Chapter 98
Gerald returned to the hotel, hung a sign on the door that read “Resting,” and walked steadily into the bedroom.
The sleeping pills, which had been prohibited by the royal physician, were ones he had purchased separately at a hospital he stopped by on the way. He put two tablets in his mouth and drank brandy without a moment’s hesitation.
He took a few more sips from the bottle, then slowly lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. Not long after, when he opened them again, his feet were suspended in the air.
Gerald, now in a translucent form, looked down at his own body, sleeping soundly.
Lost a bit of weight, huh? Well, for a guy who got dumped without even confessing, I’m holding up better than expected.
With a small smirk and a brief thought, he drifted through the window and out into the open. His blue form, bathed in the bright midday sunlight, quickly flew off in a single direction.
Finding Walter wasn’t hard.
Once he entered the mining village, he spotted subordinates stationed everywhere. Just listening in on their conversations made the destination clear in no time.
Gerald discovered a large cabin where the troops guarding the front gate, back door, and other key spots had gathered. In his mind, he shouted, “Bingo,” and flew straight in.
He slipped easily into the hallway lined with armed Chameleon troops and cautiously pushed his head through the wall.
Walter was there, just as expected. But he wasn’t alone. There were people Gerald never imagined seeing.
Carefully moving his eyes, Gerald found a good spot where he wouldn’t be noticed. A moment later, his face appeared quietly among a wall filled with picture frames, large and small.
His blue face, overlapping a portrait of a dog, began to slowly scan the room.
There were three people in the space that looked like a sitting room, the old woman who seemed to own the cabin, a young man, and across from them, our dear Colonel.
What’s he doing here? Is that woman the village representative?
“…Yes, Nesser wrote the novel. My grandchild is ‘Joel,’ the author of The Stolen Noble Lady.”
“For what purpose?”
The old woman’s calm voice came first, followed by Walter’s.
What on earth is going on? Gerald’s eyes and ears widened at the unexpected scene.
So he didn’t come to inspect the family’s mine… he came to capture the author?
And he actually caught them?
Since Walter had taken over the investigation, he hadn’t shared any information. Gerald didn’t know a thing about the author.
He thought today was just another routine inspection. But the person sitting there was the author of The Stolen Noble Lady! This was a huge catch!
Holding back the urge to speak, he focused on their conversation. Once again, it was the old woman who replied.
“Judging by your reaction, you don’t seem to know. Nesser was just following orders.”
She spoke on behalf of the young man beside her. Her face was marked with age, filled with fine wrinkles, but her gray eyes still held a clear light.
After finishing her cryptic statement, she leisurely took a sip of tea. She moved so slowly that just watching her made Gerald feel impatient.
He glanced over at Walter.
As far as Gerald knew, Walter hated vague answers like that. Sure enough, even in the simple act of taking a short breath, annoyance was written all over him.
“So, you mean someone else gave the order to write it?”
“Rather than an order… it would be more accurate to call it a command.”
“Fine. Then who gave that command?”
“If I tell you… will you clear this child of all charges?”
“I’ll decide after I hear your answer.”
“Promise me first. I may be an old woman living in a remote village, but I know enough to understand that someone like you, Duke, could punish an innocent person if you chose to.”
Wow. This old lady’s no pushover.
Gerald watched the two with growing interest.
He had thought only two people could stand up to Walter Rockford, the patient in the asylum and Hermia. Who knew there was someone in this mountain village too?
“…….”
Walter’s face remained mostly unchanged as he raised his teacup to his lips. Gerald could tell he wasn’t actually drinking.
“Madam, I’m sorry, but this isn’t a negotiation.”
With a loud clink, Walter set the cup down and finally spoke. His eyes fixed on the cabinet beyond the sofa.
“The reason I haven’t thrown Nesser Buzam to the floor and cuffed him yet is simply out of consideration for you, Madam, because you’re on heart medication.”
The low cabinet in the corner of the room was packed with medicine for the homeowner’s long-standing illness. At the very front, the ones most frequently used were for heart disease.
He turned his dry gaze to the old woman and continued.
“If you won’t reveal the person behind this, we’ll have to take this elsewhere. Unfortunately, you won’t be allowed to observe then.”
“Are you threatening me, the Margaux?”
“Who knows. I imagine your grandson, who’s been silent behind you all this time, will be a bit more talkative. Isn’t that right, ‘Gloomy Nesser’?”
This time, he directed his words to the young man. The man’s fists trembled, and suddenly, he jumped to his feet.
“Who are you calling gloomy? The one who told me to write that novel was your grandfather!”
What? Gerald’s jaw dropped in shock, even more than Walter’s.
Unless Walter had another grandfather Gerald didn’t know about, there was only one person the author could be referring to.
“No way. The one who ordered ‘The Stolen Noble Lady’ to be written was Duke Leonard…? Why would he do that?”
Gerald almost blurted that out loud, but he desperately clamped his mouth shut and turned his head away. Walter, still seated, tilted his head slightly, as if trying to measure something.
Why isn’t that guy surprised? Did he already know?
“If it was just to find Melissa, wasn’t the will enough? Why go through the trouble of digging up painful memories and commissioning a novel?”
“I believe I can answer that. Nesser, leave us for a moment.”
“Grandmother!”
“If it’s alright, I’d like to speak with him alone. He’s too timid to run away.”
Walter didn’t hesitate for long. He stood and opened the door to the sitting room. Even when he ordered Scott, who was waiting outside, to lock Nesser in another room, he stayed perfectly composed.
Now alone with the old woman, he finally spoke after a long silence.
“My grandfather was looking for Melissa. He had personal business with her. But what do you mean, he made you write a novel?”
“That personal business must have been to find her and kill her.”
“…”
“Because the child he failed to kill when he took care of Jack Vansen himself… was Melissa.”
Click.
Before the old woman even finished speaking, a gun was aimed at her head. Walter, his finger on the trigger, asked calmly.
“Who are you? What do you know, and how much?”
“Well now… even if I said I know everything—absolutely everything—could you really shoot me?”
After taking another sip of tea, she leaned back against the sofa and asked him again. As Walter slowly lowered the revolver, her smile deepened.
Finally done with cryptic answers, she began calmly confessing everything she knew about the past.
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︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹
His translucent body had made it to the backyard, but he couldn’t bring himself to return to the cottage. Instead, he wandered outside.
Gerald kept muttering things like “Wow,” “Huh,” and “Seriously,” as he processed the outrageous things he’d just heard.
Is this real? Are they kidding me?
The story was so unbelievable he was starting to regret hearing it.
He kept laughing and going dead serious, over and over like a madman, until finally, he became serious again.
So, the one who killed Walter’s father was none other than Melissa’s father. And the one who reported that fact to Duke Leonard was the doctor who ran away?
That old hag Margaux erased Melissa’s memories and smuggled her into an orphanage. Then the Duke wrote a will to have her killed?
What shocked Gerald even more was that Walter didn’t seem that surprised when he heard all this.
So he knew all along.
The only time Walter reacted was when it came out that Duke Leonard had commissioned the writing of the novel.
The late Duke had managed to find Melissa.
She’d even gotten a job as a maid in the Vansen household. Naturally, Gerald assumed the Duke would’ve killed her on the spot, but for some reason, he just watched her.
According to the old woman, he seemed unsure whether her memories had returned or not. It would’ve been easy to kill her, but while he was watching her, Duke Leonard struggled with it—a lot.
After much agonizing, he made a decision to write a novel.
If Melissa didn’t react at all to the novel about her past, he would let her live. But if her memories came back, he would kill her then. That’s why he went to the trouble and expense of putting ‘The Stolen Noble Lady’ into the world.
That can’t be.
Walter firmly denied that.
He scoffed, saying there’s no way his grandfather, with his personality, would ever do such a thing. Gerald agreed.
If it came to that, wouldn’t it just mean he intended to let her live? Why go through the trouble of writing a novel as some kind of test? What for?
But the old woman wouldn’t back down. She even swore in the name of some deity she served. It was so solemn that anyone watching would have felt reverent.
Under the clear sky, Gerald looked down at his own body, the dirt visible through his ghostly form.
Being a ghost, once just fun and fascinating, now gave him a chill.
—It wasn’t ‘The Stolen Noble Lady’ that was the real problem…
The real problem lay elsewhere.
With a complicated look, he glanced back at the cottage. The author’s words, uttered when they were dragged back into the sitting room, swirled through his head again.
“I—I can’t break the curse…!”
