17. Get That Necklace!

We’d figured out both the culprit behind the switcheroo and where he’d stashed the genuine article.

Who would have guessed it was Earl Lizardtail all along?!

This wasn’t one of those mystery novels that are all the rage these days; we weren’t about to gather all the suspects in one room and have the detective (which in this scenario would be Mr. Fisalis, I guess) spell out the answer for his audience. We had to solve the case and catch the criminal strictly behind closed doors!

“Our mission is to get back the necklace and apprehend the earl as swiftly as possible,” declared Mr. Fisalis.

“That’s right!”

“I do have to report this to His Majesty, seeing as the earl will need to be dealt with,” he muttered to himself, sorting out his thoughts. “But so long as we file the damage report in confidence...I think we can pull this off.”

If we didn’t submit a damage report to the police force, there would be no record of this whole stolen necklace fiasco. As a result, we’d have no authority to arrest the earl. But that department was, naturally, under the jurisdiction of the chivalric order—which meant we could resolve the matter in secret.

“Rohtas. Head back to Rohze and instruct Corydalis to bring his platoon here. Let’s see—we have no way of knowing when exactly the earl will make his next move...so tell him to head out as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mr. Fisalis went on to give Rohtas a more detailed version of the instructions: give Corydalis a full account of the event, have him submit the damage report for us, send over a couple guards before the main force arrives, and so on and so forth.

In addition, Mr. Fisalis wrote a personal note to Corydalis and asked the butler to deliver it for him.

“Tell him to follow the standard mission protocol when he arrives: take the utmost care to ensure no one sees him.”

“Certainly, Master.”

“It’s gotten late, so let’s retire for the night. Rohtas, you should wait until tomorrow to set out.”

And thus, that night’s strategy meeting was brought to a close by motion of Mr. Fisalis.

* * *

And then, the next day dawned.

Rohtas had left for the city first thing in the morning and managed to relay the facts of the case to Corydalis, so it was just past noon—a little too early for afternoon tea—when our two knight-guards arrived on the scene.

“Platoon Leader Pulcherrima will be on his way as soon as he’s finished carrying out the rest of your orders. He ought to arrive sometime after sundown.”

“I see. Thanks for the heads up. Now tell me—have you already been given the rundown on the case?”

“In broad strokes, yes.”

“The original necklace is still in the earl’s possession. Our servants are currently standing watch near his room, so I’ll need you two to go take over their shift. If anything happens, come get me right away.” Mr. Fisalis shifted immediately into Work Mode as he commanded his subordinates.

“Yes, sir!” both men shouted back.

He looked so dignified as he smoothly, decisively handed out his orders, and my heart fluttered to witness this side of him I so rarely got to see. He was almost like an entirely different person. If I wasn’t careful, I might just fall for him all over again!

* * *

A short while after the advance team arrived—sometime after nightfall—Corydalis made his surreptitious entrance along with a hand-picked team of his subordinates.

Just when I could’ve sworn I heard the window make a click, Mr. Fisalis strode right over, pushed it open, and poked his head outside.

Did he see something out there? I wondered, casting a glance that way.

He looked back at me over his shoulder and explained, “They’re here.”

Uh, who?

“Huh?”

“Corydalis and his crew.”

“Ohh!”

Oh, that’s right—he called in the cavalry!

“They’re hanging out right outside our window, right? Should we let them in?”

“Sure. It’ll be easier to talk inside.”

“Good point.”

It was all well and good that we’d come to that decision, but that left the issue of where and how were they supposed to get in. Just as I was vaguely considering sneaking them in through the front door, however...

Tweeeet!

Mr. Fisalis blew a short whistle into the wind.

I cocked my head to one side, curious as to what that was all about...only for Corydalis and company to swing in through the window in the next second!

“’Scuse us!”

Sneaking in through the window?! I didn’t see that one coming! Well, to be fair, the villa corridors are crawling with servants and guests, so chances are good that they would’ve been spotted otherwise.

Corydalis and his men looked as carefree as ever, both their laughter and their footsteps light as they slipped into the room. The Bombshell Trio was there too. All of them were wearing dark cloaks over their clothes—to help them blend into the night, I had to assume.

“Thanks for coming all the way out here,” Mr. Fisalis commended his men, shutting the window behind them after giving the surroundings a cautious glance.

“I knocked out that damage report you told me to submit first thing and left all the non-urgent stuff for later. Say, have I ever told you’re a real slave-driver?” Corydalis groused with a shrug of his shoulders.

Oho, but Corydaaalis? I’d wager there’s a very special perk for you waiting here! Tee hee hee!

“But just think—thanks to this mission, you get to see Stellaria!” I blurted out exactly what I was thinking.

“Huh?! What are you saying, Madam Fisalis?!” He got totally flustered for a moment there. “I keep my work and my private life separate!” Of course, it wasn’t long before he pulled himself together and refuted the allegation—but he wasn’t fooling anyone.

“Reaaally? You say that now, but you were pretty impatient to wrap up your work!”

“We saw the way you were grinning like an idiot! What, did you not even notice?”

“No need to play it cool, boss!”

There came a chorus of whistles.

“Would you guys just can it already?!”

The ladies took the first crack at making fun of their boss, and soon everyone was jumping on the bandwagon.

Hah, I knew it! You were glad about it!

As for the maid in question? She was standing right there, blithely watching everyone tease her fiancé.

“But anyway, I’m amazed you managed to make it this far without getting caught,” I remarked. “Isn’t security pretty tight around here?”

It’s been said a few times over by now, but vacation home or not, this was still Argenteia land. To make matters worse, the number of high-ranked officials currently staying over meant the place was locked down harder than ever.

“What kind of question is that? This is our job, remember?” Corydalis got his act together long enough to give me a confident thumbs-up.

“Guess you’ve got a point.”

He’s right. This is their area of expertise.

Banter aside, it was time to get down to business.

Mr. Fisalis summed up the facts of the case. “I’m sure you’ve gotten the gist of things from my note and Rohtas’s explanation, but our Viola Eye necklace was stolen. The culprit is Earl Lizardtail, and the goods are still in his possession.”

“Wow, nice detective skills.”

“What, so all that’s left is to apprehend him?”

“C’mon, leave us something to do!”

His subordinates were moaning and groaning. I’ll pretend I didn’t hear someone mutter, “I’d rather die than make an enemy of the Fisalis family.”

“This does largely count as a personal affair of mine, so I saved the rest of you as much trouble as I could.”

“Thanks, boss!” the knights chorused.

“All that’s left is to figure out how to catch him red-handed,” Mr. Fisalis mused, folding his arms in thought.

“By the way, how long are you and the madam planning to stay here?”

“We’re slated to leave in the morning two days from now. The rest of the guests claimed to have similar plans...but what of Earl Lizardtail?”

“He’s scheduled to leave the day after tomorrow as well,” Stellaria answered, unfazed despite Mr. Fisalis throwing the ball into her court without warning. I was amazed that she’d managed such extensive reconnaissance before being relieved of her lookout duty. Our servants really were something else!

“Let’s see... I think the simplest strategy would be to keep an eye on the situation all day tomorrow, then arrest him on the spot if he tries anything funny,” suggested Corydalis.

“Think you can manage that without getting caught by the Argenteias or party guests?”

He shot Mr. Fisalis a wink. “No problem.”

The rest of the knights were likewise wearing smug grins on their faces. Yeah, I’m sure these guys could pull it off. I’m having flashbacks to that time a band of thieves broke into the Fisalis manor.

Once we’d settled on a rough plan of attack, the knights went back out through the window. Tonight they were going to be standing watch over the earl’s room and patrolling the villa perimeter.

Here’s hoping all goes well and we get the real necklace back safe and sound tomorrow...

“Vi?”

“Ack!”

Crap! I almost nodded off there. I must be getting tired.

“Has staying up late so many nights in a row taken its toll on you?”

“Maybe so. I’m pretty sleepy.”

“Now that Corydalis and his team are here, we can relax. Let’s leave the matter in their hands and get ourselves some rest.”

“Okay.”

Sorry, Corydalis! I’ll do what I can tomorrow, but tonight, we’re counting on you!

* * *

The next day, we had the final tea party, dinner, and soirée.

I may pride myself on my stamina, but by this point I was dragging around six days worth of exhaustion. It didn’t help that the necklace caper had been weighing so heavily on my mind that I’d barely been getting any sleep. To put it bluntly, I was in pretty bad shape. Nevertheless, what truly defined a first-class lady was her ability to keep that from showing...in my opinion, anyway.

“Are you doing okay?”

“Yeah! I’m fine!”

I’d managed to make it through the day thanks to Mr. Fisalis sticking by my side and looking out for me, but predictably, I never did get in the mood for dancing.

The earl had yet to make any move. It was looking more and more like we wouldn’t be getting our stolen property back during our stay at the villa.

And then, night fell. Corydalis and company paid another visit to our room—again through the window, of course.

“The earl has yet to act.”

“I know. But to look on the bright side, at least that means we won’t have to arrest him here in the villa.”

“That’s one way to think about it! Well then, how about this? We make our move instead of waiting for him. Let’s see... Perhaps we should aim for tomorrow, after you and the madam have gone home and he’s let his guard down. We don’t want to do anything to tip him off during the journey, so instead we’ll follow him back to his manor and arrest him the moment we have definitive proof of his crime. We can send out an advance team to scour the premises ahead of time; he might have left some kind of evidence behind when he made the fake.” Corydalis course-corrected, putting together a rudimentary plan of attack.

Whether it be Mr. Fisalis or Corydalis, the way these guys could come up with all these schemes on the fly made it clear that they were true professionals. I bet you anything Stellaria was swooning too!

“Good thinking. If that’s the plan, I’ll meet back up with the rest of you along the way. Vi, you can go ahead—”

“No way! I’m going with you! It’s my necklace, so I want to be there to reclaim it!”

“Huh?!”

You want me to head back to the mansion on my own? Fat chance! I promise to stay out of the way, so you’ve got to take me with you when we get that necklace back! Wait, wasn’t I supposed to be in bad shape, you ask? Hah! I bounced back the second you put the case in front of me!

* * *

“I’ll look out for Vi, so Corydalis, just focus on carrying out the operation as planned.”

Seeing as it wasn’t supposed to be a super difficult mission anyway, Mr. Fisalis had ended up folding pretty easily. He’d given me full permission to join them in shadowing the earl.

“Thanks for having us.”

“It was our pleasure! Please come again.”

“This was fun! Thanks for everything.”

“Of course. I only hope we can make the trip by boat next time.”

We thanked the duke, duchess, and the Argenteia siblings, then hit the road home...as far as they knew, that is!

According to the proper order of these things, no one would be able to go home until we did (since our family was the highest-ranked there), so we stepped up to be the first to leave. Mother and Father Fisalis left at the same time we did, but they were headed back to their territory of Le Pied rather than Rohze.

Regrettably, we hadn’t had much time to sit down and chat with them; they’d been just as busy with all the socializing as we had, and then we’d had all the rest of our time sucked up by the necklace caper. I promised Mother Fisalis that we’d spend some time with them in Le Pied soon—and with that, we went our separate ways.

Their carriage pulled ahead first, and ours followed behind...for part of the trip, that is. Not long after we’d passed through the gates of the Argenteia villa—when we were far enough away that we couldn’t see those gates anymore—we came to a brief stop, and Mr. Fisalis and I alighted from our carriage.

“I’ll leave the rest to you.”

“You can count on me, sir.”

The maids who would be playing the role of our stunt doubles boarded the car in our place. The carriage would be heading straight home to the Rohze mansion from here. Drosera was the one subbing in for me...and though her face and build were completely different from mine, that didn’t really matter! Nobody could see inside the carriage anyway.

We switched into a disguise of our own...well, in a manner of speaking. All we actually did was put on black cloaks to help keep a low profile, pulling the hoods all the way down over our eyes. That way, nobody would be able to recognize us at a glance.

This was one heck of a quick change we were talking about, since we had to get it over with before the next family rolled into view. As heart-pounding an undertaking as it was, we managed to get it done in the short window of time we had.

Once we’d watched the carriage with our dummy riders disappear into the distance, Mr. Fisalis and I switched our ride to the horse Corydalis’s team had prepared for us. They’d picked out a black steed to draw as little attention our way as possible. All the same, it had a silky, beautiful coat.

Mr. Fisalis helped me up onto the horse, and I rode sidesaddle.

“Since we’re going to be tailing his carriage, we won’t have to go all that fast today.”

“I’ll still refrain from sitting up front, thank you!”

So went our charming little exchange on the matter. It seemed that he wanted me to sit in front of him, but I firmly refused and opted to ride in the back instead.

“Hang on tight.”

“Roger that!”

I slid my arms around Mr. Fisalis’s waist and grabbed on as hard as I could...and that’s when it finally caught up to me that this was hardly any different from hugging him. I couldn’t help feeling a little embarrassed—even if it was more than a little late to be worried about that.

While we hid in the bushes and staked out the villa, carriages pulled away from the mansion one after the other. The guests’ departures were spaced out so that there would be minimal overlap; as a result, it wasn’t like there was a flood of everyone vacating the premises at once. Everyone left one-by-one, in the order determined by their family’s rank.

After we’d waited for a while, Earl Lizardtail’s carriage finally rolled onto the road.

For all intents and purposes, Corydalis’s squad would be the ones doing the actual job of tailing him, while Mr. Fisalis—with me along as an extra passenger—would be bringing up the rear at a leisurely pace, doing his best not to get spotted.

Our target made it to his home in Lizardtail territory without bothering to make so much as a pit stop along the way. Once we’d passed through the forest on the Argenteia border, we came upon his manor in all its glory. I probably should have seen it coming, what with him being a neighbor and all, but it turned out he lived super close to the villa.

We hid ourselves in the outskirts of the forest—where we had a clear view of the entrance to his manor—and watched to see what he did next.

Boy, was I surprised to hear the conversation Earl Lizardtail and his fiancée had just outside the gate.

“Well, I’ll see you around.”

“Thanks—you were a big help. I’ll be sure to compensate you later.”

“Don’t you dare forget!”

That mega-blasé exchange was all they even said to each other before going their separate ways! I mean, I knew from the preliminary report that they weren’t actually engaged, but still.

“Jeez, what a businesslike relationship!”

“They probably were nothing more than business partners. He even said he was going to pay her.”

“Couldn’t he just have skipped out on bringing a plus one in the first place?”

“That’s a good question. Maybe it was an attempt to throw us off our guard.”

“Hmm...”

Thanks to the hard work of the knights who had gone ahead of us and done some reconnaissance, we already had both a map of the manor and a way to sneak inside. When the chivalric order got down to business, they were not a force to be trifled with.

We waited for the earl to head inside the manor after saying goodbye to his phony fiancée, then slipped out of the woods.

The time has finally come to infiltrate the premises!

Heart a-flutter with excitement, I watched as Corydalis’s crew crept into the manor through the back door, following our scouts’ lead. Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t allowed to go inside, so I was instead waiting in the wings outside along with Mr. Fisalis and a few other lookouts.

We hid next to the door everyone had just gone through, and from there, we tried to listen in on what was going on inside.

“If nothing comes of this today, you and I ought to head home, Vi.”

“Whaaat?”

“We can’t very well stick around and stand watch for days on end.”

“...Fiiine.”

“Stop pouting.”

For the record, my heart totally did not skip a beat when he pinched my puffed up cheeks!

“Do you think they’ll catch him in the act?” wondered Angelica, who had stayed behind to serve as a lookout.

“I’d give it fifty-fifty odds,” replied Mr. Fisalis.

The two were speculating among themselves as they strained their ears for any signs of what was happening in there.

I sure hope we nab him quick and get my necklace back.

I too listened and waited, praying that all would go smoothly—and before long, there came a ruckus from inside the manor.

“So it begins,” Mr. Fisalis declared.

His subordinate nodded. “Yep.”

We could hear a cacophony of noise: the thud of someone running, the crash of something falling, and the crack of something breaking. Unfortunately, we had no way of knowing exactly what was going on behind the wooden door.

I really wish I could look through that window next to the door...

Right as I was on the edge of my seat wondering if everything was okay in there, the back door abruptly slammed open as someone rushed out of the manor.

“Eek!”

“Vi!”

Though I was lucky enough to dodge the door slamming open, that then caused me to lose my balance and trip. Fortunately, Mr. Fisalis caught me in his arms and managed to keep me from getting hurt.

Who the heck threw open the door that hard?! That was dange— Wait a second!

“Wha...?! Duke Fisalis?!”

The one who had flown out the door was none other than Earl Lizardtail himself. He was pointing straight at us with a quivering finger.

From his disheveled clothes and hair, it was clear at a glance that he had put up a fight. He was gripping a sword in one hand. As he glared at us with bloodshot eyes, there wasn’t a trace left of the flirtatious air he’d had back in the villa.

Yikes! So these are his true colors!

“Vice Captain!”

“Thanks!”

Shielding me behind him, Mr. Fisalis took the sword Angelica had tossed his way and held it at the ready. Meanwhile, the earl was doing his best to slowly but steadily make a break for it, keeping his blade pointed at us all the while.

“He doesn’t have any backup! It’s just him to worry about!” came Corydalis’s voice from the inside the mansion.

“Got it!” was Mr. Fisalis’s gruff reply. He then said to us, “Wait here. This shouldn’t take long. ...Take care of Vi for me.”

“Yes, sir! Nobody’s going to lay a finger on her if I have anything to say about it!”

Upon entrusting Angelica with my safety, he adjusted his grip on his sword and took a step toward the earl.

“How about you return that necklace to us now?”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Now, now, it’s wrong to go around telling lies. We’ve already done our research, I’ll have you know.”

“W-Where’s your proof?! You haven’t got anything on me!”

The tip of his blade locked onto his foe, Mr. Fisalis closed in on him step by step. Scared out of his wits, the earl edged back from his pursuer, yet still insisted on playing dumb.

He’s right that we don’t have any evidence, though.

“If it’s proof you want...”

Just as I was watching the scene unfold, wondering how my husband would strike back...

“We got it right here!”

Arriving on the scene with nigh impeccable timing was none other than Corydalis. And held high in his hand was our jeweler’s trademark box!

“How is that proof of anything?!” the earl snapped as he glared at Corydalis, still reluctant to accept his fate.

“I mean, just take a look inside. Whatever could the madam’s necklace be doing here?”

“T-That has to be a fake! Someone slipped that in there to frame me!”

“No sirree, this is the real deal! You see, the Viola Eye has a certain secret known only to a select few. If we check for that, we’ll know just how genuine this thing is in a heartbeat.”

Grinning, Corydalis opened up the box and showed everyone the necklace inside. He knew all about the seal himself, of course! Though calling it a “secret” was playing it up a little too much, if you asked me.

“Nice try! I already know that the one I was wearing was the fake!” I had a few words for him myself!

“Wha...?!”

His eyes flew open in surprise before narrowing into a glare directed my way, but I wasn’t the least bit scared of him! I had Mr. Fisalis by my side!

“Give it up.”

No sooner had Mr. Fisalis said that than he knocked the earl’s sword aside and pressed the tip of his own blade to the man’s throat. Overpowered by the knight’s quick movements and petrified with fear, Earl Lizardtail was swiftly apprehended by Corydalis’s squad and tied up with rope.

* * *

“His maid accomplice was the first one we caught. She’s in the foyer as we speak. That’s where the rest of our men are waiting for us.”

Given that bit of information, we decided to reconvene in the foyer. The knights who had been the first to infiltrate the premises were there standing watch over the pretty young maid who was apparently his partner-in-crime.

“Here’s your authentic Viola Eye necklace back,” said Corydalis, handing us the box with the accessory inside. He had already inspected the goods earlier, but we were better off double-checking its legitimacy just in case.

Mr. Fisalis took the offered box and examined the jewelry inside. I peeked over from beside him and saw for myself that the seal of authenticity was indeed where it ought to be.

“Good. It’s the real deal.”

“It sure is! Whew, that’s a relief... Whoa!”

“Hey, careful there!”

I was so relieved to know we’d recovered the genuine artifact that my legs gave out and I nearly collapsed on the spot. Mr. Fisalis caught me in his arms at the last second and held me up.

“For a fake, the workmanship was exquisite. How did you figure it out?” the earl demanded, chagrined.

Oh, I guess he really doesn’t know about the seal.

“I’m not about to spill my secrets to a criminal like you, but let’s just say we took some measures of our own,” my husband replied, grinning.

In reality, we’d just been lucky that the distinct markings on the Viola Eye and the Viola Sapphire weren’t public knowledge.

“We won’t be going public with this incident, but in exchange, consider yourself permanently removed from the political stage. Though we may have kept this matter a secret from the Argenteias, you’d better believe we’ve relayed every last detail to His Majesty. Look here—we’ve got a royal decree ordering that your rank and territory be confiscated, signed by the king and everything,” said Corydalis, showing the earl the warrant for his arrest, the warrant to search his home, and as he had just explained, a royal decree stripping him of his rank and territory.

The earl stared at the documents, stunned, before his shoulders sagged.

Having given up his futile struggle, he went on to confess the howdunit.

It was when his mounting debt had backed him into a corner that my necklace had just so happened to catch his eye. Since he’d heard that the Viola Eye—a gem of incomparable quality even among the Viola Sapphires—commanded a high enough price to fund an entire mansion (and a big one, at that!), he became determined to somehow get ahold of it and sell it in another country. If he tried to sell it in Flür, the theft would’ve been traced back to him right away, after all.

He lured in his maid with promises to marry her if the plan went smoothly, and thus she became his accomplice.

He’d crafted the fake necklace by bringing a sapphire of his own to our jeweler and asking him to have it made into “exactly the same design as the Viola Eye.” Given that countless ladies and madams had been asking for “a design matching Duchess Fisalis” as part of the recent trend, the jeweler had granted his request without a second thought. As an aside, he had made a secret sketch of what the Viola Sapphire seal looked like after a noblewoman who owned a real one had shown him her necklace, then carved it himself using that picture as a reference. Very clever of him.

With the fake stored away inside, he’d handed the box from the jeweler to his maid and ordered her to swap it for the real thing. She’d pulled the switch off exactly the way we’d suspected. That part of the plan had apparently been her own idea.

If there hadn’t been a storm that day—if there hadn’t been a traffic jam at the entrance—her plan was apparently to sneak into our room and make the switch there. If only things had panned out that way, none of this ever would have happened. No way our servants would’ve given her the chance to pull it off!

It would be fair to say that the weather was the only reason the switcheroo went off without a hitch. There was nothing to chalk it up to but our own awful luck!

The earl had made the clasp easy to undo as a way to shift suspicion onto the other partygoers. The moment I attempted any difficult dance steps or sweeping turns, the necklace was sure to shake from the impact and fall to the floor. Naturally, either I or the person closest to me would pick it up. The more people who touched the accessory, the more suspects there would be. Meanwhile, he would only ask me to dance a slow-tempo song, or otherwise take care not to jostle the necklace mid-waltz.

“Why didn’t you just get a job instead of wasting time coming up with evil schemes?”

“Now here’s an idea: this is pretty well-made for a fake, so why don’t you give it to this poor girl here? You told her you’d marry her if she did as you asked, didn’t you? Isn’t a man supposed to be as good as his word? God, you’re the worst.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s cheap—all a girl wants is something from the heart!”

“What a tool.”

“A guy who can’t swallow his pride is such a turn-off.”

On and on the Bombshell Trio went. The girls dragged the earl and his accomplice (if you could really call her that) away, taking shots at him all the while.

We had the necklace back, and the culprit had been arrested. That closed the book on this case!