Chapter 92

The report on Dustin Glenn that Gauss had found in his dead superior's office was meticulously kept.

Strictly speaking, it wasn't really about Dustin Glenn. The report covered an investigation into unsolved cases. How the material had been obtained, Gauss didn't know, but the report was built on top of the city watch's existing case files, fleshed out with new evidence and testimony.

According to what Gauss had been able to confirm, the watch had later responded to an anonymous tip, turned up new evidence at the scene, and caught the perpetrator.

Dustin Glenn's name only appeared at the very end of the report. Gauss guessed that any report with more detail about him had been destroyed.

Rosemarie Doak's materials were the raw form of what that destroyed report would have been. There were no signs they'd been organized. Since they weren't meant for anyone else's eyes, the notes were filled with abbreviations only the writer herself could make sense of. They weren't sorted chronologically either — anything new she'd learned had been tacked on wherever it fit.

"The case Doak was investigating at the time... you checked, right?"

"Mm."

Harold didn't refuse the newspaper Grisha handed him.

Both papers were front pages. The dates were about a year and a half apart. One was a murder in a laborers' dormitory at the docks; the other was the news that the killer from a murder a year and a half earlier had been caught.

"..."

If he hadn't known who Dustin Glenn was, these would have been useful.

The paper, Today's Summer Square, wasn't one that covered violent crime. But it was popular with dock workers. A Summer Square reporter asking for an interview would have gotten a warm response.

Dustin Glenn was a delivery man for the Summer Square paper. He'd know the dock workers well, and every corner of the docks besides.

The victims in the three murders where Dustin Glenn was a suspect all had ties to the docks too. The head of a hiring hall, or a captain hired by a trading company.

"I still can't tell what Dustin Glenn and Rosemarie Doak were to each other."

"From what her sister said, it might have been one-sided."

"And whatever that feeling was, I still don't know."

The furrow in Harold's brow had no chance to smooth out.

Right. If he hadn't known who Dustin Glenn was, what Rosemarie Doak had left behind would have been like rain in a drought.

Once Glenn realized Doak wasn't looking into the daily life of dock workers or the injustices they suffered on the job but into a murder case, instead of telling his boss he'd offered to help. His pretext was a good one. He'd claimed the laborer who had been framed as the killer and taken his own life had been an acquaintance.

But as the investigation went on, things stopped adding up.

Laborer who agreed to interview has disappeared.

Dustin's introduction?

Move around separately.

Find the man Dustin was said to have fought with.

The notes went on in scattered fragments.

Either way, Harold already knew Dustin Glenn was a strange one. He flipped through the material quickly.

The further in he read, the more openly Rosemarie Doak's suspicion of Dustin Glenn came through. Only after reading the last page did Harold set the papers down.

"So why did Dustin Glenn react to Rosemarie Doak's name?"

"I don't know."

"...Refreshing, at least."

Faced with an answer that simple, verging on breezy, Harold found himself settling down instead.

"If Dustin Glenn were still alive, we might have gotten him to open up by shaking him with that name, but..."

"They're both dead now."

Of course they couldn't drop Dustin Glenn entirely. He'd been a suspect in other cases, and there were suspicions of contract killings. There was no telling how many victims there might be.

But that was a separate matter from this one.

If he'd known Glenn would die this pointlessly, he'd have rather...

Harold felt Grisha's eyes on him and reflexively smiled. Grisha, apparently guessing what he'd been thinking, sighed.

"Right. Both dead, like you said. We won't drop him completely, but as for what happened with Rosemarie Doak..."

"That's for the dead to keep?"

"Unless something new comes to light — until then, yes."

Grisha gathered the papers Harold had put down.

He'd brought over the not-especially-useful stack of documents purely for Harold's sake. To let him see the shape of how things were unfolding.

Harold stroked his jaw.

"That said, it's not all a wash."

"Barbosa?"

"Whether the assignment was investigating Adrien Renard or my sister-in-law, the fact that my brother handed it to Rosemarie Doak means he trusted her."

"...You could put it that way."

"The train departure was ten days after the carriage accident. If we assume that ride was their last meeting before her trip..."

"There'd be plenty of reason to meet in a carriage under the cover of an interview."

"You said my brother had been dosed with muscle relaxants and sleeping pills. Rosemarie Doak had no trace of either."

Harold spoke slowly, agreeing with Grisha.

"What about her personal effects?"

"Effects?"

"You just said if Doak didn't have another source of income, she'd have been getting expenses from my brother. We'll need to check my brother's outgoing payments, but if that was the case..."

"If that ride was the last meeting before she left for Leibran, she could have received her expenses right then?"

"The family would have taken her effects, but they'll at least know what she had on her. Anne and Viscount Manfred said Baron Doak was in a state."

Grisha flinched.

"I was overseas at the time."

"I'm not trying to assign blame."

"I'll check when I get back. There didn't seem to be anything that stood out, but..."

Something that had been passed over without a second thought might look different if you knew what you were looking for.

"Thanks, Grisha."

"..."

Grisha's eyes wavered. Harold looked at him.

"..."

"Grisha?"

"I'm not a genius like Albrecht."

Grisha slumped, letting out a groan.

"Grisha."

"Everything is... everything is too much. I don't even know what's too much, it just is."

"..."

"Do you know why I took the director's post?"

Because his brother had died?

Even Harold could tell that wasn't the answer Grisha was hoping for. Grisha didn't seem to expect Harold to answer anyway; he went on almost to himself.

"Because I'm the only one who understands the system Albrecht built, even partially."

If Grisha could follow his brother's thinking even a little, that was no small thing in itself.

Before Harold could say so, Grisha cut him off.

"It was built the way it was because of me. So I ought to be the one to understand it."

"Hmm..."

"That doesn't mean I can do it well. I..."

"Grisha."

"..."

Grisha buried his face in both hands.

"Everything's a mess."

It had been a long time since Grisha had let himself show weakness this openly.

Since coming back to the capital he'd get irritated, sure, but he hadn't collapsed the way he used to. Harold had thought he was actually holding up all right.

Apparently he'd just gotten used to holding up. Or gotten better at hiding it than before.

Clumsy comfort wouldn't help. Harold just listened quietly to what Grisha was saying. He couldn't promise, as he once had, that they'd run away together.

"Remember, Harold?"

"..."

"Back then."

Grisha spoke quietly.

"Do you think I should have done it back then?"

Rambling as it was, Harold knew what Grisha was bringing up.

"Should I have accepted it?"

More than ten years ago now. Harold hadn't been there for Grisha's actual refusal, but he'd watched from beside him as Grisha wrestled his way to that decision.

He knew Grisha didn't want the current situation, but he hadn't expected the topic to come up. Grisha had always said the same thing about it.

I don't want to be king, Harold.

If Grisha had been the ambitious sort, this would have been easy.

The year Grisha came of age.

Ryan Adler had actually gone as far as preparing for the coronation. Grisha had agonized right up to the last possible moment over refusing a seat he had never wanted in the first place.

The reason he'd agonized was entirely for Ryan's sake. He knew that man had held on solely for the day he could hand the throne to Grisha.

"I don't know. It might have made things worse."

"Really?"

Grisha's voice was uncertain as he asked back.

"Carlisle might have gone quietly back then."

"Or he might have sharpened his knives even harder than he has now."

"Barun might not have entertained its grand dream of meddling in a neighbor's affairs."

"You said their king's not right in the head either? He might have just openly started a war."

"..."

"Any number of worse things could have happened. What if Carlisle nursed a bitter grudge and joined hands with Barun to raise an army? Can you swear that couldn't have happened?"

"..."

Grisha looked at Harold.

"See?"

"But if I'd bent that time."

Harold read the hesitation in Grisha's eyes. He caught right away both what his old friend had been about to say and why he hadn't said it.

Harold said it for him.

"The risk of a carriage accident is always there."

"...I'm sorry."

Harold shook his head. Grisha's face wouldn't clear. Half-dreading it, Harold asked,

"You... think the accident happened because of you?"

"..."

"Grisha."

"..."

Despite the nagging from Harold and Gauss, despite the worry from Claudia and the king, the reason Grisha hadn't taken the assassination attempt seriously... had he been blaming himself for Albrecht's death?

Rosemarie Doak's death too? The other people caught up in the carriage accident?

"..."

Those green eyes, unfocused, worried him.

Grisha Lambert didn't have ambition in him. If he couldn't have ambition, it would have been nice if he could have at least held on to the idea that the throne was his by right — but he couldn't manage that either. Even after being raised for it.

However much environment shaped a person, there was apparently no changing a fundamental temperament.

No parent ever wins against their own child, as the saying goes, and Claudia was the first to give in. Claudia had told him if he didn't want to be king, he didn't have to be.

Perhaps she had feared that her son would take the seat where her fiancé had died all those years ago, and that she would lose him too.

The next to give in had been Duke Hendrick Lambert. Even knowing Grisha wasn't of his own blood, Hendrick had raised him as a son.

Hendrick had told him it wasn't as though there was no one else who could take his place — it was all right, he didn't have to force himself.

The nineteen-year-old boy, born a prince but not raised as one, raised as the next king but not wanting to be king, set down the crown before him.

Now, more than ten years on. The crown had been pushed in front of Grisha again.

Along with a weight of responsibility the young Grisha Lambert had never grasped, and the lives of countless people.

"Grisha."

Knowing perfectly well what Grisha's answer would be, Harold gave his old friend the words he most wanted to hear.

"Want to run away?"