she got into an argument with Craya by slandering Waxion. Craya assumed she had a very bad day because it wasn’t like her.
Last night… Or tonight, at midnight, she knocked at Craya’s door and asked her to go with her somewhere, because she wanted to talk.
She pretended to be nervous, and her ribbon bow was a mess, unlike usual.
Between midnight and two in the morning, she was murdered in the enclave of a rarely visited corridor.
She was assumed to write ‘Descendant of fucking dog, Craya, you…’ before her last breath.
Well, if mystery stories Am told her about taught her anything, it was that it was surely written by a murderer.
“I can’t figure out a murderer just from that…”
When Saffra mumbled to herself like that, Citrie, who stayed quiet until now, suddenly spoke up:
“If it is any help to Young Lady, the murderer appears to be the same height as the victim.”
Saffra sent Citrie a suspicious glance, which he received with a proud smile:
“I was checking the curtains, because I thought that if you’re going to commit a murder, you probably would want to obstruct the view into the enclave from anyone who might have for some reason walked down that corridor. And I was right. There was a bit of blood on the edge of them. Looking at the height where the stains were, it appears they were left when the murderer held the curtains to leave. Therefore, considering that height, it’s probable that murderer was about as tall as Golderodi.”
“... Sir Citrie, why do you think like a murderer?”
“Young Lady, it’s the simplest and most popular method of reasoning out a crime.”
“I know, but it feels weirdly suspicious when Sir Citrie does it.”
Citrie visibly restrained from rolling his eyes and then added:
“There is one more thing.”
“... Sir Citrie, I think you need to shrink first, before you can become a murderer in this case.”
“... Young Lady, why do I feel like you’re only like that with me?”
“I’m not only like that with Sir Citrie, I’m like that with every cat I meet.”
“... I’m not a cat?”
“That’s what you believe, Sir Citrie.”
This time Citrie couldn’t restrain from rolling his eyes.
“There is one more thing I picked up right now.” He composed himself and glanced at Craya. “The ribbon bow on the victim's hair was very neat.”
He then, as if struck by a thought, quickly added while looking at Saffra:
“For Young Lady’s information. I paid attention to it, because I myself am a fan of tying hair with ribbons and a good flower bow easily catches my eyes.”
As evidence, he took off his uniform hat, and turned his head to present a neat butterfly bow at the base of his ponytail.
Even for Saffra, who never took much interest in the art of tying ribbon and hairdressing, it was a very neat ribbon bow.
The intensity of Craya’s gaze while he stared at it was also a good confirmation.
Citrie smiled at Craya as he felt her gaze.
“I can give you some tips if you want.”
Craya immediately made a disgusted face.
“No. Thanks. It’s not that good anyways.”
The expression of Citrie, who heard that, was devastated.
It seemed that he cared about the art of ribbon tying a lot.
“Um, we also have something to add, maybe.”
Saffra, who was about to support Craya in the fight about ribbons, was distracted by Apric’s words.
The two girls, Apric and Tangeri were whispering to each other since earlier.
It seemed that they finished their discussion.
Tangeri continued Apric’s words:
“We think we also saw Golderodi around midnight.”
“You think?”
“Yes. At first we believed it was Golderodi, but now that Craya said that she was here, we aren’t quite sure.”
“The person we saw looked like Golderodi, but she was outside of the manor at that time.”
Saffra asked to made sure she understood correctly:
“When you say outside of the manor…?”
“We mean that we saw her at the night market in the city.”
It took about an hour to get from the manor to the city.
Then the person that Apric and Tangeri saw couldn’t be Golderodi.
But for them to say it…
“Was this person really resembling Golderodi?”
“Yes! They were identical!”
“She even had a very pretty ribbon flower bow!”
Saffra cursed in her head:
‘That really sounds like one of Am’s mystery novels right now!’
*-*-*
[Priest Phlox, what do you mean the stone disappeared?]
[I don’t know, maybe His Excellency’s anger reached it and puffed it out of existence!]
‘If I had such a power, Rasin would unite with the Universe already.’
Amara massaged his temples.
Right now, Phlox reported that the runic stone used to tamper with formation seemingly evaporated.
And earlier, passed down by Alexandrit, Geod reported that Rasin went on a long stroll around the temple, but returned from it in a very bad mood.
Knowing that bastard, if he found a stone, he would act very smug about it, even if he was hiding what he knows.
And then there were gods that just kept laughing in his head.
They seemed to have a time of their lives, and Amara couldn’t figure out why.
‘Where did that damn stone go?’
The only answer he got were more chuckles.
Amara suddenly didn’t feel like playing that mystery game.