Chapter 4

Harold. I didn't want to leave you with anything this cliché. But if this letter has reached you with my will, then I'm certainly dead.

Albrecht Bertholdt was the exact opposite of his younger brother Harold. Or rather — he had been.

The only things he and Harold shared were the color of their hair and eyes. People said that if he kept his mouth shut, the resemblance was at least there in the face.

Everything else about them was different.

Where Harold had been the kind of child who couldn't sit still — breaking the furniture around the house from a young age — his older brother Albrecht had no talent at all for swordsmanship or anything physical.

But anyone who saw a child reading difficult books fluently before he could even walk would have called him a genius.

Albrecht Bertholdt had been a genius.

Harold couldn't believe his brother had died in something as ordinary as a carriage accident.

If it had really been that, he wouldn't have left this kind of letter behind.

"...I don't know."

Anne spoke carefully.

But the fact that she didn't deny it was as good as an answer.

"Harold, you said you only got into the capital today. So how much did you actually hear about the accident?"

"I know what happened. The carriage hit another that had skidded on a wet road...."

Anne's face darkened as he spoke.

"It was a four-vehicle pileup. Fifteen people caught up in it, only three survived."

"...."

"We investigated, naturally. There's no evidence anyone caused it deliberately."

"An intelligence officer dies, and that's it?"

"Which is why it wasn't just the watch. At least three agencies that I know of were on it."

Anne shook her head.

"But it was an accident. At least going by the evidence we could find."

Still, there was something uncertain in Anne's voice. The same went for Harold.

His brother's letter was in his pocket. He wanted to give the man an earful about playing this kind of joke — and as if Albrecht had anticipated exactly that reaction, he'd written it into the letter, point-blank.

This isn't one of the pranks I used to pull when we were kids. So don't hold on to the idea that I'm still alive somewhere out there.

Even dead, the man hadn't changed.

"And?"

"And...."

Anne hesitated.

"The Count's b — body has a no-access spell on it, so. We... can't really do anything with it."

Harold's eyebrows twitched. Anne read his reaction differently.

"We did try to recover him! It's just, with the no-access spell and a time-stop on top of it, we couldn't confirm whether he really died in the accident."

"...."

"Harold, you heard, didn't you? That the Count's own funeral —"

"Can only be held if I officiate. I know. Same with recovering the body."

Harold let out a complicated sigh.

His brother had written in the letter that he'd taken precautions, but Harold hadn't expected anything this extreme.

"A no-access seal I can understand, that gets used. But — magic can do that?"

"It seems the Count was funding a magic researcher. They'd been using something like it to preserve crime scenes, and the Count adapted it somehow."

Anne chewed at her lip as she answered.

"We tried asking the researcher, but apparently the Count holds the rights to the spell. They can't tell us anything without Count Bertholdt's permission."

And Count Bertholdt was dead. To get permission through another channel, they had to wait until Harold returned to the capital regardless.

It was exactly the sort of trick his brother would use.

Whether or not it had been a real accident, something had been serious enough to warrant measures like that.

It wasn't impossible that an intelligence officer had prepared all manner of contingencies just in case and then died in an unlucky carriage accident anyway.

But it was just as possible he hadn't.

"...I'll start with the estate. That's the urgent thing."

"All right, Harold."

Anne left the study saying she'd round up the watchmen, and Harold left too.

He glanced into the room where the children were sleeping. A tuft of fluffy black hair peeked out from between the blankets.

"Sir Bertholdt. Are you finished?"

"Yes. I'm going to look at the estate now — that all right?"

"Of course."

Mattheus followed behind him.

Neither of them noticed how, the moment they left, the children's faces tightened with worry as they reached out and took each other's hands.

---

The Bertholdt estate was silent.

It was still as old-fashioned as Harold remembered.

As if to testify to the family's long history, every part of the house, from the exterior on in, had something venerable about it.

"I'll need to put the lock back on."

Harold kicked the broken pieces of the lock out of the gateway and clear of the path.

The house itself didn't show much damage. But there was no hiding that no one had been keeping it. It used to be cared for daily by dozens of attendants, so it stood out.

The high windows that ran to the ceiling were curtained shut, blocking the light. Sheets draped over the furniture gave the place a desolate look.

"...It doesn't look like things were sold off."

"Let's start with the study. Is it where it used to be?"

"Yes, Master — Sir Bertholdt."

Rather than calling out Mattheus's slip, Harold gave him a small smile and moved deeper into the house.

The interior matched his memory too. Even under a layer of dust, the history of the place wasn't hidden.

"...."

The study door, when they reached it, stood half-open. A trail of muddy footprints crossed the threshold.

Harold and Mattheus looked at each other.

The prints weren't fresh. They were old. And not from one person — at least three. The trail led toward the kitchen. They'd been coming in through the back, not the front gate.

It would've been easier if someone were still hiding in the house right now. They could be caught on the spot. Unfortunately, the place was as empty as before.

The two of them stepped into the study, careful not to scuff the footprints.

"Clearly money wasn't the goal."

If valuables had been the target, they'd have started with the decorative pieces around the house.

"Can you tell what's missing from in here?"

"Hmm...."

The study should have been spotless. Not a single mote of dust. His brother had hated anyone else touching his things — he hadn't even let a servant near the study, he'd done the cleaning himself.

That care wasn't here anymore. The desk had been turned upside down, and the bookshelves were no better. Paintings that had hung on the walls were strewn on the floor; the plant pots and even the smallest ornaments lay in pieces.

Mattheus took in the wreckage and let out a long, low sound.

"In this state, Count Archibald will have a better eye for what's gone than I will."

Harold went to the desk. The contents of the drawers were scattered everywhere. Whoever had done it must have thought there was a hidden compartment somewhere — they'd torn the sides off the desk too.

His brother would never have done something so crude. Harold picked up a sheet of paper from the floor.

The handwriting was elegant enough that it looked less like writing than a piece of art. His brother's hand.

[Check status of supply movement to northern base.

Damage from heavy snow worsening yearly. Continue observation.

Need for port construction.]

The content itself was nothing dramatic.

A memo, probably — a list of things to do.

"Hmm.... There are a few ornaments missing."

"What kind?"

"A clock. One of the pieces the Countess left behind."

Mattheus scanned the area around the bookshelves and shook his head slowly.

The dead Count Bertholdt, Harold's brother Albrecht, hadn't been extravagant — but he hadn't been frugal either.

One of the things he never economized on was his late wife's collection. Harold remembered that much himself.

"They wouldn't have torn the study apart looking for it.... It's small and has gemstones, so they probably figured it would be easy to sell."

"Could've just grabbed it on the way out."

"We should check the other rooms too...."

He needed to see the full extent of the damage. And, as Anne had pointed out, make sure the family vault was untouched.

There were signs of people in the kitchen and storerooms as well. Harold's expression hardened as he took in the dining room, empty bottles rolling on the floor. All top-shelf. No question — they'd been brought up from the cellar.

The men had given the children stale bread and nothing else while gorging themselves like this. He'd had no intention of forgiving them to begin with, and now any thought of going easy was gone.

Aside from the study and the kitchen, the other place with signs of intrusion was —

"Hah."

Harold gave an incredulous laugh.

The most private parts of the house were the family quarters. The master bedroom, the children's rooms. Only people who could be trusted ever set foot in them.

After what he'd seen in the study, he wasn't expecting the family quarters to be untouched. Anyone who'd worked as a butler would have at least a rough idea where the family vault was kept.

In the Bertholdt house, the family vault was in the master bedroom.

"You — you —!"

The elderly lawyer, who had kept his composure all the way through, went red-faced at last.

Harold ground his teeth and walked into the bedroom. An empty bottle went skittering across the floor under his angry stride.

The bedroom was a wreck. Worse than the kitchen. Scraps of food and trash everywhere. His brother's clothes crumpled and flung about. Footprints on the bed. Dried vomit on the couch.

It wasn't hard to picture what they'd done in here. They'd locked the rightful young masters in another room and taken over this one as if it belonged to them — riotous parties, the dead Count's clothes pulled out and worn for laughs.

"...Have Adrien Renard investigated again."

"Yes, sir."

"No — no, never mind. We don't need to investigate. We'll get everything out of him once he's caught."

Harold's gaze landed on a filthy coat draped over the couch.

It wasn't his brother's. Old, dirty.... His eyes sharpened.

He patted the coat down.

A month. He could roughly guess how much time had passed before he'd reached the capital, but he couldn't pin down the exact date. Even if they'd started thinking they ought to run for it, the state of the place said they hadn't been cleaning up after themselves.

The coat smelled of liquor — and something else, something dank. Closer to a fishy smell.

I hated when they came. They smelled weird.

Edgar had said that.

Harold found a crumpled flyer tucked inside the coat.

The Sailors' Rest — Welcome to the Song of Hemeril!

"Mattheus. Did my brother by any chance —"

"Yes?"

A strange instinct pulled Harold toward the window. Something at the edge of his senses was prodding at him.

"Sir Bertholdt?"

Harold gestured Mattheus over. Mattheus, still glaring at a suspicious stain on the floor, came to Harold's side and looked out.

The front gate was visible from here. A man with his hat pulled low was peering through the open gate. He slipped past it and started carefully studying the house.

"Is that the butler?"

Mattheus narrowed his eyes and looked more closely.

"...No. I don't think so. Adrien Renard has red hair."

"Suspicious, though."

"Sir?"

"Go fetch Anne."

Harold threw the window open and leapt down. The man started in surprise and turned to run. Harold took off after him.

The previous Count Bertholdt had had two sons.

The elder, Albrecht, had made his name as the genius of his generation. The younger, Harold, had made his with the strongest body in the land.