Chapter 283. Epilogue, Part XI

"Yes, that’s right. Come to think of it, he drank tea with his left hand. He held the knife with his left hand at meals."

The eyes of Julietta and Killian met. "Your Majesty, I’m afraid the capital needs a formal investigative agency, as I said before."

Julietta had long expressed uneasiness about an investigative agency which consisted only of nobles. She could not trust the connections of the high-ranking nobles, which were entangled in many matters.

"Yes, they can’t say anything about it after today’s incident. But the problem is that this room was locked. How did the killer get away?"

Julietta approached the window and said, looking at the lock. "Well, I’m not sure exactly what’s right, but I can make some assumptions. We need to call in the person we believe is the culprit."

Julietta looked around at the butler.

"Can I see Iron Lazar?"

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A moment later, Julietta and Killian were able to meet Iron in the lounge on the first floor.

"Hello, Your Majesty the Emperor, Your Majesty the Empress."

When the child showed his courtesy quite modestly, Julietta accepted his greetings and asked lightly. "Iron, who did you say were the ones you gave the letter of misfortune to?"

"The butler, my nanny, the wagon driver, and the Duke of Lanon."

Julietta nodded at Iron’s words. It was as expected. "Who gave you the letter of misfortune?"

"I don’t know who gave it to me. My nanny picked it up from the bedroom door."

"After you got that letter, you gave it to the butler, your nanny, and the wagon driver. It wouldn’t have been easy to give it to the Duke of Lanon, so why did you give it to him?"

The status of the Duke of Lanon was different from the attendants. Furthermore, he was a new man who Iron had never met before.

"At first, I was going to give it to my father’s servant."

"Then why?"

"The Duke of Lanon’s servant saw me holding the letter and asked me if I would give it to the Duke. He said the Duke loves such mysterious things."

"So what did you do?"

"I left it on his pillow because he said I had to put it there in secret. Because I gave it to the Duke of Lanon, did he die?"

Julietta answered the crying Iron firmly, "Never, never. Iron, someone made use of you. You don’t have to feel guilty because you didn’t do it wrong. He did not die because of the letter."

"Really?"

"I guarantee it. So don’t worry at all."

Killian opened his mouth when Iron stepped out with a reassured face. "That’s what happened."

"Yes, that’s what happened. I can’t forgive him for using a child. Moreover, I’m even angrier, because I don’t know what he did to Luar."

At Julietta’s words, Killian looked back at the butler. "Call the Duke’s servant."

The butler quickly walked out of the lounge at the chilling command.

"Do you think it was done by the servant?"

At Count Lazar’s question, Killian nodded. "He used his brain quite a bit."

After a while, a young man with brown hair was brought in.

"How long have you worked for the Duke?"

"I have worked for him for about two months."

"Who did you work for before that?"

When Killian asked, the servant rolled his anxious eyes. "I worked for Baron Bogot. After he died in a horse-riding accident, the baroness recommended me to the Duke of Lanon. At that time, his servant was about to retire of age."

Killian’s eyes glowed sharply. It was the duty of the man in charge of governing the Empire to grasp the political situation and development of neighboring countries.

"It’s none of my business to argue for the throne of Lebatum, but how dare you come to Austern and do this? I don’t know if you are brave or stupid. Arrest this man for the murder of the Duke of Lanon."

Killian thought for a moment and then said, "Put this man in prison until they send a man from Lebatum. Contact the most likely next king, who is the Duke of Lanon’s opponent."

When knights tried to drag him out, the servant shouted. "I didn’t kill him! The Duke of Lanon committed suicide!"

Killian said coldly to the servant, who complained with all his heart about the injustice, "You wanted it to look like that. But the Empress is very observant."

The eyes of the servant turned toward Julietta.

She was a woman born into the greatest family of Austern, and had become an Empress. There were rumors of how great Emperor’s love was and of how smart and capable the Empress was. It had spread so widely that even the common people in Lebatum knew of it. But she couldn’t have noticed the plan which his master had directed. It would be a case of simply trying to evade responsibility by calling him a murderer because it would be troublesome if a royal family from a foreign country committed suicide in their own Empire.

"Why on earth would I make it look like a suicide? Why am I the one, when I am just a servant? The room where Duke Lanon died was locked with the windows and doors. If I were the culprit, how could I have killed him and gotten out of the room?"

Julietta shook her head slightly at the servant’s protest. "It’s simple."

She got up from her seat and approached the window in the lounge by herself. "The Duke of Lanon’s room is a guest room on the first floor, and has windows that resemble other mansions."

Julietta pointed to a hook that opened the window and locked it from top to bottom. Then the hook was raised and held slightly steady and she stepped out.

After a while, standing outside the window, she forced the window to close. As the window closed with a bump, the reaction released the hook and it was caught by the latch on the other side; the eyes of the servant widened. She had repeated his behavior as if he had done it.

After showing it, Julietta passed back through the front gate of the mansion and entered the room holding Killian’s hand after he opened the door.

"It’s not difficult, is it? I don’t know what the clasps are like in the windows of Lebatum, but it is all the same in Austern."

"Well, how can you say that I did it, with the explanation...?"

"Or shall I talk about something else? Lock the door from the inside and hide under the bed. When the butler opens the door with a key and walks into the room and sees the dead Duke and goes out to call someone in surprise, then walk out. And there’s another way to lock the door and push the key through the crack under the door. I guess there’s more to it."

The servant’s face had already turned pale when he had seen the window hook automatically catch. Julietta sat down, as Killian now went on. "I’ll tell you why the Duke didn’t commit suicide. He is left-handed. Stabbing his own heart is not an easy task. But he stabbed his heart so deeply that he died with a single stab. Being left-handed, he couldn’t use his right hand very well. Moreover, he stabbed himself in the heart and died instantly, but he deliberately pulled out the knife and held it in his hand. It was contrived if anyone saw it."

Killian showed the servant a letter of misfortune that Iron had brought earlier. "With this letter of misfortune, you must have caused some big and small events, and tried to insert the murder of the Duke of Lanon into its extension. An ordinary man might have believed it. The people who received the letter of misfortune were all hurt, so they might have believed that the Duke’s misfortune must have been due to the letter."

Killian looked down at the servant, who sank to the floor, losing the power in his legs. "The man who will come to retrieve the Duke’s body from Lebatum could say a word or two, or you could say that the Duke’s mental state was unstable, and so the Duke’s sudden suicide would not be so suspicious. The Duke, who was mentally unstable, would be thought to have committed a sudden suicide after being cursed by a letter of misfortune in a strange foreign country. I don’t know whose plan it was, and he was pretty smart. But that’s it."

The servant looked at the Emperor and Empress of Austern in fear. He had dreamed that his master might take the throne of Lebatum and one day reach as far as Austern, but realized how foolish it was now.