IDMH - Chapter 55






He walked in a precarious manner on purpose, and the workers who saw him spoke with concern.

“Be careful, Perdes!”

“Then fall!”

Perdes waved his hand with his characteristic goofy smile.

"It’s okay! This is not enough...!”

Thud-

“Ouch!”

“Mr. Perdes!”

In the end, when Perdes fell down the stairs, the workers came running to him in surprise.

Perdes, who was sitting on the floor, deliberately applied too much force to his buttocks to break the bottle he had in his back pocket and crushed it once more.

Then the bottle broke with a loud cracking sound.

The liquid that flowed from the broken bottle soaked his pants.

“Blood, blood!”

“Call your doctor right away!”

Because the liquid was red, it looked like blood.

The workers, who thought Perdes was seriously injured, were confused and did not know what to do.

Some of them came to their senses and brought stretchers.

“Lie down here, Master Perdes!”

“I hurt my butt, so I need to lie down!”

“Come on!”

When Perdes was injured in the imperial palace, the palace officials just passed by as if they had not seen him.

There were also people giggling and pointing fingers at Perdes.

But it touched his heart to see everyone's sincere concern.

Perdes waved his hand, hoping that there was no culprit among them.

"It’s okay. I’m not hurt.”

“You’re not hurt! There’s so much blood!”

“Hey, this isn’t blood!”

Perdes took out a broken bottle from his back pocket and showed it to the workers.

“This is it.”

When the workers saw the red liquid outside of the sculpture, their mouths fell silent for a moment as if cold water had been poured on them, and they looked at the sculpture with bewildered eyes.

“...Phew, that’s a relief.”

“I’m so glad.”

For a moment, sighs of relief flowed from here and there.

There was a possibility that people would get angry or irritated at being surprised, but there wasn't a single person like that.

Everyone truly felt fortunate that Perdes was not seriously injured.

“Still, just in case, see your doctor.”

"Is it so. You fell down the stairs, so you may have broken a bone or been seriously injured.”

“Mr. Perdes!”

Jack, who belatedly heard that Perdes had fallen, rushed over to check on his condition.

“Blood, blood!”

Jack soon noticed that Perdes' butt was turning red, and the workers burst into laughter and explained.

That wasn't blood, it was stained when a bottle containing red liquid broke.

“Ah, I’m glad.”

Only then did Jack sigh with relief.

Shortly thereafter, the attending physician arrived.

“Huh, huh. Stretch your legs, Perdes.”

The attending doctor came running out of breath, barely able to breathe after eating dinner, and carefully examined Perdes' condition.

“We will have to examine it more closely to know for sure, but looking at the current condition, it doesn’t look like there are any serious injuries.”

After hearing the doctor's diagnosis results, the employees exclaimed that they were fortunate.

“Then let’s go to the bedroom, Perdes.”

"Please sit here."

Perdes said it was okay, but the workers' anger forced him to return to the bedroom on a stretcher.

After receiving another thorough examination from the doctor, he washed himself thoroughly and changed his clothes.

“Just be careful, what if you fall down the stairs?”

Jack grumbled, saying he was very surprised to hear the news.

After telling Jack not to worry as he was fine, he wrote down the things he needed but didn't need to buy right now on a note and handed it to him.

“Jack, go out to the estate and buy me this.”

Before executing the plan, it was to send Jack, who could cause confusion in finding the culprit.

"Yes. I’ll just bring you dinner and leave right away.”

“I decided to have dinner with the Lady, so you can go out right now.”

“Oh, I see!”

Jack then smiled as if relieved and took the note Perdes held out.

“I’m really glad that the Lady and Mr. Perdes are on good terms.”

"Yes."

"Sure! Let’s give birth to a successor like this and solidify Perdes’ position in the Leopold family!”

It was an absurd story, but Jack didn't do it with bad intentions.

Perdes didn't say anything because he knew the Duke's people were talking like that after the rumor, but just waved his hand.

“Can I just buy what’s written here?”

"Yes."

"All right. I’ll be back soon, so please wait a moment!”

No. You don’t have to come back anytime soon.

Go slowly, very slowly.

"Bye."

Perdes swallowed what he wanted to say and saw Jack off.

Then, after taking the medicine bottle, he applied a luminous substance made from malus flowers to the doorknob inside the bedroom.

“Should I apply it outside as well?”

No. Anyone can easily touch the outside, so don't apply it.

Since the criminal sneaked into the bedroom and left the medicine behind, he had to hold on to the inner handle when he left, so it was okay to just apply it here.

Adele said he can apply it lightly once, but just in case, apply it twice thoroughly.

Perdes even ran the tip of his index finger over the handle to check whether the luminous material was properly applied.

"Good."

Perfect. Perdes stepped out, careful not to rub off the substance he had applied to the doorknob, and locked the door with his key.

And after spending about an hour in the doctor's lab, making the excuse that his muscles were sore, hr returned to the bedroom.

“...”

On the table was a bottle and a note identical to the one he had broken.

The red liquid in the bottle was definitely that medicine without even having to check.

Perdes first checked the note.

[Make no mistake.]

A short but powerful phrase caught his eye.

Perdes crumpled the note like a piece of tissue paper, burned it in the candle, and left the bedroom.

***

It was Sarah who brought me the news of Perdes.

“Wow, how surprised I was to hear that. My heart sank. I’m glad he wasn’t seriously hurt.”

“That means Sarah didn’t see Perdes fall.”

"Yes. I was in the laundry room instructing the maids to do their work when I heard the news and came right away.”

"Yes?"

If that's true, Sarah wouldn't be the culprit.

“Can you show me your palm for a moment?”

She was a trustworthy person, but I checked her palm just in case.

As expected, her palms were clean. Nothing was buried.

“Why are you suddenly asking me to show you my palms?”

"Nothing. More than that, does everyone know that Perdes fell?”

“I don’t know if everyone knows, but most of them probably do. From what I heard, there were so many witnesses.”

That's a good thing.

“If you don’t want it to be known, should I stop joining now, Miss?”

"No."

It should be known more than it is now, but they're cracking down on it.

It was ridiculous.

“Just leave now.”

After sending Sarah out, I looked at the documents and waited for Perdes.

If Perdes was here, it meant that the guard hadn't brought any new medicine to the bedroom.

Perdes did not appear for over an hour.

There was a new drug in the bedroom.

If the guard had saved his life, it would have been worthless for Perdes to risk his life, but it was fortunate.

I immediately called for Lord Hanes and Aldor.

“Did you call me, Lady?”

“Show me your palm.”

The two also examined their palms first.

It was a natural result, but the harness and Sir Aldor's palms were also clean.

As expected, these two people can be trusted.

“There is something you two need to do from now on.”

I shook off some of the anxiety that remained deep in my heart and told them what I wanted to ask them.

Of course, I didn't say for what purpose I was asking for this.

"All right."

“I will prepare right away.”

If it had been Perdes, he would have asked the reason, but the two followed their orders right away.

This is where the difference between Perdes and these two people emerged.

Those two people treated me as their boss or master and were loyal to me, but they were not Perdes.

Anyway, I heard he fell and fell down the stairs. Is he okay?

All I asked Perdes to do was simply fall.

I didn't even want him to fall down the stairs.

Of course, that wouldn't arouse suspicion that it was intentional, but the risk of getting hurt was high.

But when I heard that Perdes had fallen down the stairs, I was very worried.

According to Sarah, there were no serious injuries, so it should be okay, but I still have to go check.

With good news.

“We are ready, Lady.”

We went out at the same time, but the one that came back first was Haness, which went to a nearby place.

“Let’s go now.”

The place I took Haness to was the employees' restaurant.

Normally, employees were divided into three groups and ate one group per hour, but today they were all allowed to eat together.

“All the employees within the Duke’s residence have gathered, right?”

"Yes. Everyone gathered except for the five who were on vacation or out.”

“Have you also confirmed that those five people have not returned to the Duke’s residence?”

"Yes. They definitely haven’t come back.”

"Yes."

Then, exclude the 5 people from the list of suspects.

“Oh my, Lady.”

“What are you doing here?”

The employees who saw me greeted me warmly.

“I want to check the quality and quantity of the meal.”

I smiled as if nothing had happened and gave an excuse I had prepared in advance.

“How is it?”

"Sure. It’s so delicious!”

“I’ve never seen a better restaurant than this!”

“You’ve never eaten anything other than here.”

It was a friendly atmosphere as usual, but something strange caught my eye.

The inside of my mouth felt like I had chewed a grain of sand.

I answered their questions appropriately and checked the time.

The time has come.

Paaat-

“Oh, what is it?”

“Is it a power outage?”

Even a tiger will come if you tell it to, and the lights that brightened the restaurant went out for a moment.


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