Lisa Loses Her Temper
Lisa had never intended to stumble into any of this. She'd merely caught sight of Lavender Villa's name in the head librarian's notes by chance, and—remembering it was where Noelle worked—decided on a whim to drop by. And now, of all things, this was what she'd walked in on.
Noelle watched the butler slowly emerge from beside the door and step into the room, her brow furrowing in confusion. "Miss Lisa, why did you say Mr. Kabuto is selfish? And..." She turned her gaze toward the butler. "Mr. Kabuto, why were you hiding by the door?"
Renzo Kabuto kept his head lowered, fists clenched, trembling without a word.
"Heh. Allow me to explain, then—it's because, you see, this Mr. Kabuto here has known the truth of his young mistress's suicide from the very beginning." Lisa folded her arms across her chest and smiled at Renzo Kabuto as she said it.
"Is that true?" Noelle stared at the butler, scarcely able to believe it. "Then why wouldn't Mr. Kabuto tell anyone the truth?"
"Because I couldn't say it! For the sake of protecting my lady's honor, there was no way—no way at all—that I could speak of her suicide." Faced with Noelle's indignant, questioning eyes, Renzo Kabuto finally broke.
The matter had weighed on him this whole time, guilt and remorse gnawing at him day after day. And though he still feared for his lady's reputation, now that he knew the truth could no longer be buried, he had no choice but to give voice to it.
"Then why didn't you speak up when Miss Kana was being blamed for it?" Noelle still couldn't quite understand. When the police had closed the case as a suicide, keeping quiet to protect his lady's honor was one thing—but when Miss Kana was actually charged with murder, why say nothing then?
"I only—I only thought that once the police finished their investigation, they would clear her name. I never imagined..." Renzo Kabuto shut his eyes and dropped his head, unable to meet Noelle's gaze.
"Never imagined the police would barely bother to investigate? Never imagined Miss Kana couldn't bear it and would take her own life! Isn't that right?" Lisa picked up where his words left off, her voice gone cold as frost.
"And after Miss Kana couldn't bear it and killed herself—why didn't you come forward then, and restore her good name?" Noelle pressed on, her voice heavy with sorrow. "Right up until the end, Miss Kana kept insisting she hadn't killed anyone..."
Lisa didn't wait for the butler to answer. She simply cut in: "Because she was already dead. What would be the point of speaking up then—right?"
She drifted slowly to Renzo Kabuto's side, leaned close to his ear, and murmured: "Admitting the truth would do nothing but clear the name of a dead maid—not a single thing more. And meanwhile, it would stain your own young mistress's honor. So really, what reason was left to tell the truth at all? Mr. Kabuto... that's what you were thinking, wasn't it?"
"No! Of course not, I never thought anything like that, I only—I only..." Renzo Kabuto's head snapped up in shock. He whipped around to face Lisa, shaking his head again and again, desperately insisting he'd never harbored such a thought. But panic tangled his tongue, and the words came out in broken fragments that never quite formed a sentence.
"How could this happen?" Noelle's voice trembled with hurt and disappointment. "Miss Kana must have been so frightened in those days—terrified that no one would believe her, terrified of truly being treated as a murderer. That's why she... I thought Mr. Kabuto believed she wasn't the one who killed her mistress because he trusted her character. But to think... Mr. Kabuto, you knew the truth all along. Why didn't you try to do anything for her?"
"After Miss Kana passed away, I regretted deeply not having spoken sooner. I even went to the Metropolitan Police Department several times, intending to tell them the truth and clear her name. But every time I reached the front doors, the image of my lady's anguished face in her final moments would rise before my eyes—and the thought of what telling the truth would do to her honor... I simply could not make myself take another step. I'm sorry..." Renzo Kabuto's voice was thick with remorse.
"That's enough. What's done is done—no amount of excuses changes the fact that you did nothing." Lisa had no interest in listening to him squirm. Whatever else was true, he had indirectly caused the death of an innocent girl.
And yet, for all his fault, he had merely kept silent about what he knew—he bore no principal responsibility. One might even say the true driving force behind this tragedy was that detective, and that even those irresponsible police officers carried more blame than he did.
"I don't know who it was," Renzo Kabuto said with a heavy sigh.
"You don't know? How could you not know?" Lisa found that hard to swallow. He was the one who'd reopened the case—surely the detective had given his name when he came around to investigate?
"The high schooler detective, they said, had been traveling in Shikoku and happened to pass through the area. When he heard about the case, he wanted to take a look, so without thinking much of it, I let him in. After all, half a year had passed since the incident—there couldn't be much left to investigate. I assumed he would just glance around and leave. I never dreamed he would suddenly announce he'd unraveled the mystery of my lady's locked-room murder."
"He never did leave his name with the police or the press. But when he first came to pay his visit, his accent was rather peculiar, and he kept referring to himself in some odd, archaic fashion. I'm terribly sorry—that's all I know."
"A strange accent... and an archaic way of speaking, hm?" Lisa's eyes drifted thoughtfully into the distance.
After everything that had happened, Lisa had no intention of letting Noelle keep working at Lavender Villa, so she arranged for her to leave ahead of schedule.
Renzo Kabuto raised no objection. In silence, he dissolved the work contract.
Noelle bid the butler a final farewell. "Mr. Kabuto, I'm truly grateful for all the care you've shown me during my time here. But I still hope you'll go to the Metropolitan Police Department and tell them the truth—restore Miss Kana's good name, if only so that she isn't remembered, even in death, as someone who 'killed herself out of guilt.'"
"...Yes. I will." Renzo Kabuto looked utterly worn, but he managed a smile as he gave Noelle his word.
On the way back, Noelle's spirits had sunk low. "Miss Lisa... do you think Mr. Kabuto will really tell the truth when he returns?"
"Probably. There's no point in hiding it any longer, is there?"
Lisa watched Noelle trudging along beside her, head bowed, and reached out her right hand to gently pat her hair. "There, there—no more moping. It's not over yet, you know. Big sister Lisa still has a little task she needs Noelle's help with."
"Oh! Miss Lisa, you can leave anything to me!" The moment Noelle heard there was something to be done, she perked right up.
"I'd like Noelle to help me find out, in her spare time, just who that high schooler detective with the funny accent is. Big sister has to stay at the library all day, you see—no time to investigate anything myself."
"Of course! Leave it to me!" Noelle agreed without a moment's hesitation. Then, after a pause... "Miss Lisa, what will you do once we find him?"
"Well, Noelle... your big sister is, actually, a little angry today. I'm thinking of teaching that irresponsible high schooler detective a small lesson." Lisa put particular weight on the word small.
Watching the smile curl at the corners of Miss Lisa's mouth, Noelle felt, for reasons she couldn't quite name, a sudden chill run through her body.