For a moment, silence settled over the room.
The news shocked me as much as Bodo’s kidnapping had.
I glanced down at the letter I’d dropped without realizing it, now lying at my feet. Its contents struck me as so absurd that I wondered whether I’d misread them.
Who died? The Finance Minister?
That sly old fox?
The Finance Minister was a sly old fox who had stood at the center of court politics for decades, a man with an exceptional talent for ensnaring his opponents with a silver tongue. He was full of tricks and tenacious to boot.
Back in my days as a knight of the duchy, defying his will was nearly impossible. Without the Diplomat Scouter’s help, I’d never have escaped his grasp. Fortunately, the Finance Minister was on terrible terms with his son.
That was the one crack I could exploit.
The old fox had clawed desperately at his son, using Heinlein’s secret funds from the east to push him out and reclaim control of the Finance Department. Yet for a man who had survived so long in court politics, his end was remarkably anticlimactic.
No one could have guessed he’d be poisoned.
Even I, his political enemy, found it preposterous.
"Count Reinfeldt stacked up grudges higher than a castle tower. It’s hard to even guess who poisoned him, but for now, Adelbert is the prime suspect."
Countless nobles had clashed with the Finance Minister.
As the grand duke said, that stack of grudges probably stood taller than the cathedral’s central spire.
"Some may suspect you as well, Baron."
"I imagine so. That was my biggest concern."
I was one of those nobles, after all. Since entering politics, I’d butted heads with the Finance Minister time and again. And crucially, I was the one who exposed the royal tax embezzlement in Feuzen and brought about his downfall.
If Adelbert and the Finance Minister hadn’t been on bad terms, I could have wound up as the prime suspect myself. But if anyone tries to frame me, I swear to God, I won’t let it slide.
If any faction dares to slander the honor and conscience of the Streit family, I’m prepared to go to war over it. Anyone with any sense wouldn’t dare frame a prince.
The problem is that sense is in short supply. Just look at Heinlein, who embezzled royal assets without a second thought, or Henry, who tried to abandon Schafen and run.
If some brave soul really does step forward, I’ll make a merciless example of him. Whoever takes a prince lightly will pay a gruesome price. I’ll show the court nobles, down to their bones, just how terrifying a prince can be.
Fortunately, the grand duke didn’t suspect me in the slightest.
The prime suspect was Adelbert. And that was what felt strange.
"Your Highness, you were the one who informed me that the Finance Minister was plotting to kill Adelbert. Has evidence surfaced that Adelbert was, in turn, conspiring to murder the Finance Minister?"
"Your question is fair, Baron, but no one knows. Court politics is a purgatory where yesterday’s friends try to kill each other today. It wouldn’t be strange at all if Adelbert had suddenly killed the Finance Minister."
Then the nobles so desperate to throw themselves into court politics are no better than moths to a flame. I’d partnered with the Military Department and stayed out in the field precisely to keep my distance from it, because I feared I’d be stained by it too.
As they say, no one handles pitch without being defiled. A white heron has no business among crows. I’m no spotless white heron myself, but at the very least, I don’t eliminate rivals for the sake of my own power.
That would go against my honor, my justice, and my conscience.
I’d rather face a man on the battlefield and kill him there.
"Your Highness, I don’t believe Adelbert poisoned the Finance Minister."
"I heard Adelbert was on fairly good terms with you, Baron."
Adelbert’s disposition is calculation (neutral), which isn’t bad as dispositions go. Unlike the Finance Minister and his conspiratorial nature, he’s a man you can reason with, and above all, he’s been friendly toward me as a partner in dealmaking.
"I stake my honor and conscience on this: my defense of him is not born of personal friendship."
"Very well. In your view, Baron, is Adelbert the sort of man who would suddenly commit such an act?"
"I haven’t known Adelbert long, but he isn’t that reckless."
He was certainly the type to do it if the profit were great enough, but I found it hard to believe he had masterminded this particular incident. The circumstances pointed to him far too obviously.
Besides, Adelbert has Inspector General Mort under his command, a man fully capable of weaving schemes. It was Mort’s plotting that killed Rüdiger, the Deputy Inspector General at the time, and I escaped only by sheer luck.
Would a man like that handle things so sloppily?
If it were me, I’d have pinned it on a third party to keep suspicion away from my master.
Above all, there isn’t a noble alive who doesn’t know that the Finance Minister and Adelbert were at odds. The Finance Minister was even borrowing Heinlein’s funds in secret to plot Adelbert’s removal.
And Heinlein was nearly silenced for good by the mercenaries the Finance Minister hired. If I hadn’t tracked those mercenaries down in time, things could have gotten hopelessly tangled, scouter or no scouter.
And yet the one who ended up dead was the Finance Minister.
That was why I believed this was a conspiracy to wipe out the Finance Minister’s entire family.
"There’s a strong possibility that someone poisoned the Finance Minister and pinned the crime on Adelbert."
"If your guess is right, Baron, who stands to gain, aside from the Finance Minister’s family?"
"...What about the Viscount Neunil family?"
There was a strong chance this was a plot by the Viscount Neunil family, who had their eyes on the Finance Minister’s seat. Above all, their kinship with the Schafen administrator made them that much more suspicious.
Rumor had it the Viscount Neunil family had been reaching out to political factions, hoping to push out the fallen Finance Minister and claim his seat. They may have given up on the Administrative Minister’s post, but the Finance Minister’s seat must have looked within easy reach.
The letters they’d exchanged using the keyword "Child of the Magnolia" were deeply suspicious as well, and after Adelbert, weren’t they the faction with the most to gain? At my words, the grand duke’s expression turned grave.
"Why do you think it’s the Viscount Neunil family?"
"They’re about to be pushed out of the Grand Duke’s Guard commander position, so they may see this as their last chance. If the Reinfeldt family falls, which family would be next in line for the Finance Minister’s seat?"
Without the link to the Schafen administrator, I’d never have noticed.
I may have failed it, but I owe this much to the Child of the Magnolia quest.
It’s only circumstantial evidence, but if I, an investigator with countless cases to my name, personally comb through every last rathole, I should be able to dig up decisive evidence or a witness. As long as I have the scouter.
But the grand duke was giving me a strange look, one of genuine astonishment mixed with fascination. It seemed he found the man who had worked it out more remarkable than the possibility that the Viscount Neunil family was behind it all.
"Remarkable. How did you ever arrive at the Viscount Neunil family, Baron?"
"While investigating Schafen, I learned that its administrator came from a cadet branch of the Viscount Neunil family."
"So Neunil’s reach extended even there. You captured that administrator, I trust?"
"Unfortunately, he was crushed to death in his own house before we could arrest him."
"My, what an unlucky fellow."
If we’d taken him alive, we might have learned much more, but luck simply wasn’t on our side. Because of that, I failed the Child of the Magnolia quest. Since things had come this far, I decided to lay out everything I knew for the grand duke.