The Crown Prince Who Raises Alt Characters

#Chapter 163 Suspect Isaac (7) - False Accusation? A dark night. A carriage moving through a deserted street stopped in the outskirts where there was not a soul to be seen. As the carriage door opened and a man stepped down, the coachman said in a low voice. "...I don't need to say this, but please watch your mouth. If you wag your tongue carelessly, we won't be able to stay quiet either." At the cold warning, the man waved his hand irritably. "I get it, so just go." The coachman, who had pulled his raincoat down deep to hide his face, turned the carriage around and left without any farewell. The man left alone took out a cigar and lighter from his jacket and lit it. After a deep inhale, a sigh leaked out with his exhale. "Damn it. That was expensive." It was not long ago that he had been caught by some crazy bastards and arrested by the police. As a result of struggling in various ways to somehow get himself out, the man had to spend a lot of his wealth on bribes. And that wasn't all. On paper, the man was recorded as being imprisoned in a detention center, so naturally he couldn't use his real name when conducting business. It might be possible to meet secretly with existing business partners behind the scenes, but that would be tantamount to revealing his weakness to them, so it wasn't something to consider lightly. With such tremendous losses on all sides, the man gritted his teeth. "Damn it, I just put some brats who would've starved to death anyway to use, so why is everyone making such a fuss." He grumbled for a while about how there were too many hypocrites in the government and among detectives. Another carriage came and stopped in front of him. The man complained indignantly. "Why the hell are you so late! I'm already in a foul mood and you can't even do your job properly?!" The newly appeared coachman didn't answer. He simply kicked the man's stomach without a word. The man rolled on the ground, unable even to scream. The coachman, who stomped on the man's hand, took out a pipe from his jacket and brought it to his mouth. Thick smoke spread widely into the sky. *** "Haaaam...." Isadora yawned while sitting in her office chair. Isaac set down a coffee cup in front of her and said. "Still, this is a workplace, aren't you being too lax?" "I'm weak in the mornings. And anyway, I'm the boss, so isn't it my freedom whether I laze around or not?" Even while grumbling complaints, Isadora quickly took the coffee Isaac had offered. Isadora sipped the thick coffee that would make most people's hearts race just from a light taste, as if it were some elixir of life. Isaac also casually sat in a corner of the office and enjoyed his own drink and reading. The key point was that while he made coffee for Isadora, he himself was drinking tea. After the illegal child labor case ended, their daily routine was mostly like this. Isadora would appear at the office in the morning looking like some kind of zombie, and Isaac would serve her his special concentrated coffee. A life that was beyond peaceful, almost pastoral. Isaac, having been heavily influenced by his original form, had a tendency to enjoy leisure in his own way, but Isadora, the actual owner of the detective office, seemed quite dissatisfied with this situation. "Sigh, won't some case happen somewhere?" "If I let it pass, it sounds like a simple complaint, but thinking coldly about it, you're making quite a trashy statement, Detective." "But assistant, think about it. At this rate, we'll all starve to death, won't we?" "There were plenty of requests. Investigating suspicious husbands for adultery, searching for lost cats, investigating the private lives of famous opera actors. You simply refused them all, Detective." "I can't waste my precious deductive abilities and labor on such things. A true detective should elegantly solve cases that face difficulties." "You're saying you want others to prepare all the troublesome and difficult parts so you can just glance over and give advice from the side. Honestly, you have no right to object to the police hating you, Detective." "It's the assistant's turn to step up. Take the criticism instead." "How could a mere assistant commit the arrogance of representing the office? You must firmly hold your position, Detective." After exchanging trivial chatter for quite some time. Isaac suddenly spoke as if something had just occurred to him. "Come to think of it, I wonder what happened to that mine owner." Isadora answered in an extremely nonchalant tone, as if talking about today's weather. "By now he's probably being transferred to the prison in the capital, or maybe he's already arrived and is experiencing the initiation ritual." "I see." Isaac didn't ask any further questions, and Isadora didn't say anything more either. That was when it happened. Ding-a-ling. At the cheerful ringing of the bell, both their gazes turned toward the door. Originally the office structure had the first floor door wide open with visitors knocking on the second floor door to enter, but currently, following Isaac's idea, they had closed the first floor door and even hung a bell. Since the only outsiders with business coming to this building would be those looking for the second floor office anyway, the intention was to immediately know when a customer arrived. Isadora quickly straightened her disheveled detective attire and put a pipe in her mouth, while Isaac quietly put away the book he had been reading and his teacup. "Ahem." The person who eventually entered the office was a man who appeared to be in his mid-twenties. He looked simple-hearted yet stubborn, overall resembling a large bull. The man looked around the office, then turned his gaze to Isadora and Isaac respectively. Isadora struck an arrogant pose, while Isaac wore an inscrutable smile. The man bowed his head toward Isaac. "Good day, Detective. My name is Maxime, and I live at Went Street 8. I've come to ask for your help for my lover who has been wrongly accused." A brief silence fell, and Isadora and Isaac's gazes met. A victor's smile appeared at the corners of Isaac's mouth, and in contrast, Isadora's face crumpled. "I see. I will sincerely respond to your consultation, Mr. Maxime. However, I'm not the detective but the assistant, Isaac. The detective of this office is Isadora Delacroix over there." Maxime was visibly flustered, then immediately bowed toward Isadora. "Oh my, I'm sorry. I made such a big mistake without knowing anything...!!" "You don't need to worry about it. It's just a minor misunderstanding." Isadora's lips trembled, but she feigned composure. She instinctively knew that showing anger or displeasure here would be a real defeat. She briefly plotted to change to higher boot heels, wondering if her damn height was the problem. As Maxime's story continued, Isadora's face gradually became more serious. The root of the problem was a murder case that occurred recently. The victim was Eduard Morel, a middle-aged newspaper journalist. The cause of death was excessive bleeding from being stabbed in the side with a kitchen knife. The police identified Cloe, an employee at a tavern that Eduard frequently visited, as the suspect, and based on her lack of an alibi at the time and the fact that the wounds left on the victim's body matched the type of kitchen knife used at the tavern, they confirmed Cloe as the perpetrator. "It's an absurd speculation. Why would Cloe kill that journalist or whatever he was?" "Hmm. What did the police say about the motive?" "They said it was either for money or revenge for the journalist's usual misconduct at the tavern." "And you don't think that's the case?" "Of course! Cloe isn't vicious enough to kill someone for such reasons! She's such a simple-hearted and kind person!" "Yes, yes, please calm down." "Ah, um. I'm sorry." Maxime, who had been snorting indignantly, looked around awkwardly with his mouth shut, while Isadora folded her arms and fell into thought. To be honest, it was quite a difficult request. Particularly painful was the fact that the police had already treated the case as solved and closed it. Unless there was fairly decisive evidence, the police wouldn't overturn their verdict even for the sake of their dignity. However, Isadora didn't try to back out. Isaac watching with interest to see what choice she would make was annoying, and more than anything, she herself had something she wanted to verify once. "Very well. Let's accept the request. Of course, if we can agree on the fee." "Thank you, thank you...!" *** "Let's split up for a while." Isadora suggested. "I'll go to the police station to check the evidence the police have secured and meet the suspect. Assistant, please check the crime scene and the suspect's home." Saying that, Isadora handed Isaac a key. It was the key to Cloe's house that she had received from Maxime. Isaac, who took the key, asked Isadora. "But even if you go to the police station, will you be able to investigate properly? Last time I saw, you seemed to have quite a bad relationship with the field officers." "Whatever the lower ranks think, the highest-ranking person sitting in a chair there is my fan, so it's fine. I've been feeding him all his achievements." "I understand. Good luck." "You too." The two who parted ways soon proceeded with their investigation work as if competing. Since they were among the most competent, the process was extremely swift. And exactly half a day later. When the two reunited and met each other's eyes, they realized they both harbored the same thoughts. "This seems like..." "...not a false charge, I think?"