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Chapter 41
Scarlett sat back down in the chair and clasped Viktor’s hand in both of hers.
“It’s true, Viktor. He’s the one who interrogated me at the Royal Police Headquarters that day. If you ask him, he’ll tell you exactly what happened…”
Her desperate words trailed off little by little.
Viktor stared at her without a flicker of expression, unmoved.
“Am I going to have to send my wife to a convent as well?”
Scarlett recalled the face he had made when he said that before. Even back then, he had looked at her in exactly the same way he was now—like he was utterly sick of a woman gone mad.
That’s right. He never believed me.
Scarlett remembered, and a bitter smile spread on her lips.
They were divorced now, so it wasn’t as if he could lock her away in a convent again, but the same kind of fear crept over her all the same.
Cold, relentlessly rational—he always made Scarlett feel ashamed of her own actions. Even her love-struck self had seemed exaggerated and ridiculous in front of him, as if she were nothing more than a clown.
Am I the crazy one? Am I the only one acting strange this time too?
Scarlett slowly released Viktor’s hand.
Her voice trembled as she spoke.
“Then it really is me… I must be out of my mind.”
Her hand slipped weakly down beneath the table.
“I guess I really am insane.”
She muttered emptily and let out a hollow laugh. Then she stood up.
“Viktor, I’ll be going.”
“Alright.”
He answered, but his voice was heavy with fatigue.
When he said no more, he pulled out a cigarette and lit it. As the red ember glowed and the smoke curled upward, Scarlett felt her vision blur, just as her thoughts had.
After years of being tormented by his mother, he now found himself publicly exposed—before the most famous woman in society, his ex-lover Nina Hunter, and a Royal Police officer digging up his secrets—that he had once been married to a woman who was not in her right mind.
Viktor smoked to keep his anger in check, while Scarlett bowed politely to Nina and Hughgen and then fled the scene in a daze.
She ran so fast from the mansion that she lost a shoe. Only when she stopped to put it back on did she stop running. From then on she walked, dazed, her face vacant.
When she reached the tram station, she sat on a bench and let several trams pass her by. Only when the station master announced that the last tram was arriving did she finally rise to her feet. As she walked toward it, she muttered under her breath:
“I’m the mad one. Not the world.”
She still clung to a shred of faith in herself. It infuriated her that she couldn’t remember the day of the interrogation, and it enraged her that things had come to this.
But looking back now, the only strange one in that whole situation had been her.
She whispered to herself over and over, as if trying to awaken her own dull mind:
“I’m not sane, Scarlett Crimson.”
She thought it was time she accepted that fact.
Scarlett returned to the watch shop with a blank expression. The clerk, Andrei, scolded her the moment she stepped inside.
“Why are you so late picking out the items for the auction? I was debating whether I should go fetch you.”
He seemed to notice her condition mid-sentence, but true to his cold nature, he finished his words anyway.
Scarlett, still looking dazed, asked,
“You haven’t gone home yet?”
“How could I, when you said you’d be right back and didn’t show up? If something happened to you, what would happen to my salary?”
At his words, Scarlett gave a faint smile.
“Sorry. Go on home now. You can come in late tomorrow. I’ll open the shop.”
Exhausted, she sank down in front of the first-floor fireplace. Andrei, who had been about to leave, let out a long sigh and crouched beside her.
“Why?”
Scarlett met his eyes. Seeing a familiar face on her side seemed to calm her, and she gave a faint smile. After taking a deep breath, she grumbled,
“I thought I remembered the interrogation that day. But I didn’t.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. At Dumfeld Mansion today, there was this Royal Police officer named Hughgen Hunter. I suddenly remembered seeing him during my interrogation. So I said so, but he told me he hadn’t even been in the capital back then.”
Andrei frowned, unsure how to respond, then spoke.
“What if he’s lying?”
“Huh?”
“That Royal Police officer, I mean.”
“…You believe me?”
“What are you talking about? Do you think I’d believe a stranger over you?”
Scarlett’s eyes went wide at his incredulous reply.
Her pupils, glowing crimson in the firelight, softened into the warmth of sunlight. Then, unexpectedly, she began to laugh aloud.
Andrei looked appalled.
“What are you laughing at?”
“I don’t know. Just a while ago I thought I was the only crazy one. But hearing you say that—it feels like ice inside me is melting.”
“I don’t like sappy talk like that.”
“I know, I know.”
Scarlett smiled, her face bright like spring sunlight thawing ice.
“Alright. Take tomorrow off. I’ll handle the shop.”
“Paid, right?”
“No, unpaid.”
“Wow, the benefits here are amazing. No thanks. I’ll be in at noon tomorrow—just so you know.”
Scarlett burst out laughing as he stood.
He helped her to her feet, then gathered his things to leave. While he did, she asked,
“Is Isaac already asleep?”
“Oh, he said he’d be staying at the Crimson estate tonight and left.”
“What? Without even telling me…?”
“He said if he told you, you’d stop him.”
“…Well, that’s true.”
She muttered, displeased.
Andrei waved a little with his bag in hand and left the shop. Too tired to climb to the second floor, Scarlett lay down on the sofa on the first floor. But partway through, she grew anxious about Isaac and sat up again.
“Why did he go home… Is it uncomfortable here?”
She muttered to herself.
Isaac had always refused her insistence that he use the bed, choosing instead to sleep on the guest sofa downstairs with only a blanket—because he didn’t want to disturb her late-night work.
The thought that he wasn’t coming back made her uneasy. She got up again, pulled the curtain back to peek outside, and let out a heavy sigh.
With no sleep at all, her head throbbed. She figured it might be best to check on him at the Crimson estate.
It was very late, but with a bicycle she could get there quickly. She had just finished preparing and was about to step out when she found three men in Royal Police uniforms standing at the door.
“What… is it?” she asked warily.
One of them replied,
“You’ll need to come with us. It’s about Count Crimson.”
“Isaac? What about him?”
Her eyes widened in shock.
“The Count is being held at the station for assault and unlawful confinement.”
“What? Isaac did that?”
“He is accused of assaulting his uncle, Evil Crimson. Forgive the language, miss, but… he cut off one of the man’s fingers.”
“W-what? That’s impossible, Isaac would never…”
She was about to say how gentle he was—but then she remembered the time Isaac had beaten his cousin Arnold Crimson bloody. That day, he had been truly violent. If she hadn’t stopped him, Arnold might have been permanently injured.
Scarlett, her face heavy with worry, nodded.
“I understand. Let’s go right away.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She climbed into the carriage the police had brought.
