Chapter 87
After a short while, they arrived in front of the office on the highest floor of the Royal Police Headquarters. Regardless of rank, the location of this office symbolized the immense power its owner wielded within the Royal Police.
Soon, the door opened, and Hughen Hantor stood up with a smile.
“Sir Victor. What brings you all the way here?”
“Scarlett told me you interrogated her.”
“You know I was accompanying His Highness Crown Prince Yuli Iren on his tour, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
Victor continued,
“But it doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?”
“Even if you weren’t the one who interrogated her, my ex-wife said you did. That’s enough for me.”
“Sir Victor, what are you talking about…?”
Larry, who had followed them in and was trembling, finally understood Victor’s earlier remark about the Royal Police Headquarters disappearing. When he looked out the window, he saw the navy surrounding the building, some already entering inside.
Hughen Hantor spoke.
“This is treason. You know, don’t you? The Royal Police are under His Majesty’s direct control.”
Victor clasped his hands behind his back and glanced out the window.
“If you cooperate, it won’t have to go that far.”
“Sir Victor!”
“If you’re truly loyal to the Crown, then let’s end this as just between you and me.”
At his words and gaze, Hughen Hantor realized that negotiating with Victor Dummfelt was no longer possible. Victor wasn’t looking for a reasonable explanation. He just wanted to push through what he’d already decided.
Hughen sighed, picked up his jacket, and said,
“Let’s go to the consulate.”
Victor, looking satisfied, jerked his chin toward the door to tell him to go ahead. Hughen put on his jacket and stepped out of the office.
By now the navy had occupied even the corridor outside. Hughen glanced at the sailors with a dumbfounded expression.
The sailors already knew, at least to some extent, that the Royal Police had broken Victor Dummfelt’s marriage through relentless questioning. And when Evan Wright exposed that it was the Royal Police who had revealed her face to the capital’s newspapers, their rage only deepened.
“That bastard!”
One fiery sailor tried to rush at Hughen, but his comrades hurriedly restrained him.
Hughen took a deep breath. These sailors had shared life and death on the sea with Victor Dummfelt. They didn’t see him merely as their ship’s captain but as a comrade. That’s why their fury burned so intensely.
The fleet centered around the Lubid normally had six ships, but in wartime it effectively commanded the entire navy. Officially, command of the navy belonged to Adam Iren, but he likely had no real knowledge of how to run it.
And even if he did, it was highly questionable whether the other naval officers would obey Adam Iren’s orders over Victor Dummfelt’s—who had spent most of his life at sea. Dealing with Victor Dummfelt had ceased being an option for the royal family. It had become a necessity.
Hughen signaled his subordinates with his eyes, then followed the navy out of the Royal Police Headquarters.
Victor’s occupation of the Royal Police Headquarters was sure to be welcome news for Crown Prince Yuli Iren. Yuli, who was constantly looking for a chance to cut Victor down, would not ignore this glaring moral flaw.
Victor sat across from Hughen Hantor in the reception room of the naval consulate and began his interrogation.
“Then let’s start our conversation.”
A conversation? This was kidnapping.
Hughen thought so but opened his mouth anyway.
“Ask me anything.”
“My wife said it was you who interrogated her.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“I’m curious why my wife would say such a thing. Of course, it also bothers me that she visited the Royal Police twice and both times came back with memory problems.”
Hughen froze at that, then replied smoothly,
“Once, maybe—but twice?”
“When Isaac Crimson went to the police station, Scarlett was there too.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
Hughen spoke calmly.
A butler poured tea into both their cups. In the meantime, Victor took a drag from his cigarette and then dropped it into his teacup. With a hiss, smoke rose into the cold air.
“I’m not going to drink it, but you should.”
Hughen hesitated at his words.
Victor took out another cigarette.
“It’s good tea. Hard to get.”
“Hm.”
“What? To a family like the Hantors, does even this seem cheap?”
Hughen stared at the beautifully maple-colored teacup, his mind racing about whether he should drink it.
Victor knew pirates better than anyone in Salantie. If he wanted, he could easily get drugs from them that erased memories.
In the end, Hughen couldn’t bring himself to drink and said,
“No thank you. The tea’s fine.”
“Oh?”
Victor leaned back in his chair, tilting his head as he asked,
“Afraid I spiked it?”
“…”
“Drink. Before I make you.”
Hughen’s arm trembled at Victor’s words. He overturned the teacup and stood up.
“You think I’ll give in to this kind of threat, Sir Victor?”
“And you thought you could mess with my wife and just walk away?”
“The Royal Police did nothing of the sort.”
“If that’s true, then you have no reason not to drink.”
“…His Highness Yuli Iren will not stand by. Once the Crown Prince intervenes, your actions will be nothing less than treason.”
“Feeling confident, hiding behind Yuli.”
“Yes. Of course. He’s the Crown Prince. Compared to him, you haven’t even been recognized as a royal yet. The gap between you two is so vast it’s almost laughable to call it a gap.”
“Perhaps. Is that why my lover, after coming from the sea, went to Yuli?”
“Yes. My sister’s a clever girl.”
“I see.”
Victor replied, rising slowly and removing his gloves.
As his smooth, beautiful hands were revealed, Hughen’s professional instinct as a policeman kicked in and he scrutinized them. That’s when he noticed Victor was still wearing his wedding ring.
Wedding ring?
Even the spy Andrei, whom they’d planted among Victor’s inner circle, had probably never seen Victor’s bare hands. No one would have guessed that even after his divorce he still wore his wedding ring.
Victor picked up his own teacup, the one with the cigarette stubbed out in it.
“Yours is spilled already. Pity.”
“Sir, Sir!”
Hughen shouted, but Victor already had him by the jaw, tilting his head back and pouring the tea between his fingers.
Hughen struggled but couldn’t break free of his iron grip. Ironically, as he looked up at Victor, he found himself thinking how terrifyingly beautiful the man was.
So this is what it means to be bewitched by a demon, he thought. He could almost understand why his sister, who loved Victor Dummfelt, had wept, saying she’d throw herself into the sea with him every time he left.
Victor spoke softly.
“Good boy. Swallow.”
“Ugh!”
“Swallow.”
The tea and cigarette went down Hughen’s throat.
Victor looked at him with indifferent eyes.
“No drug. I’m not interested in putting that much effort into killing you.”
“…”
“When your master comes, I’ll let you go. Stay put until then.”
He said this, wiped his tea-wet hand with a handkerchief, put his gloves back on, and left the reception room.
Once Victor was gone, Hughen clutched his throat with trembling hands, gasping in terror.
He couldn’t believe what had just happened. All his reports had said Victor was the very model of a rational man.
“So like mother, like son…”
Just as Marina Dummfelt had been unhinged, Victor Dummfelt’s mind too seemed no longer whole. He looked like a man who had lost his reason to an emotion far beyond mere rage.
Shortly after he left, the door to the reception room opened. Hughen stood up, thinking Yuli Iren had already arrived—then his face turned white.
At the door stood a familiar face, but with an unfamiliar aura.
Shirley Holm.
He had said Scarlett Crimson was an easy target, but that had only been in the context of Victor Dummfelt’s circle.
Before him now was Shirley Holm, who literally had nothing. No family, no friends, no lover, not even a community that cared enough to notice her.
The drug they’d given Shirley had been a near-lethal dose. Unlike Scarlett Crimson, who couldn’t regain her senses for a long time from a much smaller amount, Shirley’s strong body showed no ill effects despite the heavy dosage.
Shirley rolled her dark round eyes as she looked inside. Hughen felt a chill of fear under that gaze.
Then Shirley hopped toward him like a rabbit.
“What is this?”
Hughen asked. Shirley pulled out the knife she’d hidden behind her back.
“Was it you?”
“Watch your tone. A woman like you has no right to—”
“Was it you? The one who did this to me?”
Shirley’s knife pressed against his jaw and Hughen screamed.
“Sir! Sir Victor! Sir!”
When Hughen shouted, Shirley turned irritably.
She spat curses and continued,
“You know how I live? Do you know what it’s like to remember everything? You need to go through the same thing. Just wait. I’ll scrape together every penny to buy that drug and make you take it. You’ll know what it’s like to want to die because you remember everything. You need to know!”
A moment later, sailors rushed in and pulled Shirley away.
“Shirley! Calm down!”
“Let me go, you navy bastards!”
“Okay, okay, just calm down! God, why are you so strong?!”
They tried to drag Shirley out, but she kept turning back to glare at Hughen.
“I’m sure it was him! He gave me the drug! He made me like this!”
Shirley screamed as she struggled, then at last let herself be dragged out by the sailors.
Hughen’s face remained ashen, as though someone were still choking him. Reality had finally arrived for the man who had lived under the protection of the Hantor family and the royal house.
