He stepped outside for a breath, letting the door fall shut behind him with a muted click. For a brief moment, the silence offered a sliver of peace. Until a voice, sharp and impatient, cut through it from behind.
"How much more should I wait?!"
Arthur turned slowly, only to see Ralph.
His posture was taut, fists clenched at his sides, and his eyes, usually guarded, now blazed with frustration barely held in check.
"You said you'd find my brother, so why aren't you doing anything?!! How much more do you wish to test my patience?!"
Arthur studied him in silence for a heartbeat. Then he stepped forward, each footfall soft yet deliberate on the smooth stone. The air between them felt brittle.
"You seem to be mistaken about something, Ralph. It's you who needs my help. Not the other way around."
He stopped in front of him, close enough that Ralph had to tilt his chin up slightly to meet his gaze.
"I don't need you. I could replace you with someone else, and it wouldn't matter in the slightest. So I suggest you think very carefully about how you choose to behave in front of me."
Arthur let the words settle into his bones before it became a problem.
"Don't push your luck, Ralph. And don't forget your place. Act like the loyal dog you were meant to be."
He lifted a hand and placed it on his shoulder. A calculated gesture, neither comfort nor camaraderie, but a subtle reminder of the power that rested between them.
"Don't pretend to be brave in front of me. It reeks more of arrogance than courage."
He noticed the twitch in Ralph's jaw, the storm behind his eyes.
"And as you mentioned before that I was no different from the other nobles, you're right. And nobles don't tolerate untamed dogs."
The words lingered like a blade at Ralph's throat before Arthur stepped back.
"Don't forget, I'm your master now. Disappoint me again, and I won't be so forgiving the second time."
With that, he turned and walked away, leaving Ralph rooted in the corridor with his pride crushed beneath the weight of truth.
Moments later, He reached his office, pushing the door open to find the butler already waiting inside, poised and silent as always.
"Robert, since when has Eloise not come to work?"
The butler, ever composed, offered a small bow.
"Since yesterday, young master. We received a message stating that she has decided to quit."
Arthur froze for a fraction of a second, his breath caught between disbelief and instinctive suspicion.
"Did she send anything else?"
"Yes. A letter. I placed it on your desk."
His fingers twitched slightly, betraying the ripple of unrest threading through his thoughts.
"I see. Robert, take these documents to my room. It seems I'll have to work all night."
"Understood, young master."
Robert's footsteps echoed softly as he departed, but Arthur remained where he stood, a prickle of dissonance lingering in the quiet.
'She left without a word. Why would she? With no warning, no confrontation, no final conversation?'
It didn't align with the woman he knew. She was firm, thorough, steady even under pressure. This wasn't like her. Something about it rang false.
Arthur turned toward the desk, his gaze immediately drawn to the letter resting atop its surface. It was placed with care, too much care. As if it had been meant to look ordinary.
He picked it up slowly, his fingers grazing the parchment. The seal cracked with a soft snap, and he unfolded it with deliberate precision.
The ink was still fresh. The strokes neat, but not without their flaws. He read the letter silently.
[Greetings, Sir,
It's Eloise Whitmore. I am writing this letter to inform you that I will no longer be able to continue my work as your aide due to personal reasons. I hope you will understand. Thank you for everything, Sir.]
Arthur read it once. Then again.
It was her handwriting without a doubt. The loops and slants matched the memory etched in his mind from countless reports she had written. But the phrasing, it lacked her rhythm. The tone was too hollow, the sentences too vague. And one thing stood out like a knife's edge.
She had addressed him as Sir. Not as Young Master, like she always did. Never once had she used the former. It was not a mistake, it was a signal. A clue she had deliberately left behind.
The letter had been written under duress.
Arthur lowered the parchment in his hand, the weight of it suddenly heavier.
"Alfred!"
The shadow appeared as if summoned, silent and composed.
"Yes, young master?"
"Did you find out what happened to Eloise?"
Alfred hesitated, not out of fear, but calculation.
"I couldn't enter her room. But I did overhear the shouting voice of a man. And then the sound of things being broken. It was glass, perhaps. Or furniture. I don't know for sure."
Arthur's grip on the letter tightened, the soft parchment crumpling slightly beneath his fingers. The quiet hum of fury stirred just beneath the surface of his skin.
"I see."
There was a moment of silence. Then He turned to Alfred again, his voice calm but weighted.
"And the ledger?"
Without hesitation, Alfred stepped forward and handed it to him. The worn leather binding was cool beneath his fingers, its weight substantial, as if it carried not just ink and parchment, but the burden of countless secrets.
He flipped it open, thumbing through the pages with measured ease, though each word that passed beneath his gaze felt like another nail hammered into a coffin someone had hoped would remain sealed.
Bribery. Blackmail. Illicit dealings.
It was a ledgar that contained all sorts of bad deeds hidden beneath layers of carefully constructed facades.
Every entry chronicled not only the sin but the price paid for silence. Hidden affairs swept beneath the rug of nobility, illegitimate heirs concealed from public record, scandals that could crack the foundations of powerful families. This wasn't a simple ledger, it was a gallery of sins. A library of leverage.
A soft chuckle escaped him, dry and hollow.
'He was quite a fool, wasn't he? He kept it near him at all times, in his study, no less. The place where he spent most of his hours.'
The man had spun his web too wide, cast his net too far. Secrets like these were never meant to be hoarded. Eventually, one of the trapped insects grows fangs. And when they do, they bite back.
This wasn't some random twist of fate. Someone listed here had orchestrated his death. Arthur would wager his name on it.
And now that the ledger rested in his hands, they would come for him too.
It was no longer a question of if, but when.
He closed the book halfway and looked at Alfred.
"Was anything delivered to him on the day he died?"
Alfred furrowed his brow, briefly lost in recollection.
"Now that I recall… yes. The man watching over him reported he received a bouquet of flowers."
Arthur raised a brow.
"A bouquet? Was he engaged to someone? Or perhaps in the midst of courting?"
"Not that we are aware of."
His fingers drummed lightly against the cover of the ledger.
"Did our men identify the flowers?"
"There were three different types of flowers, they said. But they couldn't name them."
'Three types of flowers for a man like him? No... that was no romantic gesture. It was probably a code.'
"And his cause of death?"
"They ruled it as a suicide."
"A suicide?"
"Yes. He slit his wrist."
Arthur narrowed his eyes.
"With what?"
"A dinner knife. He had dismissed the servants before his meal. When they returned, he was found in his office, the knife still in his hand and bloodied."
Arthur leaned back slightly, exhaling. His gaze drifted toward the window as the details unraveled in his mind like threads pulled from a loose seam.
"Which wrist?"
"The right one, obviously, since he was left-handed."
The silence descended again, sharp and charged. Then, a quiet hum escaped him.
'Hmm... On that particular day he happened to receive a bouquet of three different flowers and decided to have a meal alone, with no servants present. Then, suddenly, he used the dinner knife to slit his wrist.'
It was all too carefully arranged. It was staged.
'It was done by someone else. Because if he had done it himself, there would have been marks of hesitation. And surely he wouldn't have been able to hold the knife himself. He couldn't have held it firmly enough to avoid dropping it on the floor, even as he withered in pain.'
Arthur turned his gaze back to Alfred, his voice low and certain.
"It was probably his aide."
Alfred blinked, caught off guard.
"Pardon?"
"The bouquet wasn't a gift. It was a message, a confirmation that the job would be done that day. A mark of death."
His eyes narrowed as the logic fell into place like iron cogs clicking into alignment.
"The flowers must have contained a toxin, one that dulled the mind, slowed the breath, perhaps even suffocated him. His aide must have placed them near his desk. By the time he sat down to dine, he collapsed."
He paused, letting the image solidify.
"That's when the aide acted. With the servants dismissed, they entered. Took the knife. Slit his wrist. And staged the scene to look like suicide."
Arthur's voice sharpened, a note of cold amusement threading through.
"But it seems they were new hires, because they made a mistake. He was indeed left-handed. However, while he wrote with his left, he ate with his right, an old habit born of an injury to his left hand in childhood."
His gaze flicked back to the ledger.
"If he had truly cut himself, it would have been his left wrist, not the other way around, since he would have used his dominant hand to wield the knife out of habit. And yet, the wound was on that very same right wrist."
A small, telling detail. One the killer hadn't known.
The only reason Arthur did... was because the author of the novel had mentioned it in a passing line.
Alfred's eyes widened, realization dawning.
"Find the aide. He'll be trying to hide, buying time to slip out of the country. Don't let him."
Alfred bowed deeply.
"At once, young master."
As he slipped away into the hall, swallowed by shadow and silence, Arthur returned his attention to the ledger. He closed it slowly, the worn edges pressing against his palm like a vow.
One name in here had sealed that man's fate.
And Arthur wondered, as he stared at the curling handwriting inked in secrets and blood.
Whose name would be next?