Chapter 184

The Three Suspects

“You said you had some business with me, but…… what is it? I’m quite busy, you know . ”

This was the first thing that Achim Balser, one of our suspects, said when we visited him .

We were in the reception room of the Balser Company, which was run by Achim .

The desks and chairs had quite a solid structure to them, and the paintings that decorated the walls, as well as the vases surrounding the corners of the room, looked like they had high antique value .

The business appeared to be doing quite well .

Achim was an older man with a rich beard .

As we learned from our discussion with Frieda, he was around 60 years old .

However, he gave off the impression of somebody younger than that .

“We’re sorry to bother you when you’re so busy . We want to ask you about Arnaud . ”

“Arnaud? What about him?”

“He’s no longer with us . ”

“W-What did you just say……? Princess, is that true……?”

Upon hearing Philine deliver the news, Achim looked like he could hardly believe it .

“Seriously…… Since when……?”

“Around three days ago . You didn’t know about it? Wasn’t he one of your subordinates?”

“Arnaud should’ve left for the Imperial capital city to purchase more merchandise . He was due to return next week . ”

“I didn’t expect that he’d die,” Achim groaned .

“Do you know why he was killed?”

“He was murdered? …… To be honest, I can hardly believe it . I knew him very well . It’s regrettable, but he was one of my best subordinates . He was humble and had such a gentle personality . I can’t imagine that somebody would have a grudge against him . ”

“I heard that you were planning to name him a successor . Do you think that may have caused trouble for anybody?”

In response to my cruel question, Achim had a slightly offended look on his face .

“That certainly is true . However, he didn’t seem interested in it at all . My successor is going to be my son, Bruno . We’ve already made the preparations . ”

He had a displeased look on his face, but Achim still answered my question calmly .

“A-Achim-san, you still look quite young, but you’re already planning to retire?”

“That’s quite a cheap compliment, huh . But I’m already at that age . Recently, my memories have become increasingly vague . In the world of merchants, something like that is considered lethal . ”

Achim responded to Lily-sama’s question without getting upset as well .

It seemed that he wanted to hand his business off to the next generation while he was still doing fine .

“By the way, where were you when he was murdered?”

“Are you suspecting me!?”

Achim seemed very enraged at my next question .

Well, this was probably a natural reaction anyway .

Anybody would find it unpleasant if they were being suspected of murder .

“We’re just trying to clear up any doubts . Achim-san, will you please cooperate with us?”

“…… . Hmph . So? When was Arnaud killed?”

“Oh? Didn’t we say it was three days ago?”

In response to my intentionally provocative question, Achim sneered at me and said,

“And didn’t I mention it earlier as well? I’m quite busy . I meet a ton of people every single day and visit a lot of places . I can’t prove my innocence from three days ago . ”

In this world, where there weren’t any watches, we couldn’t exactly work things out down the exact minute, but perhaps he really was just that busy .

“Arnaud was murdered in the morning three days ago at around five or six AM . ”

“At that time, I went to go meet somebody just outside of the Imperial capital city . Since I’m planning on passing down my business, I went to go greet a merchant that I’m familiar with . ”

As if digging through his memory, Achim answered while his gaze was focused in the upper right direction .

“May we know what the name of that merchant is?”

“You guys are extremely skeptical, huh . His name is Cato . That’s enough for you, right? Just go home . ”

We exited the company building .

◆◇◆◇◆

“It’s true that some trouble came up between us . ”

Our second suspect, Ilza Gröllmann, acknowledged the issue quite quickly .

We were having our conversation in a lounge in one of the Empire’s government offices .

The lounge had a simple look to it, and there weren’t any particularly remarkable pieces of furniture around either .

However, perhaps it was out of consideration of their citizens, there were several vases filled with real flowers .

We were sitting on a sofa face-to-face with Ilza .

Ilza was a rather tall and slender woman .

Her long hair was bound up, and she gave off the atmosphere of a serious career woman .

“What kind of trouble was it?”

“It was over something very trivial . I asked him a question because there was something that I was uncertain about regarding the amount that he paid on his taxes . In the end, it was just a misunderstanding, and I properly apologized to him, but he didn’t seem to be very convinced at all . ”

“Even though the problem was related to something like paying his taxes,” Ilza said as she heaved a sigh .

“Was that truly just a misunderstanding?”

“? …… What do you mean by that?”

“For example, even though he was committing tax fraud, maybe you’re covering up for him or something?”

“That’s impossible . Us public servants are people that have been left in charge of these professional duties by Her Majesty Dorothea . For us to be complicit in something unjust like that, it’s practically out of the question . ”

I whipped out the cruel questions once again .

During police investigations, there would always be somebody playing the role of a good cop that sympathized with the suspect, but there would also be somebody playing the role of the bad cop, who would act more hostile towards their suspect .

As for whether or not that was actually true, I had no idea since this was just something I often saw in the detective stories I read .

“Are you aware that Arnaud was killed?”

“…… Yes . I heard it from one of my colleagues in our office . I’m sorry to hear that . ”

Contrary to what her words were, Ilza had a slightly relieved look on her face .

“Do you have any idea as to why he was murdered?”

When Philine asked, Ilza pondered for a bit before saying,

“Since the Balser Company is such a huge business, they must have had some kind of trouble brewing up over there . Wouldn’t somebody over there eventually explode? I’m not too sure, though . ”

Her response sounded indifferent and like she was saying that she had no idea, but perhaps something like that had happened .

“He was killed around five or six AM three days ago . What were you doing at that time?”

“I was probably in the middle of a dream while still at home or something, but there’s nothing that can prove it either . ”

“However, I am not the culprit,” Ilza said quite impassively .

◆◇◆◇◆

“A-Arnaud…… died……?”

When Anna heard the story from us, she became speechless and covered her mouth .

We were in Anna’s home .

Her room was cute and befitting that of a young girl’s, with various small items decorating it here and there .

We passed through the living room and were seated in her chairs as we spoke .

After we relayed the news of Arnaud’s death to her, Anna was at a loss for words and began to cry .

Claire-sama, who was sitting right next to her, gently stroked her back .

“Anna, you were going out with Arnaud-san, right?”

“…… Yeah . ”

After waiting for Anna to settle down, Claire-sama pushed the conversation forward .

“Arnaud was my childhood friend . Our ages were a little bit far apart, and we were raised like we were brother and sister…… But I’d always loved Arnaud, so I confessed to him and we started going out . However, his behavior started to seem a bit strange lately……”

“Strange how?”

Philine chimed in .

“It felt like he had stopped caring about me completely . He said that he was having a lot of trouble at work, but…… I suspected that maybe he had found somebody else that he loved . ”

And that was when they started talking about breaking up .

“Arnaud said it was just a misunderstanding…… And that he definitely didn’t want to break up with me . However, I was getting more and more anxious and uneasy…… so I told him I wanted a bit of distance…… If I knew something like this was going to happen, there were so many things I still had yet to tell him, so many things I wanted to do with him…… . !”

Anna started crying again .

Claire-sama held her shoulders to help soothe her once again .

“Anna, would you happen to know why he was killed?”

“That…… There’s no way I would . He was such a wonderful person . He was liked by everybody around him, it’s unimaginable to think that there was somebody that wanted to kill him……”

Anna answered through her tears .

“This is something we’ve been asking everybody, but what were you doing between the hours of 5 and 6 AM three days ago?”

“…… This is for the sake of proving my innocence, right? I always take a jog around the neighborhood around that time of day . It’s my morning routine . There might be some people who saw me around that time, but I’m not sure . ”

“I’m sorry I can’t provide you with more concrete details,” Anna said, sounding completely defeated .

“Whatever you do, please catch the person that killed Arnaud . ”

As we departed from her house, we were seen off by Anna, who still had a sad look in her eyes .

This concluded our interrogation of our suspects .

We were told that somebody could be the culprit among them, but in the end, I wondered who it could be .