Chapter 68

Absurdly peaceful days went on.

Even when Harold tried to keep tabs on First Prince Carlisle's movements, all he heard was the maddening news of yet another drunken scene somewhere. It got to the point where Harold started to wonder whether his brother and Grisha hadn't overestimated Carlisle.

Not that he wanted Carlisle to actually make a move.

"Nabi, come here!"

But watching his nephews shriek with laughter in the garden with the big dog...

It would have been nice to just watch Edgar and Edwin run around, without a care in the world.

If anything suspicious had at least turned up, he could have responded. But with nothing surfacing and nothing to do, his nerves only wore thinner, and he was stuck with no outlet.

Would it be better to bring it up with Grisha again, even now? The palace itself would be beyond even Harold, but a place like Summerflower Palace didn't have particularly tight security.

One sleepless night, he'd actually gone and checked. Not out of any ulterior motive — genuinely just because he couldn't sleep. He'd figured moving around might tire him out.

If something unfortunate happened to the First Prince at his own palace, wouldn't suspicion naturally fall on Harold — who lived nearby, was on bad terms with the First Prince, and had more than enough ability to pull it off? Harold had enough restraint, at least, to stop and think about that.

In any case.

The garden of Summerflower Palace in the First District ran right up against King's Woods.

King's Woods was under the royal guard's jurisdiction. Carlisle, on the outs with the royal guard, had thrown a fit and gotten the guard's patrols around Summerflower Palace removed. Naturally that left gaps in the security.

The captain of the royal guard was the Duke of Lambert's younger brother — Grisha's uncle. He made no secret of backing Grisha, so Carlisle no doubt saw him as a thorn in his side.

In reaction, the household guard — a post that had until recently been little more than honorary — had come into real power and started throwing its weight around. All because the king couldn't keep his heir in check. Round and round it went, and the conclusion never changed.

At the very least, they had to stop the prince from using the household guard like his personal servants. If the household guard alone were dealt with, Grisha would have one less thing to worry about.

"Uncle, where are you going?"

The moment Harold pulled out the saddle, Edwin was on him.

"I want to come too!"

"You don't even know where I'm going."

"I don't!"

Harold laughed and calmed Edwin down.

"Let's go out together next time. Not today."

"Why?"

"Edwin, don't be stubborn."

"What about Mr. Benito?"

"You already had your lesson this week."

"But still!"

Edwin was pushing back hard.

It had only been two lessons and Benito already had Edwin thoroughly hooked. Edgar, who hadn't much wanted to at first, was more lukewarm than Edwin, but Harold could see he was quietly having fun with it too.

"You're going out to play without me and Edgar!"

As always, Edwin's face was full of mischief. On any other day Harold would have made time to play along, but not today.

"Uncle has to go to the hospital today."

"Hospital?"

"Uncle, are you sick somewhere?"

Harold had thought Edgar wasn't listening, but he came running over in a flash.

Realizing he'd worried the boys for nothing, Harold quickly waved it off.

"No. I have to visit someone in hospital."

"A visit?"

"Is your friend sick, Uncle?"

Edwin asked with a worried face.

"That friend of yours who came here before."

"Grisha? No, not him... someone else. There's someone I know in hospital right now."

Even after being told Harold wasn't injured, Edgar apparently didn't believe him, and kept poking at Harold's leg.

Not that poking him would tell Edgar anything, but the worry on his face was sweet. Still, if Harold had known this was the reaction he'd get, he wouldn't have mentioned the hospital at all.

Harold took Edgar's hand gently and pointed at Nabi, who by now had trailed the boys over.

"It won't take long. When I come back... how about I bring some of those snacks from before? It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"...You're really not hurt, right?"

"I said I'm not. It's just a visit."

Edgar and Edwin gave him suspicious looks but accepted it and stepped back.

"Have a good trip, Uncle."

"Don't get hurt."

"Don't go with any strange people."

"..."

"Even if someone offers you something tasty, don't go with them."

Edgar looked at Edwin.

Then he nodded firmly and said to Harold,

"Only go to well-lit places."

"That's right! And, um, don't go with anyone even if they offer you snacks."

None of it was wrong.

Except that these were words an eight-year-old nephew shouldn't have needed to say to a thirty-something uncle.

But this too was probably a form of the anxiety they carried about "the guardian who didn't come back," so Harold repeated each of their warnings back like a promise.

"All right. I won't go with any strange people, and I won't go with anyone offering me anything tasty or snacks."

"Only well-lit places!"

"Yes, yes. Only well-lit places."

"And you have to bring back snacks for me and Edgar too."

Only once he'd promised the snacks along with everything else was Harold finally able to get on the horse.

Edgar and Edwin stood at the gate seeing their uncle off until the trees hid him from view. Harold gave the boys one last big wave.

He hadn't lied.

Harold was going to visit someone in hospital. He had no intention of asking how the patient was doing, but he was going to a hospital, all the same.

When he cleared the woods, Anne was waiting for him in her crisp uniform. She skipped the drawn-out greetings.

"Shall we, senior?"

"He's still alive?"

"He's alive, senior. Stop talking like you want him dead."

"..."

"And stop making that 'should have killed him' face too!"

Anne grumbled. Without so much as a flicker, Harold turned his horse.

Toward where Dustin Glenn was.

---

Honestly, Harold's memory of subduing Dustin Glenn was...

It would be a lie to say it was gone.

He'd told Anne he didn't really remember it. Anne, who had known Harold a long time, wasn't fooled by that kind of lie, but she'd left it alone.

Saying he hadn't had time to think in his rush to save his nephew left far more room for mitigation than saying he'd deliberately put a man near death.

"First time I've been here."

"Most people don't even know it exists."

Anne led Harold to a hospital on the outskirts of the capital.

"It's where our officers come when they get hurt on duty."

"Criminals too?"

"There was trouble once when we placed them together in a civilian hospital."

Anne gave Harold a light glare as she explained.

"Not that we usually get suspects here — you'd have to be hurt badly enough for a long stay."

"Was that aimed at me?"

"Is there someone besides you here, senior?"

Even so, Anne wasn't really complaining.

"But because he's here, we've been able to interrogate him without a turf war with Intelligence."

"Because it's a hospital?"

"...I'll pretend I didn't catch what you meant by that."

Harold gave an awkward laugh.

"I mean everyone here already knows the situation, so we can question him without outside interference. We absolutely cannot have another Adrien Renard on our hands."

That, nobody wanted.

"And I can tell right away if Intelligence is holding anything back. Same the other way around, I expect."

"That's their problem."

The hospital looked like a run-down manor from the outside, but inside was another matter. Medical staff and patients alike gave brief nods at the sight of Anne's uniform.

Dustin Glenn was in the annex. There were guards from the entryway on, and they only let Harold through after checking his identity.

"He won't talk, you said?"

"His girlfriend, on the other hand, is singing like a bird."

Harold ran back over what he knew about Dustin Glenn and his girlfriend.

It was straightforward. The inn room Adrien Renard had used as a hideout after leaving the Bertholdt estate had been rented under the name of a woman named Siri — Dustin Glenn's girlfriend.

"Once we told her her boyfriend had been arrested for murder, she told us everything."

But the results were thin.

They'd only been together a few months to begin with. Between a mail carrier at a small newspaper and a restaurant waitress, that wasn't enough time for a deep-rooted love to bloom.

"I get that. Looking at the report Count Bertholdt left behind, there was no saying she wouldn't end up another victim herself."

"...What about the other cases? Weren't you looking into them?"

His brother had said Dustin Glenn was a suspect in three murders.

"Digging into Dustin Glenn's surroundings, we've found several suspicious incidents besides those three murders."

"Incidents?"

"Murders included. The culprits were never caught."

"..."

"We caught Dustin Glenn... but there might well be others in on it, right?"

Anne lowered her voice, as if not even everyone at the watch could be fully trusted.

"Just in case, we've got the girlfriend under protective custody. It doubles as surveillance, but there's no guarantee no one's going to try to destroy evidence."

The annex had a distinctly different atmosphere from the main building. Every window was set with iron bars. The doors could be locked from the outside. The beds were bolted firmly to the floor.

Most of the rooms were empty. Watch officers stood at the closed doors. Anne walked past them and headed upstairs.

"So the link to Adrien Renard?"

"Hazy."

Was there anything about this case that wasn't? Harold looked at Anne without letting his irritation show.

Anne must have found this situation unbearable herself. The First Prince's antics were headache enough on their own, and working out just how far the watch could push in this business...

Well, it would be a nightmare.

"Dustin Glenn plays dumb, but Siri — the girlfriend — clearly said Glenn was the one who introduced her to Renard. Said they got close over drinks."

"Drinks... at a gambling den?"

"He was making the rounds at illegal gambling dens."

The top floor of the annex.

That this floor was for people who required special handling was obvious from the stairs on up. It wasn't built to keep outsiders out — it was built to keep those inside from getting out.

An oddly unpleasant space. Unlike the weather outside, cool air clung to the tip of his tongue.

"Dustin Glenn is from the capital. He finished school; his current job is his third. No family; lives in a rental... drinks, gambles."

Among the people watching the top floor were some not in watch uniform. Intelligence.

Eyes that seemed not to be looking followed them anyway. Anne didn't turn her gaze toward them.

"But witnesses around him say he spent oddly freely — with his current girlfriend and generally."

"Beyond what he earned?"

"Giving a jeweled necklace to a girlfriend of only two months isn't something you do easily."

"..."

"We also found a stack of cash in Dustin Glenn's home."

Anne stopped in front of a heavy iron door.

"Even setting aside what happened in the Bertholdt domain."

At the door, an officer in watch uniform and an Intelligence man in a black suit stood guard side by side.

A nameplate hung there. Dustin Glenn. At the sight of it, Anne clicked her tongue with distaste.

"Dustin Glenn's been making his money on contract killings."