Though I was dumbfounded, Lord Simeon and Prince Severin seemed to share an idea—they exchanged implicative looks.
“Am I really...?” That was when I realized something and raised my voice. “No, no, no! Please wait! The carriage would have to be moved from the building before I would even set foot in it. Wouldn’t it explode at that point?”
I’d felt like I could deny the situation, but Mr. Meyer shut me down immediately. “It’s possible, but it most likely would not. The string was too long, so it wasn’t just a single length from wheel to grenade. It was wrapped several times over, meaning it was calculated to pull the pin after a certain distance had been crossed.”
“Could we see this string?” Lord Simeon inquired.
“Yes, sir—it’s been left as is. Our soldiers are guarding it so no one can touch the evidence.”
“Thank you. We’ll go see it now. I’d like for us to keep hold of the hand grenade as well. You don’t mind, do you?”
“No, sir.” Even Mr. Meyer couldn’t refuse such a request, since his own coworker had attempted murder. Sensing he was in an unfavorable position, he handed over the important piece of evidence without protest.
“Marielle.”
“I’ll...! Go with you!” I felt like my husband was about to tell me to stay inside, so I hurriedly asked otherwise.
Prince Severin placed his hand on Lord Simeon’s shoulder. “It’d be better to satisfy her curiosity. We don’t know what she’ll pull if we make her leave without knowing. It’s safer this way.”
My husband grimaced. “Yes, sir.”
I didn’t know how to feel about the way they were treating me, but once I received permission, I proceeded to the carriage house with everyone else. Mr. Meyer took the lead, and our group was surrounded by our knights as we walked. We’d asked Princess Mira to stay put; she’d returned to her room while Lord Hilbert was still docile.
The wind rustled my hair once we stepped outside. Mr. Mace still hadn’t been found, so many lanterns were shining through the darkness.
“Hello, everyone. I see you’re all here.”
Lord Nigel had arrived before the rest of us. He’d received the news and come to investigate as well. Lady Eva was on standby next to him, and Arthur was able to crawl under the carriage with his small body.
Prince Severin checked all sides of the carriage. “You’ve been investigating? Have you found anything?”
“It’s as you see, sir.” Lord Nigel pointed toward the center of one wheel, where a very thin string had been tied. “If this were pulled and stretched out below the carriage, it would wind to about here.”
He held the string in his hand as he explained. The carriage wouldn’t have been able to run properly if the string were wrapped around an axle, but given how thin it was, it would have been able to wind around a good length before it got in the way. The pin on the grenade would have been pulled out before the string stopped the carriage.
Arthur soon slipped out from under the carriage.
“How was it?” implored Lord Nigel.
The boy dusted off his clothes and answered in his usual nonchalant tone. “No issues. Nothing suspicious was under there except the string.”
Lord Simeon knelt by the wheel and picked up the string, thinking hard.
Prince Severin folded his arms. “I suppose we discovered the scene before the trap could be fully installed. We were lucky in that regard.”
I stood back, a bit away from the carriage. “I understand that the point of the trap was to kill the carriage passengers, so the possibility of the target being me is very high. But would Mr. Mace really be the culprit? Couldn’t he have discovered this trap? What if he was actually trying to dismantle it?”
“I wonder about that. Sir Meyer?”
Mr. Meyer bowed. “I don’t believe he would need to run if that were the case. We all knew he conducted inspections every day, so no one else could have tampered with the carriages. I’d also like to believe it isn’t him, but I can’t defend his actions. Especially since...he has a motive.”
Huh? I raised my eyebrows in surprise. We all silently motioned for him to keep speaking.
He sighed. “He’s devoted to Her Highness Mira. He was likely trying to take out Mrs. Flaubert for her sake.”
For the princess? Wouldn’t that mean...?
Lord Nigel then whispered something, but I couldn’t hear him. Both Mr. Meyer and I looked at him, so he spoke up. “Did he think Marielle was in the way of the princess’s love?”
Mr. Meyer scrunched up his face, perhaps thinking Lord Nigel was accusing him of joking. They locked eyes, and Mr. Meyer turned away, displeased.
Mr. Mace has been trying to dispose of me since I’m in the way of Princess Mira’s romance? That’s his supposed motive?
Lord Simeon rose up from where he’d been kneeling. “Then we can assume that Sir Kessel was also behind the previous incidents.”
I was about to argue back, but Prince Severin agreed with him before I had the chance. “Indeed. He’d always been one of the possibilities, but this is definitive evidence.”
Mr. Mace was behind all of the incidents I was targeted in? He plotted to dispose of me because I am in the princess’s way?
Hmmmmm...
“At any rate,” continued His Highness, “we can be glad that his attempted crimes ended in failure. Our next course of action is to find him and start questioning. Could we do that now?”
“That depends on his condition.” Mr. Meyer was slightly hunched over. “Though I doubt we’ll be able to.”
“He fell over the fence, yes? Hmm. I’m not quite sure he’ll be alive.”
I’d been pushed into silence, and everyone ignored me—they all just kept the discussion moving along. We didn’t have any more to investigate around the carriages, so we returned to the main building to wait for more reports. Alas, none would come announcing that they’d found Mr. Mace.