Chapter 87

"Hello. I'm Andrea Doak."

The director of Andrea Doak Hospital greeted them quietly.

She gave a calm impression. Her hair — the same shade of brown as her younger brother's — was tied back neatly so it wouldn't come loose, and the gray shawl over her tidy black dress was in perfect order, not a stray thread out of place.

Where her younger brother Leopold had been overcome talking about his sister's death, Andrea remained composed throughout. Unlike Leopold, she'd had more than enough time to make her peace with losing her sister.

Leopold too, once the initial shock passed, would come to accept losing family. The way Harold had.

"Hello. I'm Inspector Anne Archibald of the city watch. This is Sir Harold Bertholdt."

Andrea, who must have just finished seeing a patient, smelled strongly of disinfectant.

Once the introductions were done, everyone fell silent. It wasn't easy to bring the subject up. Just then —

Knock knock knock.

"Excuse me for a moment."

At the knock on the office door, Andrea rose.

In the moment before Andrea stepped into the hall and pulled the door shut behind her, Harold caught a glimpse through the gap of a tall nurse — a man whose calm bearing somehow reminded him of Andrea.

The office's thin wooden door couldn't fully muffle the voices outside.

"Dr. Doak. The rest of the staff have gone home, and I've finished closing up."

"Head home ahead of me. I have things to discuss."

"I'll wait out front — take your time."

If Harold remembered correctly, Andrea's husband was a nurse. That would be him, then.

"This might take a while..."

"Still, it's nicer to go home together."

But Harold sat there as if he couldn't hear a word. Anne did the same.

Ordinarily they might have traded a joke, but neither felt like it today. Andrea's black dress looked like a deliberate choice. Harold's own black coat was the same.

A little while later, Andrea came back after finishing the conversation with her husband.

"I'm sorry for the wait."

"Not at all. We're the ones who came during operating hours."

"No, we'd normally have been closed by now..."

Andrea smiled ruefully.

"The last patient was a difficult one and took longer than expected."

"I'm sorry to hear it."

"I hear my brother's been in your care a great deal, Sir Bertholdt."

"Not at all. If anything, I'm the one who's been helped at the northern base. That's why I didn't put it together when I first heard the news..."

Harold trailed off awkwardly. Andrea shook her head.

"You've lost family too, Sir Bertholdt — of course things have been overwhelming for you. I'd heard you're looking after your nephews?"

"Yes. Twins. I hadn't seen them since they were babies, so they couldn't possibly remember me, but they've taken to me well anyway."

The mood eased, at least, once the boys came up.

"They're bright children. So much like their parents that it startles me sometimes."

"They really are. You're a lot like your brother too these days, sir."

"Am I? Doesn't feel that way to me."

"It's the sort of thing the person in question doesn't notice, I suppose."

Anne slipped in a light remark. Overhearing the exchange, Andrea looked mildly surprised.

"Are the two of you... friends from before, then?"

"Ah, forgive me. I was a year behind Sir Bertholdt at the academy, and we're also next-door neighbors. We've been close since we were children. I was close to the late Count Bertholdt as well."

"Oh... I see."

"I did come on watch business, but with Sir Bertholdt being someone I know, I volunteered on my own too. This case involves children I think of like nephews."

Leopold had passed on Andrea's willingness to talk with just one condition.

Nothing dramatic. Only that they not tell Andrea her sister's death might not have been a carriage accident.

Even after only a few exchanges, Harold didn't get the impression Andrea was the sort to miss something like that. If Dustin Glenn — who had worked alongside her sister — was under investigation, then...

Still, there was no reason not to honor Leopold's request.

"By the way — Sergeant Doak, ah, Leopold — is it all right if he's not here? He'd originally said he'd sit in."

"It's fine. I told him to go on inside."

Andrea's voice was quiet.

"He hasn't quite come to terms with Rosemarie's death yet, I think. I'll talk to him about it separately, later."

Andrea looked at Harold levelly. As if she was already bracing for him and Anne to refuse — with a resolve that made it clear she wouldn't back down easily, whatever they said.

Would someone like this really not notice? Harold thought not.

"Yes, that's fine. But we'd appreciate it if you didn't share this with anyone outside the family. It's still an ongoing investigation, so we do have to ask."

Anne, who must have felt the same thing, put it gently. Andrea eased at that.

"Of course. But..."

"Speak freely."

"I'm not entirely sure what you'd like to know about Rosemarie. As far as I know, the autopsy didn't turn up anything wrong."

"Hm..."

Harold glanced at Anne. He himself didn't know exactly what had happened at the time.

But if the family had assumed it was an accident, they wouldn't have understood why an autopsy had been done at all. Given how tense Intelligence had been when Harold arrived, it might well have been half-forced through. If that was the case, it wasn't surprising the family had refused to hand over her belongings for review.

"That's... something I should have told you at the time of the accident, actually — but everyone was overwhelmed back then."

"Because Count Bertholdt had died?"

"...Something like that."

"Was Rosemarie — my poor sister — caught up in the accident just because she happened to be riding with the count?"

Right — so what exactly was Doak trying to hide?

Harold remembered the way Leopold had trembled and yet spoken with such earnest gravity, so he wasn't about to laugh at him, but there was no getting around how absurd it was. He kept none of that in his face in front of Andrea, of course.

"My brother was working at Intelligence."

"..."

Andrea had lived in the capital a long time, and as a noble she'd know about Intelligence.

"You'll have heard of my brother, Miss Doak."

"His name isn't an easy one to have missed."

"The accident was so sudden that even internally, there was disagreement about whether it was really an accident. Currently, they're treating it as one."

The faint twitch of Andrea's eyebrow told Harold she'd caught the nuance in his phrasing.

He'd meant her to. Grisha and Anne had both agreed that being reasonably candid was the easier path to cooperation. Withholding wasn't always the right move.

"But the reason I want to ask about your late sister isn't the carriage accident."

"...Then?"

"Have you ever heard the name Dustin Glenn?"

Anne asked. Andrea blinked. Her face said this was a name she'd never expected to hear brought up.

"Dustin... Glenn?"

"Yes. As far as we know, Miss Rosemarie Doak worked at the same paper as him for a while."

"Ah... yes. Rosemarie mentioned him a long time ago. Said he was a... memorable coworker."

"That memorable coworker —"

Harold paused and drew in a slow breath. It had been over a month, and just thinking about it still made red flash across his vision.

Dustin Glenn was dead, and it still did. Harold had even gone to confirm the body himself, just to be sure.

"Sir Bertholdt?"

Sensing the shift in the mood, Andrea called Harold's name carefully.

Harold exhaled hard, then spoke.

"He tried to abduct my nephews."

"...Abduct?"

Andrea asked back, thrown.

"Truly?"

"Yes. I arrested him at the scene."

Andrea sat there speechless for a while. It was a long moment before she managed to speak.

"He didn't... didn't seem like the sort of person who would do that. I'm not — I'm not saying you're lying, Sir Bertholdt."

Andrea waved both hands and hurried to correct herself.

"It's just, it's been so long since Rosemarie last talked about him..."

"People don't wear 'criminal' on their forehead."

"Is that why you came along, Inspector?"

"Yes. It's my case, but as I said, I've known the boys since they were born."

"While looking into Dustin Glenn, we learned Miss Rosemarie Doak had worked at the same paper. And that even after she left Today's Summer Square, they'd apparently worked together a few times more..."

"Rosemarie worked with him again after she left?"

Andrea went sharp with surprise.

Her voice, quiet up to now, rose. Harold and Anne exchanged a look.

"So... she didn't? He wouldn't talk when we arrested him, but that was the one thing he did say."

"Which is why we were... we'd have reached out to you anyway, but then we found out that Sergeant Doak was Miss Rosemarie's brother."

"To be fair, we can't take Glenn entirely at his word. But they did work together, and since Miss Rosemarie was a reporter, we thought she might have left something behind. Even something small."

Harold spoke firmly.

"We still don't know why Glenn tried to abduct my nephews. I don't want to see those two little boys hurt again."

Andrea realized that his asking her not to tell anyone else wasn't purely about the investigation. That wasn't the only reason.

So she spoke.

"Rosemarie mentioned him now and then. Nothing dramatic..."

"..."

"He came to our house once. That's why I remember."

"Your house — you mean...?"

"My father's house. I only moved closer to the hospital not long ago."

"Can you tell us why Glenn came by?"

Andrea blinked slowly, working back through the old memory. The skin around her eyes tightened faintly.

"It was a rainy day. He came with a small gift box for Rosemarie, asked me to pass it along. He said they were coworkers, so I accepted it — but the moment Rosemarie saw it, she threw it out without even opening it."

"You don't know what was inside?"

"No. Rosemarie quit the paper right after that. She told me if he ever came back, absolutely do not open the door for him... but he didn't show up again after that."

"..."

According to Rosemarie's reports, she had already been observing him as a murder suspect around that time.

Had she sensed danger? Harold and Anne's expressions grew serious. Seeing that, Andrea spoke softly.

"Leopold may not have mentioned this, but Rosemarie had enormous respect for the two of you."

"Ah."

"Sorry?"

Harold had heard about it but hadn't said anything to Anne. Picking up on the difference in their reactions, Andrea seemed to guess as much and turned to explain to Anne.

"Rosemarie's fiancé was killed by the murderer the two of you caught."

"Oh..."

"Seeing what you two had done gave her the strength to live again. Even if Rosemarie... couldn't help you directly, if something she left behind can be of use to you, she'd have been glad."

Andrea stood.

"Rosemarie left behind a work journal. I haven't touched it since she died, so there may be something in it that could help. I'll have Leopold bring it to you."

"...Thank you."

"No — thank you."

Andrea gave a formal bow.

"Because of you, Rosemarie got to live her dream, however briefly."