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Epilogue – Part 02

“Hmm? Did you say something, Victorique?”

“I did.” Victorique untied the red satin ribbon on her mini hat. “You came at the right time. I can demonstrate the slip knot.” She stood up and sat the women down facing each other.

“Is something happening, little Mademoiselle?” the middle-aged said, smiling.

Victorique frowned in annoyance.

“You can’t call her little,” Kazuya whispered. “Or grumpy, or crybaby, or mean. She gets mad when you tell her the truth.”

“Shut up, you dimwit.”

“What are you doing, though?” he asked.

“I’m going to show how that silly Sisters’ Cabinet works so even a simpleton like you can understand.”

Victorique gave a series of low grunts as she tied both women’s wrists tightly together with the satin ribbon.

“Try pulling your hands,” she instructed.

The women exchanged glances, then pulled their hands to the side.

The ribbon unraveled and fell to the floor. Kazuya quickly picked it up. He then stood next to Victorique and looped the ribbon through her red mini hat, tying it tightly under her chin.

Victorique shooed him aside. “That was called a slip knot,” she said. “It looks like a tight knot at first glance, but it quickly unravels. A magic trick.”

“Oh, I see,” Kazuya breathed. “So the one who killed Simon Hunt was…”

“It could only be Morella, the old woman who entered the cabinet with him. Killing him in public using alleged sorcery was probably their way of challenging the Academy of Science. But they failed to realize that Simon Hunt had tinkered with the mechanism operating the sluice gate before he was killed. Both sides were engaged in a game of deception.”

Kazuya was silent, deep in thought. The two women looked at each other, wondering what was going on.

“I imagine that Iago the Vatican Friar was killed for the interest of the Ministry. He was summoned to certify miracles, but he saw that the show was nothing but a sham. He planned to report it when he returned to the Vatican. But the Ministry wouldn’t allow it. They needed the official certification. If Iago reported their fraudulent activities, there would be dire consequences. So they staged Iago to die a strange death in full view of the public. Make it look like he was killed using sorcery. Just like Simon Hunt.”

“How on earth did they do it, then?” Kazuya asked. “Where did the strange man in black go?”

“There was never a man in black.” Victorique smirked. “Do you remember the big square machine in the monastery? The magic lantern.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a device used in magic tricks. Known also as a ghost machine, it projects skeletons, apparitions, and various other things on the stage. They probably used it during the show. I’m guessing that the historical incident at the monastery that happened ten years ago, the Crashing of the Virgin Mary, was a monumental deception concocted by the magician, or rather, an extraordinary blockhead, Brian Roscoe, with the use of a ghost machine.”

“Wait, you mean the incident where a giant image of Mary appeared in the night sky, shedding rivers of tears, and causing German fighter planes to crash?”

“Yes. That blockhead buttered up with the Academy of Science by using magic tricks in war. He projected an image from a magic lantern into the night sky and made the apparition of Mary shed tears. It’s not some mysterious phenomena, or a ghost, or a miracle. It was simply an illusion.”

“No way…”

“And ten years later, the same device was used to kill Friar Iago. He was killed by none other than Carmilla, the older sister. There was poison in the water she gave him. What appeared to enter the room and kill Iago was an illusion created by the magic lantern, a black ghost.”

Victorique yawned boredly.

“How did they do it?” Kazuya asked, surprised.

“The door was open at the time. They probably placed the lantern in the opposite room and projected a ghost toward Iago, who was standing in the direct line of the door, as soon as he started groaning in pain. When he collapsed, they turned the device off and closed the door to the other room. Do you remember? There was a sound of a door closing back then.”

“Yeah.” Kazuya nodded. He looked a little puzzled. “You knew all along, didn’t you? As soon as the incident happened. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I, uhh…” Victorique cast her eyes down. “I solved the mystery now because of my mother’s message. She said to demonstrate my power. I kept quiet until now, because…”

Her rosy cheeks turned a little red. As always, she was wearing a quiet and bored expression, but a hint of vigor flashed across her delicate, doll-like features.

“I told you before,” she said.

“Told me what?”

“I will get you back to the academy safely. I can’t put you in danger. If I revealed the truth then and there, you would have been targeted. The entire monastery is under the control of the Ministry. Put it another way, the entirety of Beelzebub’s Skill was the culprit.”

After a few moments of silence, Kazuya nodded. “I see. Thanks, Victorique.”

Victorique snorted in response and turned her face away. Kazuya stared at her tiny head for a while, and smiled faintly.

---

The Old Masquerade kept running through the stormy night.

Sensing that the two had finished talking, the older, quiet-looking woman said, “Ah, so that’s what happened.”

Kazuya turned and saw the two women staring at them.

“My, what a brilliant little girl,” the older woman remarked.

“I believe in the supernatural,” the girl muttered. “I’d like to think what happened was a miracle.”

The door opened once again, admitting two men.

“Oh, there’s people here too.”

“Oh, well. Let’s just sit in the corridor, then. I brought playing cards with me.”

They both turned to leave, when the middle-aged woman stopped them.

“There’s some space here if you like.”

“Ah, thank you kindly.”

The first man entered the compartment and sat on the corner of the bed, looking grateful. He looked to be about thirty, with a body as big as a hill. The other entered next, a young man of smaller build, a little over twenty years old. The latter was good-looking, dressed stylishly like the son of an aristocrat. The larger man, on the other hand, gave the impression of a laborer, with his large, burly hands, a sturdy leather vest, and dirt-stained boots.

“Rough night, huh?” said the young man, eyeing everyone present with a smile on his face.

“Yeah,” Kazuya nodded.

The large man pulled a deck of cards from the pocket of his vest. “How about we all introduce ourselves?” he said. “My, what a lovely young lady we have here. How old are you?”

“A hundred and fourteen years old,” Victorique said in a low voice, like the calm before a storm.

Kazuya stifled a laugh. The large man blinked.

Plop!

Something fell on the floor. Everyone’s eyes fell downward.

A small, red box was lying there.

The air seemed to freeze.

“Oops.”

The woman who dropped the box smiled, picked it up, and put it back in her pocket. For a while, the only sound in the compartment was the shuffling of cards.

The train’s whistle blew.

Another violent storm was raging outside.

It was a strange, portentous night.

Shuffling the cards, the large man said, “Now, then. Let’s introduce ourselves, shall we?”

---

—wiretap radio 4—

Bzzzt.

Beep.

“The… The…”

“The…”

“The memento box…”

“The memento box has been taken. It’s on this train right now.”

“Retrieve it.”

“Retrieve it.”

“Retrieve it.”

“Understood.”

“Retrieve it from that woman at all costs.”

---

Prologue II: A Small Red

“So far, I get it. But…”

A tall brick building in the center of Saubreme, the capital of the kingdom of Sauville.

Fronting Charles de Gillet station, a modern structure made of black iron and transparent glass, was a huge intersection where black cars and carriages sped past. A sophisticated noblewoman with a parasol was sauntering along the pavement with a gentleman. Glamorous display windows were filled with dresses, hats, and shiny ladies’ shoes, showcasing Europe’s prosperity to the fullest. But on the street crouched a street urchin, face blackened with dirt, waiting for passersby to toss coins with dark, vacant eyes.

The light and darkness of the city. Modernization and ancient culture. Morning in Saubreme, where two forces clashed.

In a large room on the fourth floor of the police station, a man folded his arms and spoke.

“Everything before that, I understand. But…”

He was leaning against the wall, striking a pose like an impeccable beau. Silver cufflinks adorned his well-tailored suit. His leather shoes were polished to a shine, and he wore a sparkling silver choker around his neck, his silk shirt slightly exposed.

His hair, a dazzling golden color, was protruding forward like a cannon. In his arm was an expensive-looking porcelain doll, fluffy with white-and-black lace and frills. His other hand was stroking the doll’s curly hair. The man—an illustrious officer in the Saubreme Police, famed inspector Grevil de Blois—turned to the small boy standing before him.

“But I don’t follow, Kujou.”

“Like I’ve been saying,” the boy, Kazuya Kujou, replied calmly. “Last night, we escaped from the water pouring in through the sluice gate that Simon Hunt had opened and got on the transcontinental train, the Old Masquerade, just in the nick of time.”

“I get all that. But…”

The inspector shot a bitter glance at the person next to Kazuya Kujou. She was sitting like a propped-up broken doll, her magnificent golden hair hanging down to the floor like an untied turban. Smoking a pipe, she shifted a little and turned her face away, her face the picture of indifference. The inspector’s terrifying sister, Victorique de Blois.

Inspector Blois pulled his eyes away from his sister and turned his attention back to Kazuya Kujou.

“Why did a murder take place on the train?” he asked. “How was the woman killed? Who’s the culprit?”

“…”

“Start from the beginning, Kujou.”

Inspector Blois brought his face close to Kazuya. The boy took a step back, saving himself from the drill.

“I can explain what happened,” Kazuya said, glancing at Victorique, who was adamant on ignoring them.

“Start talking, then. The department has tasked me with handling the Old Masquerade case.”

“But we’ll have to start from when we boarded the train and introduced ourselves,” Kazuya began.

The officers around were fervently taking notes.

“The victim had a small, mysterious red box with her.”

To be continued…