I Start with a Bad Hand!

The room, now filled with a chill in the absence of people, looked much the same as it had when I left for the academy.

‘Along the walls…’

I ran my hands over every reachable surface, flipping over the few decorations and frames, but nothing suspicious caught my eye. I searched thoroughly, even checking the floor in case something was hidden there.

Starting from Dietrich’s bedroom, I moved through the living room, study, guest room, kitchen, bathroom, and the small greenhouse. At first, my pace was steady, but as my anxiety grew, I began to rush.

Heylem’s house was growing darker as the short day waned. Despite my thorough search, nothing seemed worth ‘taking apart.’ Frustrated, I ran my hand roughly through my hair.

‘Is it not here yet? Did I miss something? No, it might not be on the wall.’

Should I start over again and look carefully from the beginning? As I considered this and prepared to descend the stairs again, I realized there was one place I hadn’t checked. The master bedroom of the Baron and Baroness Degoph remained untouched.

‘How did I miss that?’

Entering someone else’s parents’ bedroom was unthinkable by my standards, so it naturally slipped my mind. But given the current situation, I couldn’t afford to let etiquette stop me.

Reluctantly, I moved towards the room. The moment I entered the master bedroom, I knew instinctively what Dietrich had torn from the wall, what the Baron and Baroness Degoph had requested to be buried with them in the underground tomb.

It was Dietrich. A large framed portrait of Dietrich.

The painting, hanging in the Degoph’s bedroom, depicted Dietrich with piercing blue eyes and a radiant smile, wearing a splendid blue dress I had never seen before. The brilliance of the blue rendered me speechless.

An inexplicable chill ran down my spine. I reached for the gloves I had prepared, but with sweaty hands, they stuck and wouldn’t go on easily. Trying to distract myself with other thoughts, I finally managed to pull them on.

‘It never hurts to be cautious.’

Though there was no real need for such precaution, the blue dress gave off an eerie, unsettling vibe.

‘I’m really curious. Is this painting truly related to the Degophs? I want to request a full analysis. What if it’s cursed or enchanted?’

Every time, I felt I needed a forensic lab more than a magic tower or temple. Someone really needs to bring forensic science into this world. I needed the help of science, something I could understand, rather than relying on unexplained magic or divine power.

‘If a paternity test had been possible from the start, Dietrich wouldn’t have ended up in the Ducal House, and none of this trouble would have occurred…’

I reminisced about modern science, which I missed almost as much as my parents, as I fumbled with the picture frame with my tightly fitted gloves. The frame was larger than I expected, making it difficult to pry it off the wall like Dietrich had. I went over the book’s contents again.

Me: What is this? (Tearing it down.)

Sarah Hanson: Miss! Please don’t do this.

August Hill: Calm down. Please calm down, Miss! They requested this be placed in the underground tomb when they passed away…

Me: Haha. So it was you.

‘Who is the “you” Dietrich mentioned?’ 

The painting depicted Dietrich. Was she referring to herself? Could that have been an expression of self-loathing? Suddenly, I looked at the painting with a new thought.

‘Could it be…?’

I rummaged through my bag and pulled out a paper knife. As I pried at “it” with the paper knife, I could only repeat the words Dietrich had spoken.

“What the hell… what is this?”

The Degoph couple had left a will asking for this painting to be placed in the underground tomb. Their will reflected their love for Dietrich and their ignorance of proper painting preservation. Although I wasn’t an expert on paintings either, I knew enough to realize that storing a painting in an underground tomb was unthinkable.

Heylem’s estate was a mountainous region with humid summers and cold, dry winters. It was natural that the thick paint on the painting, hung in the Degophs’ mansion without proper preservation knowledge, would start to crack.

‘Dietrich discovered the painting a year from now, so the cracking would have been worse.’

As I forcibly peeled off the oil paint, white hair was revealed underneath. With trembling hands, I scraped off the area below Dietrich’s eyes, revealing a light blue tint beneath the dark navy eyes.

I paused, gripping the knife tightly. There was no need to peel off more. It was clear who was painted underneath.

“Miss…?”

“Aah!”

Startled by the sudden voice, I turned around, clutching my thudding heart. The butler stood there, equally shocked, clutching his chest.

“Why are you… that painting…?”

Now I had to come up with an explanation for why I had suddenly appeared at the Baron’s castle in the middle of the semester, with all the lights off, tearing apart the portrait of Dietrich that the Baron and Baroness Degoph had carefully hung.

‘Quickly, think of something.’

“The… the…”

“Pardon? Miss, what are you saying…?”

“Ah… what do I dooooo—!”

I now shouted while taking deep breaths, and the butler clutched his chest even tighter.

“No, I thought there was something on the painting, so I just touched it lightly! I didn’t think it would tear like this… I really…!”

“Please calm down, Miss.”

As I started pulling my hair in frustration, the butler hurried over to calm me down.

“What do I tell Mother and Father?”

Seeing my nervous glance, the butler patted my shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it, Miss. It’s just a portrait.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Nothing is more important than you.”

He calmed me down and led me out. After asking Sarah for some warm tea, he sat me on Dietrich’s bed. While he warmed the room, I asked a question that had been on my mind.

“August, do you know who brought that painting? I hadn’t seen it before.”

“Yes, your friend from the academy brought it.”

“Oh… my friend from the academy…”

Was it a girl? Do you remember the name? I asked as casually as possible.

“No, it was a gentleman. I don’t recall his name. He only spoke with the Baron and Baroness.”

“Do you remember what he looked like?”

“It was raining heavily, and he wore a robe, but… he had blonde hair.”

The butler thought for a moment.

“And red eyes.”

Someone skilled in painting, attending the academy, with blonde hair and red eyes… One person came to mind.

Icarus.

But I couldn’t suspect him.

Because… because…

‘Icarus is terrible at painting.’

People with true skill can fake being bad, but not to that extent. Just as talent is hard to hide, so is genuine ineptitude. If Icarus were that skilled, it would’ve been obvious. But Icarus was undeniably awful at it.

He had the ability to distort the features of a person in the process of translating them from a three-dimensional reality to a two-dimensional image. More importantly, there were subtle details that clearly indicated it wasn’t his work. Although I am not an expert, as someone who had forced herself to find praise in his paintings multiple times, I could see the minute differences. These differences made me certain that this was not painted by Icarus.

The painting depicted Dietrich looking to the right. That was the biggest problem.

‘Icarus can’t draw in that perspective.’

Although I never mentioned it, every person in Icarus’s paintings always looked to the left. This was a typical trait of a right-handed person.

So, if the painting depicted someone looking to the right, it was highly likely the artist was left-handed.

‘Then who could it be? The person who sent this?’

Of course, the painter and the person who delivered it could be different. But would someone who meticulously planned to kill this way have an accomplice? His meticulous nature suggested he wouldn’t. Moreover, it seemed unlikely that more than one person was involved, given the subtle imperfections.

‘And blonde hair with red eyes is too obvious a giveaway.’

I stashed the now-tattered, suspicious portrait of Dietrich in the basement. I left the explanation to the Degoph couple to the butler. I declined Sarah’s offer to stay for dinner, saying I would return soon, and left the Baron’s estate.

‘Are you doing well?’

In the inner pocket of my coat, wrapped in several layers of handkerchiefs, was a piece of paint. I fiddled with the brittle fragment, feeling its texture like it was a lifeline.

***

The basics of investigation involve legwork. Probably.

‘I prefer CSI-style investigations, but whatever.’

With the paint fragment secured, I needed to find out whatever information I could. The suspect was likely a boy around my age. He impersonated my friend and observed me closely enough to paint my portrait, which suggested he was probably an academy student. He had enough talent to create a large painting and knew about my connection with Icarus.

‘So he must have disguised himself to look like Icarus.’

There was still the possibility that the painter and the messenger were different people. But the meticulous nature of his actions, while impressive, did not seem like the work of a team.

‘If Baron Degoph sent a single letter, I could know everything immediately. Yet, here I am, puzzled over a suspicious gift from an unknown sender.’

This anonymous individual must think that the relationship between me and Baron Degoph is distant. Thus, my close friends were out of the question. Both Irene and Agatha knew I regularly exchanged letters and gifts with the Degophs.

Would anyone who was aware of that really send such a large and conspicuous gift, prompting suspicion?

‘Someone who knows Dietrich but isn’t that close to her, harboring this level of malice?’