AFTER half an hour of searching, everyone returned to the drawing room with no positive results in their hands. The only one who probably gained anything was Luo Yan. Because now, he finally confirmed that the dead body was indeed Catherine. But with the missing Edward and the fake Sorcha, things would definitely be more complicated. Well, at least some of the NPCs would definitely be in panic.
“Where the bloody hell is Father? Why is he missing with that woman?” Harry said, walking back and forth, obviously very anxious. “Could something bad happened to them? Like- like what happened to Aunt Catherine? A-are we going to be next?”
“Calm your horses, boy,” Charles scolded. “Them missing doesn’t automatically mean that something bad happened to them.”
“It could mean something totally different,” Peter Baker, the fake doctor, added.
Charles turned to the other, his gaze sharp. “And what do you mean by that?”
Peter only shrugged. But it was Arthur Wells, the old solicitor, who gave Charles an answer.
“He probably meant that there’s a chance that the two aren’t missing at all but just hiding.”
“What are you saying old man? Why would my father hide?” Then as if Harry realized something, his eyes widened and he looked incredulously at the solicitor. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just stating a possibility,” Arthur said in a calm voice.
“Isn’t that the same thing?” Harry said, almost shouting. Anger could be seen clearly on his face. “Do you think my father killed his sister with the help of a woman he hardly even knew or liked? Surely, you’re not suggesting that they were involved with what happened with my grandfather?”
“It’s not them that I’m suspecting,” Arthur said still with that staid expression. “It’s your father and Catherine.”
There was silence in the drawing room. If a pin dropped at that moment, the sound would probably echo around them. It was Harry who broke this silence.
“Do you have memory problems? Are you suffering from dementia?” the young man said in a mocking way. “Have you already forgotten the dead body we saw earlier?”
“How can you be sure that that body was indeed Catherine?” Arthur simply retorted back.
“You mean, there’s a possibility that the body was actually Miss Sorcha?” Mrs. Gilmore said.
Luo Yan glanced at the cook with interest. Although she tried to make her voice have a hint of incredulity just like Harry, Luo Yan still heard the faint excitement in it. As if she had been waiting for someone to open up that topic.
“Mum, l-let’s not jump into conclusions,” Cian quickly said.
“What you said do have a point,” Peter said, agreeing to Mrs. Gilmore. “After all, we really didn’t see the face of that body. We only know it was a woman. It could easily be Miss Sorcha considering she and Catherine both have the same body structure.”
“Y-you mean they put Miss Catherine’s nightgown on Miss Sorcha and then b-bashed her face so we would think wrongly?” the maid said in a scared manner. Her voice was not that loud but everyone there heard it.
Harry completely lost it after he heard all those things. “Have all of you gone insane? How the bloody hell did you all come up with such a ridiculous theory?” He then turned to Luo Yan. “You’re the detective here, aren’t you? Why aren’t you doing your job and just letting these people do your job for you? And rather badly at that.”
Luo Yan only raised his brow before showing a helpless smile. “Young master Harry, I assure you, I’m doing my job as best as I could.”
Harry scoffed. “Hah! If you’re doing your job, Aunt Catherine wouldn’t be dead and my father and that woman wouldn’t be missing.”
“That’s not the detective’s fault though,” ‘Sofia’ said in a confused manner. But Luo Yan knew that the other said that on purpose.
But Harry still heard her. He glared at his soon-to-be stepmother. “What does a harlot like you know?”
“At least she had more manners than you, that’s for sure,” Peter returned.
“You—”
“Let- let’s all calm down, please,” Cian interrupted trying to be a peacemaker.
Harry turned to Daphne. “Are you seriously just going to remain silent? They’re all talking about my father and your mother being murderers!”
“I—” Daphne stammered to say anything.
Harry looked like he was on the verge of breaking down. At that moment, Luo Yan finally offered his opinion. Or at least the opinion one of the culprits wanted to hear.
“They all have a point. Especially if Edward and Catherine both knew that the will leaving everything to Sorcha Harcourt had long been signed by Mr. Harcourt.”
“I can confirm that,” Arthur quickly seconded.
Harry seemed to be sluggish by this revelation. But Luo Yan didn’t stop there and continued with his ‘conclusion’.
“The both of them could have killed Sorcha. And then to get the properties and money left by their father, they could just simply hire a confidence trickster to fool Mr. Wells here into thinking that she is the real Sorcha Harcourt. That would be easy to do. After all, who here really knew Sorcha Harcourt. I bet all of you only saw him yesterday. Faking her identity would be a very simple thing to do.”
When he said that last part, he did not forget to glance at Mrs. Gilmore. He noticed how the other flinched a bit when he said that. He looked away as if he only inadvertently glanced at her direction. It would be bad if the other noticed that he already knew more than what they wanted him to know.
Luo Yan then smiled to everyone. “Of course, these were all just assumption at this point. But you can’t deny that it does make sense.”
Once again, the room was filled with silence.
At the end, it was still Harry who spoke first. “I don’t need your assumption! I need evidence.”
Luo Yan’s smile did not falter. “Don’t worry, I’m slowly but surely gathering it. The culprits would soon reveal themselves.”
And he just needed a little help from the young butler.