63. Bloody Honeymoon at the Haunted Hotel (7)
“Are you alright, Teacher?”
Judith asked Katya with startled eyes.
“You said the killer just did something to Teacher…”
“Fortunately, we discovered it before anything serious happened.”
“But you say you found the killer?”
“Everyone must be quite shaken—let’s each take a moment to compose ourselves, change into nightwear, and meet again. Right now it’s…”
Katya glanced at the wall clock in the room.
“9:20, so let’s meet in the hallway in 10 minutes and head up to Room 509.”
She turned toward the door without hesitation after saying those words.
When Nikolai translated her words to Arsetian, Mengano grabbed Katya as if he couldn’t let her go like this.
[Shouldn’t we all stay together when the killer might still be out there?]
“I think the killer needs time to prepare mentally too.”
Katya left that message for the killer and departed.
In truth, though she said that, she also needed time herself.
After stopping by Viscountess Borodin’s room to request a written statement, she returned straight to Room 404.
As soon as she entered, she turned her travel bag upside down and dumped out everything inside.
After rummaging through the items scattered on the floor, Katya stood up holding something.
Following her into the room, Nikolai immediately closed the door and approached his wife from behind holding a towel.
A warm towel gently landed on Katya’s head as she hurriedly packed her findings into her pocket.
“Why are you suddenly packing that?”
Nikolai asked while carefully drying her rain-soaked hair.
Though he had gotten even more drenched than Katya when they rushed to save the Viscountess from the balcony, he didn’t seem to care about his own wet state at all.
He was only worried about his wife who had signs of a cold.
“I hope I’m just being overcautious, but I think we might need it.”
“Did you really figure out who the killer is?”
Absorbed in her deductions while temporarily letting him tend to her hair, Katya suddenly dipped her index finger in the cheese from the table and turned around.
Before he could stop her, her slender finger dabbed and spread the thick cheese on Nikolai’s lower lip.
“What’s this suddenly?”
“Grand Duke.”
“Hm?”
“Lick that.”
Though it was an abrupt command out of nowhere, Nikolai obediently followed her words.
His red tongue swept across his lower lip, filling his mouth with the sour and salty taste of cheese.
Under the light, where his moist tongue had traced gleamed smoothly.
She intently watched the movement of his tongue, but Katya soon shook her head as if that wasn’t what she wanted.
“No, not like that! Roll both upper and lower lips inward and rub between them with your tongue to clean them!”
Katya protested in a dissatisfied tone while applying cheese to his lips again.
Who moistens their dry lips so seductively?
Scolded for being unnecessarily seductive, Nikolai hid his sinful lips as requested and inserted his tongue between them.
The tip of his tongue peeked out slightly as it quickly swept through the gap.
Watching him closely, Katya mimicked his actions exactly like a mirror.
“The stuff on your lips naturally goes into your mouth, right?”
“Yes.”
One mystery was solved.
The killer was indeed that person.
Though the motive for the second murder attempt remained unclear, all clues pointed to that person.
Looking back now, it was chilling how every single action since their first meeting had happened according to plan.
“You told me earlier—that all the rooms on the fifth floor were locked.”
“Yeah, I broke into all of them to search but found no one inside. I didn’t hear anyone sneaking away either.”
Having dealt with countless assassination threats and trained with knights, Nikolai was extremely sensitive to presence.
It was practically impossible for an ordinary person to escape past his vigilance.
Katya nodded, confident in her deduction.
“Then there’s only one person. The method will become clear when I confirm it with my own eyes later, but I think my guess is right.”
“I didn’t know you had a talent for investigation.”
“I’m just imitating what I’ve read in books, that’s all.”
“Your versatility is endlessly charming, but watching you makes me anxious.”
“Why?”
Instead of answering, Nikolai covered her forehead with his large hand.
Despite giving her medicine for fever before dinner, her forehead still felt hot.
“I was planning to put the patient to bed early tonight.”
The doting husband sighed deeply enough to sink the ground.
When he first planned their honeymoon, he never dreamed they’d get caught up in a murder case.
Watching his small and delicate wife who seemed like she might blow away in the wind running around solving cases while sick was torture for him as an observer.
He truly felt heaven wasn’t on his side.
At the appointed time, the five people gathered again in the hallway.
Viscountess Borodin seemed to be gradually recovering from the paralysis—whereas before she had been drooling uncontrollably as if her jaw was dislocated, now her lips were half closed.
As requested earlier, she handed Katya a detailed written statement about the events before and after the attack.
After quickly scanning the statement, Katya looked up with a confident expression.
“Shall we go up now?”
They moved toward the stairs leading to the fifth floor.
Katya approached Judith who was walking last and spoke to her.
“How’s your foot?”
“What?”
“I noticed you were limping in the room.”
“I slipped slightly while running through the rain to get to the dock earlier. I must have twisted it then.”
“Oh dear. Let me support you.”
Despite her protests, Katya insisted on putting Judith’s arm around her shoulder and matched her pace to walk together.
While supposedly being considerate of the patient by watching her swollen ankle, Katya got her own steps tangled and fell forward with a thud.
Thanks to that, Judith, who was being supported, also tumbled to the floor.
“Tia, are you okay?”
Nikolai, who had been leading, immediately turned back and helped Katya up.
Beside the couple, Judith seemed to have lost something in the fall and was feeling around the floor.
“Is this what you’re looking for?”
Katya said while placing her belongings in her hand.
“Thanks for finding it.”
Judith carefully put it in her pocket and finally seemed relieved as she got up with a more relaxed expression.
After going up to the fifth floor, Katya sent Nikolai and the others to Room 509 first while she alone visited Room 508.
Because Nikolai broke down doors while searching the fifth floor earlier, Room 508’s door was wide open.
Katya pulled up the hood of the robe she had worn and went out to the balcony.
As she had expected, there were marks on the balcony railing where a silk thread had been secured.
After quietly organizing her thoughts, Katya entered Room 509 where everyone waited.
The killer in the room stole anxious glances at her, quickly looking away when their eyes met.
“The killer is in this room!”
Katya declared as soon as she entered.
“I’ve always wanted to say that line myself.”
Despite the serious situation, Nikolai had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at her words.
“Let’s first review the second crime—the attempt to murder Viscountess Borodin.”
The Viscountess shuddered, seemingly recalling the recent nightmare, as she wrapped both hands around her stinging neck with its fresh wounds.
“The killer first prepared two silk threads, thickly braided and stiffened with glue embedded with glass shards, and went upstairs. One was dropped like a noose making a circle, and the other had a stone and white cloth tied to its end. After hanging these over the balcony railing of Room 509, they were dropped down to the balcony of Room 409 where the Viscountess was.”
When Katya checked earlier, both balcony railings showed marks where the silk threads had scraped past.
The marks ran diagonally, pointing to where the killer had stood.
The killer wasn’t in Room 509 directly above, but in Room 508 diagonally above where they could maintain visibility.
From there, the killer waited for prey to fall into the trap while pulling on the silk threads connected in two layers between the balcony railings.
When pulling the thread with the stone, it swung like a pendulum around its center of gravity and knocked on the window.
Startled by the knocking sound, the Viscountess mistook the white cloth for a demon through the window fogged due to the temperature difference and rain.
While most people would run away upon seeing a demon, the killer knew the Viscountess would come out to verify it.
The moment she opened the window, they cut the thread with a knife and the cloth pretending to be a ghost disappeared into the river with the weight of the stone.
“The Viscountess, unaware of anything, stuck her head out looking for the vanished ghost. As soon as she put her head through the large circle, the killer watching from the side immediately pulled the thread taut to tighten the knot.”
The shrinking circle dug into the prey’s throat trying to cut off their breath.
But two variables the killer hadn’t anticipated arose.
Though they had deliberately paralyzed the Viscountess’s mouth and tongue with poison to prevent her from screaming, Mengano, who they thought would be sleeping, appeared in the hallway and called Katya and Nikolai out.
Finding hope in their voices, Viscountess Borodin kicked the window with all her might, and Nikolai entered the room and swung his sword.
The killer had to retreat quickly when the silk thread was cut before they could complete the murder.
Hearing Nikolai kick down the door and run out, the killer sensed he would come upstairs and looked for an escape route.
“When my husband went up to the fifth floor, he said both rooms 508 and 509 were locked. How could the killer have locked the doors while escaping in such an urgent situation?”
In other words, the killer never left in the first place.
