MRDA 5

CHAPTER 5
“Did you come alone, Madam Schwart?”

“Can’t you see? I came with my child!”

“And why is that?”

“What do you mean, why? What exactly are you asking?”

“I’m asking why you don’t have any other companions with you.”

“Is there some law that says I’m not allowed to come alone? Does one have to bring at least two people when visiting a detective agency?!”

I rested a hand on my chin, pretending to ponder the matter.

“Hmm. That is rather strange. You’re in a situation where a child from a noble family might be taken away by a commoner, yet you came all the way to this shabby little detective agency alone, without even a single representative, worked yourself into a frenzy, and did so twice. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

The office looked as though it might collapse at any moment. Then there was the head of the agency, who had vanished God knew where despite having a client sitting right in front of him, leaving nothing but a desk behind.

There was no way a lady from such a prestigious family would simply follow whatever Madam Rena suggested, and a woman who had been too poor to afford a hospital and had given birth to her child at home certainly wouldn’t have come here of her own accord.

Which meant the Marchioness had deliberately chosen this failing detective agency and come here.

There was always a reason why something was failing. And from the looks of it, the problem with this agency was internal.

The fact that the person claiming to be the agency’s representative had identified the child’s real mother as the Marchioness of Schwart was proof enough of how utterly incompetent he was.

And yet a high-ranking noble family like the House of Schwart had come here twice?

That could only mean they wanted to make sure the child’s true mother was never found.

“Does the Marquess know about this matter?”

“Of course he—!”

“Then go and bring the Marquess here.”

“……!!”

I nodded toward the young man who had been watching the situation from the side, signaling for him to fetch the Marquess.

“Me…?”

He pointed at himself in confusion.

I nodded, and he headed toward the door.

“We’ll resume this conversation once the Marquess arrives.”

“W-Wait!”

The noblewoman hurriedly grabbed the young man by the wrist before he could leave and called out to me.

“You can’t just summon someone as busy as him whenever you please.”

“More important business than his own child… How peculiar.”

I pointed at the pendant Madam Rena was holding.

“Madam Rena, take that pendant to the Marquess’s estate.”

“Pardon? What do you mean?”

“You said it earlier, didn’t you? That orange eyes are the symbol of the House of Schwart.”

I held out my hand to Madam Rena. After hesitating for a moment, she carefully handed me the pendant.

“This pendant has an elaborate design engraved into it, and there’s an orange gemstone set into the case. It’s the sort of thing that’s common among nobles.”

“Yes, that’s right…”

“Your late husband had orange eyes, and your child inherited them from him. But isn’t something strange about that? If I were your husband, I would have left you a portrait of myself—or of my father—showing those orange eyes. That would have been proof of my identity.”

“You!”

“Then let’s take another look.”

I opened the case and showed the photograph inside to everyone once more.

I finally understood what had bothered me when Madam Rena showed it to me earlier.

“Isn’t there something unnatural about this photograph? The person in it is positioned toward the right, yet he’s looking to the left.”

“Yes… Now that you mention it.”

“And then there’s this writing underneath.”

I pointed to the tiny letters in the lower-left corner of the pendant.

「𝑰𝒓𝒊𝒔」

There was a faint trace in front of the word, as though something had been cut away. Almost as if a letter had been split cleanly in two.

Of course, that alone wasn’t enough to tell exactly what had originally been written on the pendant.

But—

The eyes.

The deceased husband was said to have orange eyes. They were apparently so symbolic of him that he had deliberately set a gemstone of the exact same color into the pendant.

And inside it was a word that meant eye.

“Is there any other family with orange eyes besides the House of Schwart?”

“Of course not! If there were, would His Majesty the Emperor have personally bestowed upon our family the title ‘Eyes of Twilight’? This color is the symbol of our lineage. It even begins to fade if the family line fails to continue!”

The Eyes of Twilight.

In a monarchical nation, if the Emperor himself had granted a family such a title, there was probably hardly anyone who didn’t know of the House of Schwart.

Then why hadn’t Madam Rena ever considered that her husband might have been a member of the House of Schwart?

“Could it be magic?”

Even the nurse I had seen through the status window hadn’t immediately thought of the Marquis’s family when she saw the orange eyes.

Could the House of Schwart have seemed so distant to people in the slums that, despite the color being a symbol of the family, magic had been the first explanation that came to mind?

If so, was it possible that Madam Rena’s husband had used magic to change the color of his eyes?

No.

If that were the case, there was no explanation for why Madam Rena’s child in the status window had orange eyes.

And if changing one’s eye color were really that easy, the head nurse wouldn’t have needed to inspect the child’s eyes before abducting them.

Click.

The pendant case closed with a clear sound.

“Madam Rena, go to the House of Schwart. I’m certain someone there has the other pendant that belongs with this one. And that person is most likely the Marquess of Schwart himself, since he should be around the same age as your late husband.”

“But…”

Madam Rena hesitated, clutching the pendant I had returned to her.

Something was clearly troubling her.

“What if he doesn’t welcome me…?”

“He will. If your husband and the Marquess had been enemies, he would have done everything possible to keep the child from ever coming to the attention of the House of Schwart. And you wouldn’t have been left standing there in such a daze.”

“Detective!”

The noblewoman, her face deathly pale, trembled as though possessed, barely managing to keep hold of the child in her arms.

I’d better get her out of here before she possessed someone too.

I gestured to the young man.

“One of our employees will accompany you until you reach the House of Schwart.”

“Oh… Are you providing an escort?”

An escort?

He looked far too skinny for that.

“No. I mean that if you harm Madam Rena, things will become troublesome. Threatening someone involved in an investigation is a serious crime.”

I had no idea whether that was actually how things worked here, but it sounded convincing enough, so I decided to go with it.

Click.

The young man opened the office door and stood there, looking at Madam Rena.

Clutching the pendant tightly in one hand, she stared at the child for a long while.

Then, as though she had finally made up her mind, she glanced at him and walked toward the door.

As it looked like the matter was finally coming to an end, I sat back down on the edge of the desk.

But the stubborn noblewoman apparently had no intention of giving up. She suddenly grabbed Madam Rena by the arm.

Good grief. How many people’s arms was she planning to grab today?

“You too! Wouldn’t it be better for the child to grow up as the legitimate heir of the House of Schwart? If you raise the child in your arms, they’re bound to grow up poor and miserable!”

Wasn’t she the one who had lectured me about maternal love earlier?

And now she was trying to use maternal love against Madam Rena?

More importantly, with the identity of her husband practically deduced already, could something like that really work…?

Madam Rena came to an abrupt stop at the Marchioness of Schwart’s words.

She fidgeted with the pendant, her eyes wavering.

Ah.

Come to think of it, this was a society governed by a strict class system.

A person’s status was determined from birth, and they were treated according to that status until the day they died.

In other words, it was difficult for people to even imagine that their circumstances could ever change.

Wait.

Did this world not even have stories like Cinderella?

Even back in Korea, we had Kongjwi. Stories like that existed regardless of East or West.

I looked at the two women askance and spoke in a curt voice.

“Why are you only thinking about taking the child?”

“……!!”

“Why not simply bring Madam Rena into the House of Schwart as well?”

“……!!”

“Isn’t that the obvious solution? She is the mother who gave birth to the current sole heir of the House of Schwart.”

The noblewoman’s startled reaction filled me with a strange sense of exhilaration.

This is why I love solving mysteries.

“Shall I give you one more reason why Madam Rena should enter the House of Schwart?”

“W-Wait!”

“Your husband was probably the second son of the House of Schwart. If he had been the eldest son, he would either have been the heir or the current Marquess, which would have made it difficult for him to meet a commoner woman. And besides, he would have received the pendant of the late Marchioness rather than the late Marquess.”

The eyes of the woman who was supposedly Madam Rena’s mother-in-law had not been orange.

Yet we had already established that orange eyes were the symbol of the House of Schwart.

That meant her mother-in-law was not biologically related to the House of Schwart. She had joined the family through marriage.

In other words, she was the previous Marquess’s wife.

“In other words, Madam Rena, you are the wife of a nobleman. So…”

I stepped down from the desk and placed my hands on both of her shoulders.

“Hold your head high. You have no reason to feel inferior to the Marchioness of Schwart.”

There was always something satisfying about seeing someone I had helped rise into a position of power.

“I-I’m the Marchioness? Are you saying that for me to hear!? The child’s birth has already been registered. I registered the child as mine and my husband’s, entered the name into the family genealogy, and obtained the Imperial Court’s approval!!”

So what?

“Oh, really? Well, that’s unfortunate. In that case, you’ve committed a crime against not only the House of Schwart, but the Imperial Family as well.”

“What are you talking about…?!”

It was far too soon to bite her lip over something this trivial.

How could she already be drawing blood when she had no idea what I was about to say next?

I deliberately folded my arms and looked down at the noblewoman with an arrogant, haughty gaze.

“Was it love?”

“Or was it calculation?”