Surviving as a Terminally Ill Heiress - Chapter 22

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 22

How much time had passed?
[Found it!]
Hui cried out in Ritzuan.
She never used it otherwise, but whenever she got too excited, she did exactly that.
I smiled and walked toward where Hui and Dido had crouched down simultaneously.
And I nodded slowly.
“……Yes. You found it well.”
It was a very small trace, visible only upon close inspection.
Dido pointed at the floor and murmured.
“Sparkle-sparkle.”
“Right, it’s sparkling. The thief guest must have left it behind.”
“A thief? Thieves are bad, so when Mommy said Dido’s daddy hid money and they stole it, she went at him with the broom again…….”
“Oh, oh, this time it’s a tie! Who can find the most sparkles!”
At my cry, competitive Hui dashed off to search elsewhere.
Well, we’ll settle accounts in heaven, Mother.
I gnashed my teeth inwardly, then looked around.
This was the East Wing, outside my spare bedroom door.
If I opened the door, it would be full of expensive gifts. Fortunately, nothing seemed to be missing.
Finding traces here was bittersweet—but I suppose “as expected” was the right phrase.
At least the bait I’d deliberately set had paid off.
And more than that…….
‘Two of them came and went?’
It was a catch worth celebrating.
I swept my fingers across the carpeted corridor floor.
Two different colors of sparkling powder clung to my fingertips.
It was the pigment I had applied to the fresh flowers of the corsages worn by the dinner guests last night.
It was also a material I’d frequently handled during a side job I once had.
‘I really hated that side job the most…….’
The work had been painting sparkling pigment onto shabby, cheap trinkets to make them look like jewels.
Afterward, the house would gleam faintly for days and days.
No matter how thoroughly I cleaned, the sparkles kept appearing endlessly from somewhere, going past novelty straight into the grotesque.
And now I was going to have to buy and use this irritating stuff myself.
Thinking how life is strange and full of surprises, I brushed the powder from my hands.
Last night’s dinner had been very long.
The aristocratic guests had needed to use the Lounge of the Mansion multiple times.
During all that, as the fresh flowers dried and withered, the various pigments they shed gradually scattered wherever the guests moved, brushing off like dust.
Thanks to that, I could now track their secret movements.
Just then, Dido, who was still crouching down, tugged at my sleeve.
“Mm? What is it?”
“Sparkle-sparkle.”
Had she found another one already?
Dido, who certainly had a sharp eye, pointed somewhere.
I followed the direction of her small finger.
Where was…….
Ah.
It was the hem of a familiar maid’s dress passing by.

* * *

There were more liars around me than I’d thought.
Let me deal with the closest ones first.
How?
“Let’s talk for a moment.”
To fight lies, I would use lies.
When I pointed to the opposite end of the sofa, the short-haired maid sat down with a bewildered expression.
I had just sent my younger siblings away with another maid.
Alone with her in the room, I spoke bluntly.
“I know everything.”
“Eek! How……!”
Her reaction was more dramatic than expected.
I hardened my expression at once.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
Truth was, I knew very little. I was just probing.
Fortunately, the maid shook exactly as I pushed her to shake.
I couldn’t tell if she was naive or simply stupid, given what she’d been up to.
Either way, it worked in my favor.
“I’ll give you a chance. Tell me the truth.”
“Ah, miss…….”
“Why did you betray Ambrose, True?”
At that, True’s eyes nearly bulged from her head as she shot to her feet.
“That’s…… that’s not it! I was just blinded by greed for a moment…… to call it a betrayal of Ambrose, absolutely not! Please believe me!”
“How am I supposed to believe you?”
I already had evidence of her wrongdoing.
True let out a cry, bouncing up and down in exasperation.
“It’s just that there’s no place that gives more pay and time off than here!”
“I see.”
That was rather convincing.
Now that I thought about it, True certainly lived up to her name.
“So if you know everything, then you also know I smuggled kitchen scraps? And drew a drop of ink from the common supply without being noticed? And—oh no—even collected your hair and sold it to a wig merchant……?”
She was greedy, often getting up to petty tricks, but separately, she had fallen under the Curse of Speaking Only Truth.
As I listened to True’s confession pour out unbidden, I drank my cold tea.
‘She certainly knew how to squirrel things away.’
She was industrious, but somehow it all seemed to amount to nothing.
I set down my teacup and asked.
“How much did the wig merchant give you?”
“Eight bells per bundle…….”
“You got cheated. You could have gotten at least thirty bells.”
That’s what I got when I sold.
The color was rare and the texture was good, so the wig merchants coveted it greatly.
As a result, my hair hadn’t gone past my shoulders since I was ten.
The money was steady, so I didn’t mind. Long hair got in the way when I worked anyway.
‘Sometimes I did miss the feeling of Mother brushing my hair though…….’
Then True, still standing, slammed the table.
“That scoundrel, acting all generous about raising the price……!”
“Sit down.”
“Yes ma’am.”
True sat down with a snap.
I looked at her kindly.
“Thank you for being honest with me, at least.”
“Then…… are you forgiving me…….”
“But you’re hiding the biggest thing.”
Hiccup!
I regarded the hiccuping True with some pity.
If you’re going to be greedy, at least have the nerve to back it up.
“Should I just call Philip and Maya?”
If I was giving her this much of a chance, she should confess everything.
Calling the butler and the head maid would mean expulsion from the Mansion.
Of course, only after a thorough investigation of all the circumstances.
And that would be the outcome True was most desperate to avoid, given her satisfaction with this position.
“Please, please, not that……! I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything!”
Finally, True cried out with a tearful expression.
“I do report to Philip, but I never intended to harm Ambrose……!”
“Philip?”
I blinked and cut her off.
“Not Howard?”
“Pardon?”
“You met with Howard yesterday.”
“Ah…… yes. We did happen to run into each other…….”
True mumbled uncertainly.
Yes, that’s what I thought. The evidence was right there.
I looked at the orange sparkle clinging to True’s skirt.
I thought I’d finally caught not only suspicion but also material evidence of the liar’s guilt.
‘Why is Philip suddenly coming into this?’
I opened my mouth with a troubled expression.
“First…… what did you talk about with Howard?”
“He just stopped me as I was passing and told me to pay careful attention to the master’s Heater and Foot warmer during the night, since the weather’s been cold lately.”
“……That’s it?”
“That’s all?”
“He wasn’t telling you to poison the Heater and Foot warmer or anything?”
“What? Goodness, how could you say something so horrible……!”
True, whose ambition far exceeded her courage, was horrified.
Well, Howard was the most likely culprit.
He was lying.
More than that, he was closest to the Duchy of Ambrose.
‘And he was even lurking around my room.’
One of the traces I’d found there was orange—Howard’s.
The maids said of him that ‘he still seems unable to forget the days when he was the young master of the Duchy of Ambrose.’
Most decisively of all.
‘I felt that killing intent yesterday, and it came from Howard.’
Specifically when I’d used that maxim about patience bringing good fortune.
Wasn’t it obvious?
With anger and the covetousness that follows upon seeing something desirable, I’d guessed his scheme: he approached the maid to aim for the position of Next Head of Household, intending to eliminate Ambrose and me…….
I bit my lower lip and asked again.
“What about Philip? Did you meet with him yesterday too?”
True shook her head in resignation and laid out the truth.
“I don’t actually meet with Philip directly. That’s the rule…… I write notes and hide them near the mailbox used by the servants, and somehow he finds them. Phew, actually this is a common secret among us servants…….”
True lowered her voice and whispered.
“Philip is the owner of Snare.”
Snare? Where had I heard that?
I pondered for a moment before it came to me.
“Snare? That gossip sheet?”
“Yes.”
That Snare, the prime example of aristocratic Yellow Journalism?
Philip Ridley?

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————