Chapter 36: Two Tragedies
"No, it isn't certain yet," Lisa murmured, her gloved fingers lightly tracing the grooves of the window frame. "After all, more than six months have passed since the incident. We cannot rule out the possibility that the window was tampered with long after the case occurred."
She paused, turning her head slightly to look back into the dusty bedroom. "Noelle, you mentioned earlier that the maid who worked here before you was involved in this case. Could you tell me the details?"
"Mm-hmm, alright." Noelle nodded eagerly, pausing her careful sweep of the floorboards. She tapped her chin, her brow furrowing in thought. "Um, let me think... The maid before me was named Shana. Miss Shana had worked at this villa for quite a long time. When the incident happened, only the Young Mistress and Miss Shana were present in the building."
Lisa hummed softly in acknowledgment. "And I recall the initial police investigation concluded it was a suicide?" With a smooth motion, she pushed the window sash up, letting the cool breeze sweep away the room's stale air, and gracefully climbed out onto the exterior ledge.
"Ah, yes." Noelle dropped to her hands and knees, peering under the heavy oak bedframe, her eyes scanning the shadows bit by bit. "Initially, the investigation found that the room where the Young Mistress died was locked from the inside. A perfect locked-room mystery, so they ruled it a suicide. But then, about half a year later—oh, just a month ago, actually—a High School Detective came to visit."
Noelle shifted her position, blowing away a stray dust mote. "It seems he discovered the crime scene wasn't a true locked room after all. Because of that, he immediately suspected Miss Shana, since she was the only other person at the scene. After he presented his theory to the police, they reopened the case and began investigating her."
"Oh?" Lisa's voice drifted through the open window. She was slowly pacing the grass just beneath the sill, her sharp eyes scanning the ground. "And what exactly did this brilliant detective find to make him so certain the locked room was a trick?"
Suddenly, a faint metallic glint caught her eye. She crouched down, parting the blades of grass, and picked up a small, dirt-caked object.
Inside the room, Noelle's voice lost its cheerful cadence, dropping into a somber register. "Um... that Detective found screws with their heads cut off scattered around the window frame of the crime scene. He took them to the police, insisting it was a premeditated homicide."
The young maid gripped the edge of the bedsheet, her knuckles turning white. "Because of his deduction, they treated Miss Shana as the prime suspect. The interrogations and the suspicion... it was too much. In the end, Miss Shana couldn't take the pressure and took her own life. The police deemed it a 'suicide out of guilt' and officially closed the case."
"But I know Miss Shana was innocent!" Noelle stood up abruptly, her usual gentle demeanor replaced by a rare flash of agitation. "Right up until her final breath, she swore she didn't kill anyone. Even Mr. Koya said he believed she didn't do it. Even if the room wasn't locked, an outsider could have easily slipped in to kill the Young Mistress!"
She sighed, her shoulders slumping as she realized there was absolutely nothing hidden beneath the bed. She had searched every corner of the floor and found nothing. Frustration bubbled in her chest. 'Ah, Noelle, you really shouldn't be like this,'she scolded herself internally.'You invited Miss Lisa all the way here to solve the case, yet you aren't being helpful at all.'Her amber eyes darted around the room, desperately seeking another place to search. They landed on the cold, dark hearth of the fireplace.'Come to think of it... I haven't checked the chimney sweep yet.'
Outside, Lisa slipped the small object into her pocket and climbed back through the window. She opened her mouth to share her discovery, only to freeze. The young maid was currently on her hands and knees, squeezing her upper body straight into the soot-stained maw of the fireplace.
"Miss Lisa, look! I found something!" Noelle cried out, her voice echoing hollowly from up the chimney.
She scrambled backward out of the hearth, leaving a trail of ash on the rug. She ran straight to Lisa, holding her hands out like she was presenting a grand treasure.
"Oh, my." Lisa blinked, momentarily stunned. She had been fully prepared to gently scold the girl for ruining her uniform, but the sheer triumph in Noelle's cheer stopped her.
In truth, Lisa hadn't held high hopes of finding any new clues inside a room that had been empty for six months. But seeing the burning desire to help radiating from the young maid, she hadn't had the heart to refuse her a chance to search.
Lisa looked down at Noelle's soot-covered face. The girl's cheeks and hands were smeared with dark gray ash, and her usually immaculate silver hair was sticking up in messy tufts.
A soft, fond smile touched Lisa's lips. She reached out, her gloved thumb gently wiping a thick smudge of soot from the tip of Noelle's nose. "Mm. You are quite impressive, Noelle, to have thought of checking inside the fireplace."
She took the offered object from the maid's ash-stained palms. It was a small glass medicine vial. The top half was shattered, the jagged edges indicating it had been thrown hard against the brick interior.
"Was this the only bottle hidden in the ashes?" Lisa asked, turning the glass over to inspect the faded label.
"No, there are others in there, but most of them are reduced to tiny shards," Noelle explained, wiping her hands on her apron. "This was the only one that was relatively intact, so I brought it out. Miss Lisa... will this help with the case?"
"Mm. It helps immensely. In fact, it perfectly proves my theory," Lisa admitted without hesitation. "You have been a tremendous help, Noelle."
"So... Miss Lisa already knows the truth behind the case?" Noelle's eyes widened, sparkling with starry-eyed awe.
"Well, I have a very clear picture of what happened." Lisa met the girl's gaze, her expression turning serious. "Hmm... I suppose I have one piece of good news and one piece of bad news. Actually, no... depending on how you look at it, they might both be bad news."
Noelle held her breath, waiting.
"First, regarding the death of the villa's Young Mistress—it truly was a suicide," Lisa stated calmly. "The scene was a genuine locked room at the time of her death. She likely took her own life because she could no longer endure the severe mental and physical toll of heavy drug addiction. Specifically, the highly addictive substances contained in the medicine you just pulled from that fireplace."
Noelle blinked, processing the information. "Then... did that passing Detective get the investigation completely wrong?" Her absolute faith in Lisa naturally overrode any reputation an unknown high schooler might have. If Miss Lisa said it was a suicide, then the detective's murder theory had to be flawed.
"That brings me to the second point. Technically, the Detective wasn't entirely wrong about the physical evidence," Lisa explained, reaching into her pocket. "The window in this room indeed had its locking mechanism tampered with. But that tampering certainly did not happen six months ago during the incident."
She opened her palm, revealing the small, dirt-caked object she had found in the grass. It was a metal screw, its head cleanly sheared off.
"I just found this outside, completely missed by the previous investigations. The head is indeed cut off, just as the Detective claimed. However, judging by the specific pattern and minimal spread of the rust, this damage is no more than three months old. It has absolutely no connection to the Young Mistress's death."
Lisa tossed the rusted screw lightly in her hand. "Most likely, sometime after the tragedy, a staff member in this villa decided to break in and steal some of the deceased's belongings. Knowing this room was kept empty and undisturbed, they tampered with the window frame to grant themselves easy, unmonitored access."
Her voice took on a sharp, critical edge. "Clearly, that passing High School Detective stumbled upon the wrong set of clues and forced them to fit a faulty deduction. It was a discrepancy that could have been easily unraveled with just a little more observation and critical thought. Yet, he was so eager for glory that he couldn't wait to parade his 'evidence' before the police and the media to show off his brilliance."
Lisa's lips curled into a disappointed frown. "You know, Noelle... when confidence spills over its limits, it sours into pure arrogance."
She paced slowly across the room, her heels clicking against the floorboards. "And the local police officers are truly laughable. A teenage boy shows up at their door, claims to overturn their official findings, and they do not even bother to conduct a secondary forensic sweep before swallowing his theory whole. They immediately launched a manhunt for a non-existent killer, and their crosshairs landed squarely on Miss Shana simply because she was present."
Even now, Lisa found the sheer incompetence baffling. Were the police investigators in this city completely brain-dead? Were the crime scene technicians legally blind? Setting aside the fact that they failed to check the window's integrity during the initial suicide ruling, the rust discrepancy was something a rookie could have spotted with a simple magnifying glass. Yet they did absolutely nothing, choosing instead to blindly worship a high schooler's deduction.
"So Miss Shana really was innocent!" Noelle clasped her hands together, a wave of relief washing over her face. But the joy was fleeting, quickly replaced by a heavy, suffocating sorrow. Her shoulders trembled. "But... Miss Shana is already..."
"Yes. That poor maid has already 'committed suicide out of guilt'."
Lisa's voice dropped, the temperature in the room seeming to plummet. A mocking smile touched the corners of her lips, and her emerald eyes hardened into chips of cold ice.
"A tragic end, all brought about by an arrogant little detective, a spectacularly useless police force, and... oh, let us not forget to add a deeply selfish thief to that list."
Lisa slowly turned her head, her piercing gaze locking onto the dark gap of the slightly ajar bedroom door.
"Isn't that right, Mr. Koya?"
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