A Bloody Honeymoon in a Haunted Hotel (7)

“Are you okay, teacher?”

With surprised eyes, Judith asked Katya.

“Just now, the murderer, how did they do to you….”

“Luckily, I found her before it became a serious, so she’s out of harm’s way.”

“But you found the killer?”

“I’m sure you’re all very frightened, but let’s all collect ourselves, change into our pajamas, and get back together, because now is the time…….”

Katya glanced at the wall clock in the guest room.

“It’s 9:20. Meet me out in the hallway in ten minutes and go up to room 509.”

With that, she turned toward the door without a second thought.

As Nikolai translated her words into Archetian, Mengano grabbed Katya as if he couldn’t let her go.

[The killer might still be out there right now, shouldn’t we all be together?]

“I think the killer needs time to prepare himself.”

Katya left a message for the killer and walked away.

In truth, she did so only to buy herself some time.

She stopped by Viscountess Borodin’s room on the way and asked to take a statement, then headed straight back to room 404.

Once inside, she turned her suitcase upside down and spilled everything inside.

After rummaging through the items on the floor, Katya stood up with something in her hand.

Nikolai, who had followed her into the room, quickly closed the door behind her and came up behind her with a towel.

The towel fell heavily on Katya’s head as she stuffed her findings into her pockets.

“Why are you packing that all of a sudden?”

Nikolai asked, carefully wiping his rain-drenched hair.

He’d gotten wetter than Katya on the balcony when he’d gone to rescue the Viscountess earlier, but he didn’t seem to mind getting wet himself.

He was just worried about his wife, who was coming down with a cold.

“I wish it were just a minor ailment, but it seems like something important has come up.”

“Did you really find out who did it?”

Katya, who had been engrossed in her deductions for a while, suddenly turned around and smeared her index finger on the cheese on the table.

Without any chance to resist, a slender finger swiftly flicked a dollop of creamy cheese onto Nikolai’s lower lip.

“What, all of a sudden?”

“Grand Duke.”

“Huh?”

“Lick that.”

It was an order that flew out of nowhere, but Nikolai meekly complied.

His red tongue flicked across his bottom lip, and the sour, salty flavor of the cheese hit his mouth.

Under the light, the spot where the curved tongue had flicked caught the light and glistened smoothly.

Katya, who was staring at the movement of his tongue, shook her head as if she didn’t want to see it.

“No, not like that. I want you to curl your top and bottom lips in and run your tongue between them.”

Katya protested in a disgruntled tone and reapplied the cheese to his lips.

Who makes wetting dry lips so bewitching?

Chastised for needlessly flirting, Nikolai did as his client requested, hiding his sinful lips and sticking his tongue between them.

The tip of his tongue poked out slightly and quickly flicked across the slit.

Watching closely, Katya mirrored what he was doing.

“Everything that’s on your lips goes into your mouth naturally, right?”

“Yes.”

The mystery was solved.

It was him after all.

The motive for the second murder was still uncertain, but all the clues pointed to him.

It was creepy to realize that every single one of his actions had been planned from the moment they first met.

“Earlier, you leaned in close to my ear and said, ‘All the doors to the rooms on the 5th floor were locked.’”

“Uh, I tried forcing them all open and searched, but there was no one inside. I didn’t hear any sounds of someone sneaking out secretly either.”

Nikolai had received numerous death threats and trained with knights, so he was very sensitive to signs of trouble.

It was virtually impossible for a commoner to break through his guard and escape.

Katya nodded, confident in her reasoning.

“Then there’s only one person after all. The method of the crime will only become clear when I see it with my own eyes, but my guess is probably correct.”

“I didn’t realize you were so good at investigations.”

“I just mimic what I read in the books, I guess.”

“Your versatility is one of your many charms. I get a kick out of watching you.”

“Why?”

Instead of answering, Nikolai covered her forehead with his large hand.

It was hot, as if her fever hadn’t already broken despite the fever-reducing medicine he’d given her before dinner.

“You’re a patient, so you should go to bed earlier tonight.”

The husband sighed deeply, as if the earth had fallen away.

When we first planned our honeymoon, I never dreamed we’d get caught up in a murder.

As I watched my tiny, slender wife, who was afraid of being blown away by the wind, run around trying to solve the case even though she was sick, I felt worried to death.

It really felt like the heavens were not helping.

At the appointed hour, the five gathered again in the hallway.

Viscountess Borodin’s lips were half-closed now. Unlike when they had been drooling as if her jaw had fallen off.

As she had been asked earlier, she described the events before and after the crime in as much detail as she could on a piece of paper and handed it to Katya.

She skimmed the statement quickly and looked up with a look of conviction.

“Then let’s go upstairs, shall we?”

With that, they made their way to the stairs to the fifth floor.

Katya came up beside Judith, who was walking at the back of the pack, and spoke.

“How’s your foot?”

“What?”

“I saw it in your room and thought it was frozen.”

“I must have slipped a bit earlier when I was running through the rain to get to the ferry.”

“Oh, no. Let me help you up.”

Even though she said no, Katya put her arm around her shoulders and they walked in step.

She was so considerate of the patient that she only focused on the swollen ankle and ended up tripping over and falling forward with her steps tangled up.

Due to that, Judith, who was being supported from the side, also fell down flat on the floor.

“Tia, are you okay?”

Nikolai, who had been leading the way, quickly returned and helped Katya to her feet.

Next to them, Judith groped for something she’d lost in the fall.

“Are you looking for this?”

Katya said, placing her belongings in her hands.

“Thank you, for finding it.”

Tucking it carefully into her pocket, Judith stood up, looking much more at ease.

Heading up to the fifth floor, Katya sent Nikolai and the others to room 509 first, then stopped by room 508 on her own.

The door to room 508 was wide open, thanks to Nikolai’s ransacking of the fifth floor earlier.

Katya pulled the hood of her robe over her head and stepped out onto the balcony.

The balcony railing bore the marks of where the cord had been pinned, as she had expected.

Gathering her thoughts, Katya entered room 509, where everyone was.

The killer in the room eyed her nervously, then quickly averted his gaze when she made eye contact.

“The killer is in here!”

Katya said as she stepped inside.

“I’ve always wanted to say that line myself.”

That made Nikolai smile, even though he was in no position to do so, and he chewed the inside of his tongue in an effort to keep from laughing.

“Let’s start with your second offense, the attempted murder of Viscountess Borodin.”

The Viscountess shuddered and wrapped her hands around her throat, which was still stinging from the nightmare from earlier.

“The culprit first prepared two firmly twisted silk threads, fed them with maggots to make them strong and taut, much like a professor’s rope. One of them formed a loop like a noose, and the other had a white cloth tied to one end along with a stone. Then, these items were hung over the railing of the balcony in room 509, while they fell down towards the balcony of the Viscountess in room 409.”

Katya had checked earlier, and both room railings had been scratched by silk threads.

The marks were diagonal, pointing to where the killer was standing.

The killer was not in room 509, directly above, but in room 508, diagonally upstairs, where he had a clear line of sight.

There, he waited for his prey to fall into his trap, tugging on the silk that was double-linked to the railing of both rooms.

When he tugged on the string with the stone, it swung like a swing from his center of gravity and knocked on the window.

Startled by the knocking, the viscountess sees a white cloth through the window, fogged by the temperature difference and rain, and mistakes it for an evil spirit.

Normally, people would run away when they see an evil spirit, but the killer knew that the viscountess would come out to check it out.

The moment she opened the window, he cut the cord with a knife, and the ghostly cloth disappeared into the river under the weight of the stone.

“The viscountess stuck her neck out in search of the ghost, who had disappeared without realizing it. As soon as she stuck her head into the large circle, the culprit, who was watching from the side, pulled the line taut and shrunk the knot in an instant.”

The shrunken circle then burrowed into its prey’s throat, trying to cut off its breathing.

But there were two variables the killer hadn’t anticipated.

He had deliberately paralyzed Viscountess Borodin’s mouth and tongue with poison so she couldn’t scream, and Mengano, who was supposed to be sleeping in the hallway, appeared and called Katya and Nikolai into the hallway.

Finding hope in the sound of his voice, Viscountess Borodin kicked out the window with all the strength she could muster, and Nikolai burst into the room and swung his sword.

The silk snapped before he could finish the job, and he quickly ducked for cover.

Hearing Nikolai slam the door and run out, the killer realized he was going upstairs and looked for a place to escape.

“When my husband went up to the fifth floor, he said that both rooms 508 and 509 were locked. How could the killer have locked the doors in such a hurry to get away?”

In other words, the culprit hadn’t gotten out in the first place.