Chapter 230 - The Secret of the Rambouillet Relief Center



While Ippolito and Isabella were spending their time venting and rambling about pointless conspiracies, Ariadne decided to put her newfound title to use.

It was her first day at work at the Rambouillet Relief Center.

“Lady de Mare... No, you are the head of the relief center, now.”

Mr. Albany, the head of the relief center, bowed his head respectfully in front of Ariadne. Ariadne smiled.

“Things can turn out like this.”

The Albany office manager answered smoothly.

“It must be a matter of course. I feel like everything is going according to plan.”

The Albany office manager is a man skilled at pleasing high-ranking patrons.

Ariadne laughed off his flattery.

As she appeared to be looking around, the Albany office manager asked.

“Are you looking for an office?”

Ariadne laughed.

“How did you know?”

“It is only natural that anyone would look for their own office first when they are at work.”

Ariadne tilted her head.

“But, didn’t the late Queen hold the position of Director of the Relief Center concurrently? Did the Queen have a separate office at the Relief Center?”

Queen Marguerite rarely left the palace.

Although she occasionally came to inspect the relief center, she only looked around and did not live there or do any work.

Beyond her preference for places she was personally familiar with and comfortable in, it was also not suitable due to the Queen's security concerns.

In that case, it would have been possible for the deceased Queen, who rejected extravagance, not to have had an office space at all.

But the Albany office manager smiled vaguely.

“You don’t think she’d leave it there? No, the Queen’s office is there.”

But he seemed a little reluctant to lead her right there.

Ariadne stared blankly at the Albany office manager, wondering if it was because it was the Queen's space that it was difficult to give it to her.

“Is there a problem?”

To her question, he shook his head in response.

“No, no, not at all. I was just worried that it might not be cleaned properly. Please follow me.”

The office of the director of the relief center, who followed the director of the Albany office, was uniquely located in a corner on the very top floor of the building.

Ariadne thought it would be luxurious since it was the office used by Her Majesty the Queen, but it was not like that at all.

It was a very large room, with no decoration whatsoever except for a dark green carpet on the floor and a large tapestry hanging on one wall that took up the entire wall.

Contrary to the Albany office manager's claims that the office was "not very clean," the room was extremely clean.

However, something felt a little off. The structure of the space didn't seem right.

“This is it.”

The Albany office manager guided her to a large desk leaning against one wall.

Inside the palace, in the Queen's quarters, there was a chair that looked exactly like the wing chair that Queen Marguerite used.

Ariadne felt a surge of emotion as if she could feel the Queen's body heat.

It seemed that the Albany office manager was also reminiscing about the late Queen. He spoke with a wistful expression.

“This room doesn’t have good heating, so we had to bring in a lot of braziers the day before when the Queen came.”

“There’s no fireplace. Her Majesty must have been a very cold person.”

“That’s right. There was no room for a fireplace. She really needed one.”

At those words, Ariadne looked around the room again.

The room itself was so large that it seemed that putting a fireplace in it would not be a problem, but there was no visible wall that could connect it to a chimney.

'Isn't this room taking up most of the top floor? Why isn't there a wall connecting it to the chimney?'

The tapestry wall opposite the desk began halfway up the window, meaning the last window was only halfway up.

'Why did they build it like this?'

But the ugly building wasn't the issue.

It's not a palace, it's a relief center, what the heck, Ariadne said to the Albany office manager.

“Could you please bring me the management ledger?”

"Yes?"

“Until now, we had provided urgent grain support without knowing the detailed financial situation of the Rambouillet Relief Center.”

The office manager could only nod.

Ariadne was truly a generous benefactor, without a single complaint.

“Now that we have a better understanding of the details, we need to restructure it to make it sustainable in the long term.”

Ariadne intended to transform the Rambouillet Relief Center into a profitable organization.

She made a lot of money during the pandemic, but she didn't run the business on a regular basis.

Someone has to earn money to sustain the system that feeds and clothes those who cannot work.

The Albany office manager, who could not find any excuse to refuse, went out and came back with a pile of ledgers. His expression was a little gloomy.

'Have you been doing whatever you want all this time, but now that you're under surveillance, you feel uneasy? Did you embezzle something?'

Ariadne was not impressed by his appearance.

But if she looks at the ledgers and does a warehouse inspection, she will soon find out.

Director Albany, who brought a ledger that was as tall as the tip of his nose and placed it on Ariadne's desk, began to speak.

“Excuse me... What does the director think of the late Queen?”

“The deceased Queen?”

Ariadne looked back at the Albany office manager at the sudden mention of the story. She answered calmly.

“I think she was a good person. She was a great mother. It’s a shame that she passed away.”

It was a high praise, but it was also an impeccable social modifier.

Except for Duchess Rubina and others, there was nothing that would offend or find fault with anyone who heard it.

In the end, Director Albany, who could not find sincerity in Ariadne's answer, answered.

“I see...”

He said, dusting off the top of the ledger.

“Here, here are ten years’ worth of ledgers. There shouldn’t be any missing records. If you need anything else, please call me anytime.”

"Thank you."

Ariadne, who had sent away the Albany office manager, opened the ledger for the most recent year.

Ariadne's brow furrowed as she carefully traced the ledger entries with the tip of her quill pen, reviewing about half a year's worth of accounts.

“Purchase history... Why did they spend this much money on this?”

There were no issues with the records for the past six months. However, when she went up to the first half of this year, she noticed some strange purchase records.

“Turnip seedlings cost 40 rotolo and 20 ducats? It’s strange to buy turnips with money, but if you’re going to buy them, you should buy seeds instead. Who buys seedlings to grow turnips? Why are the seedlings worth this much? Are they made of gold? They’re literally worth gold?”

Turnips were a typical famine relief crop.

Even in the relief center, it was not used as a staple food, but only for a few days to feed the barley pass.

So, they didn't spend much money there, and they just scattered the seeds they had from last year in the garden and had the workers at the relief center harvest them.

But when she looked at the details, she saw that there were more than one or two things like this.

Even when purchasing linen for the poor in the relief home, it was purchased at the price of satin, not linen.

There was also a purchase record of 300 beds, each of which was a luxury item worth 15 ducats (about 15 million won).

'There's no way I'd be here in a bed like that!'

When Ariadne was sent to the Rambouillet Relief Center in the early days of her return, under the pretext of volunteering, she apparently slept on a mattress made by hand from rags.

This is a fabricated account, as it is unlikely that expensive beds would be provided to poor people instead of being placed in guest bedrooms.

'Who... embezzled?'

Ariadne's expression became increasingly serious.

'Is this why the Albany office manager was reluctant to give me the ledgers?'

She thought there might be some minor mischief.

Because that's what happens when you have an ownerless foundation, but this is going too far.

She immediately pulled the rope that had been set up in the office. As the relief worker entered the room, she spoke in a firm voice.

“Bring the Albany office manager here. Now.”

***

The Albany office manager was called into the relief director's office and was taken away, secretly impressed.

'I didn't know you would call me in 30 minutes.'

He thought it would take at least two days to review it, but the new relief director was lightning-quick and decisive in her handling of the matter.

There was no way she could read ten years' worth of ledgers in half an hour.

Perhaps she called it that because she thought that the parts she reviewed were enough to understand the entire content.

'This might be better.'

If it's going to happen, it might as well be hit first.

He entered the new director's office, where he had taken his seat, with a somewhat relieved mind.

Ariadne sat in Queen Marguerite's chair, watching the director of the Albany office with fierce eyes as he entered the room from behind the huge desk.

The office manager felt himself being intimidated by the energy radiating from the 16-year-old girl, and he cringed again.

“Director.”

A deep, subdued voice called out to him. It was not polite.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Do you know why I called you, Director?”

When the Albany office manager did not answer readily, Ariadne held out a ledger circled in red ink.

She turned the pages of the ledger with quick fingers. The circles of red ink stretched on and on.

“Let me get straight to the point. Who did this?”

“...”

When there was no answer, the words finally came out of her mouth first.

“Did the office manager embezzle the money?”

Although she didn't count the entire amount, the amount of embezzlement was outrageous.

“It seems that 80% of the annual budget of the Rambouillet Relief Center has been embezzled!”

Ariadne could not contain her anger.

“Don’t even think about saying that it was done by a subordinate and that you didn’t know about it. Such a large sum of money can’t have slipped out of the lower ranks without going through the office manager.”

Her voice became increasingly quieter.

“Is it good to take the budget that should go to the poor, betray the Queen, and live in luxury all by yourself?”

She slammed the ledger down on the desk.

“Didn’t you feel sorry for the poor people who were starving to death? Oh my God, I didn’t even know what was going on and I had to carry grain...”

“...What the director said is correct.”

The Albany office manager opened his mouth.

“...But that’s only half true.”

“What did you say?”

Ariadne glared at the Albany office manager, wondering if he was trying to make excuses even in this situation.

“It is certainly true that the amount cannot be withdrawn without my permission. However... I cannot do that on my own without Her Majesty’s permission. It has been ten years.”

Ariadne's expression changed.

“What does that mean now?”

“In the past ten years, there has been large-scale... If it’s embezzlement, then it is embezzlement. Yes, there was an act of embezzling the budget received from the palace and creating a slush fund.”

Ariadne looked at the Albany office manager in confusion. He continued.

“This was done under the direction of the late Queen Marguerite. I was in charge of the detailed selection of items and the method, but the monthly target amount and total amount faithfully followed Queen Marguerite’s instructions.”

Ariadne asked back.

“So, what Director Albany is saying is that Queen Marguerite manipulated the ledgers of the Rambouillet Relief Center to create slush funds?”

“...When you say it like that, the late Queen sounds like a very bad person, but yes. The truth is true. That’s right.”

Ariadne felt a gulf between Queen Marguerite and her actions of stealing food from the poor to create her own slush fund.

There's no way the Queen would do such a thing, she snapped harshly.

“Why should I believe what the Albany office manager says? What guarantee do I have that you're not embezzling everything and then blaming the late Queen for it?”

As the Albany office manager, it seemed like an attack he had expected. He answered calmly.

“Could you show me the most recent year’s ledger?”

With Ariadne's permission, he opened the topmost ledger.

“The director himself checked. There hasn’t been a single red circle in the past six months.”

It was true. Ariadne nodded.

“Since the Queen passed away, there was no one to receive instructions such as this quarter’s target amount. Naturally, the creative accounting also stopped.”

He added.

“After Her Majesty the Queen passed away, there was no place to deliver the accumulated secret funds.”

Ariadne, who had been silent for a moment, asked.

“...How did you handle the slush funds you created?”

“I gave it to the Queen herself every month.”

“In the palace?”

“No, the Queen regularly came to the relief center to receive them. When the Queen herself could not come, she sent Madame Carla to receive them.”

Ariadne, who had been pursuing this issue, sent the Albany office manager back. She had heard everything she had to hear.

She immediately called Giuseppe and told him to find out who the office manager was meeting and to be careful not to do anything suspicious.

After finishing this, she sat down at Queen Marguerite's desk and became lost in thought.

'Her Majesty the Queen embezzled the food of the poor? Ignoring the fact that they were starving to death?'

It might have been something for Duchess Rubina, but it was something that didn't suit Queen Marguerite at all. Ariadne continued to ponder.

'If that's true, why would the Queen do such a thing?'

The funds coming to the Rambouillet Relief Center all come from the budget of the Queen's Palace.

If you want to be extravagant, you can do so at the Queen's Palace.

However, Queen Marguerite was not particularly a person who collected expensive items or jewels.

'...She wanted to create funds that could be spent freely without the King's eyes.'

Otherwise, there would be no reason for Queen Marguerite to create a slush fund.

'But why...?'

If 80% of the budget for the Rambouillet Relief Center was embezzled over a period of 10 years, it would be a large amount of money that could be used as military funds.

'Aid to her parents...?'

Queen Margaret's maternal family, the Briand dynasty of the Kingdom of Gallico, had suffered from a long civil war and even a recent war of succession between the eldest and second sons.

'Are you trying to help Prince Louis, who was the second son...?'

That might be the case, but something didn't quite fit.

It had been two years since Philip IV had ascended to the throne after winning a power struggle with Prince Louis.

It is said that the more money the better, but if the purpose was to aid Prince Louis, it is not well explained why the same amount of money has been continuously embezzled until recently.

There had to be some change, either a decrease or an increase in the amount.

Ariadne sat down and thought deeply.

Does this slush fund still exist? Has it been spent? What was the money for? If so, where is it?

'Inside the palace...?'

The most convenient place for a Queen to hide her money is in her palace.

But the King, from whom she had tried to hide the existence of her slush funds, also lives in the palace.

'The third place...?'

Ariadne wondered where Queen Marguerite might have kept her treasury. At the Countess of Marquez's? At the Marquis of Chibo's?

Suddenly, a flash of realization came over her.

“!”

Ariadne jumped up from her seat and walked straight across the room to the wall opposite the desk.

It was the very wall where the window was only half-hanging.

Unlike the other three sides which were made of stone, this wall was simply made of dark lacquered wood with tapestries hanging on it.

Flutter!

She pulled back the tapestry, revealing a wooden wall.

When the wall was knocked, there was an empty space inside. A smile spread across Ariadne's lips.

“Giuseppe!”

She called her confidant. Soon Giuseppe came running in and bowed his head.

“Did you call, Miss?”

She said with shining eyes.

“Bring me the axe.”


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