Barry is dead.

In Andrew's Kingdom, the day after being summoned by the royal brother Preben, Mary and Karasuma Ying were invited by Preben to come to the King's Castle for breakfast.

I thought it would just be an ordinary meal, but I didn't think that the two of them had just sat down to eat before they could eat when a guard soldier and a maid broke in in a panic and told everyone in the room that Barry had been killed.

It is said that this morning a maid was about to build the branches and leaves of the large tree in the corner of the central courtyard when she found Barry with a knife in the back and fell under the tree.

Upon hearing this news, the royal brother Preben immediately issued an order to block the news, and at the same time ordered the royal police to investigate the death of their supreme governor Barry as soon as possible.

As for Mary and Karasuma Ying, who were called to have breakfast together, they were asked to quickly go to the scene to assist in the investigation.

"The body is already stiff, and the time of death was at least a few hours ago, that is, from last night to the early hours of this morning, and the more concrete results are waiting for the police to test.

The dagger from the deceased's back pierced almost his entire chest, and if nothing else, it should have been a fatal wound. ”

The morning temperature was still a little cold, and in a corner of the central courtyard, Karasuma Ying spitted white vapor and crouched down to observe the body of Barry in front of her.

At this time, there were not many people in the central courtyard, and the maids who were originally trimming the flowers and plants in the courtyard had been transferred, except for Karasuma Ying and the two, there were only a few guards not far away.

The royal police are not allowed to approach the king's castle at will on weekdays, so they are still on their way here after receiving the order from the prince's brother Preben just now.

"The corpse has broken bones."

Beside Karasuma Ying, Mary put on her gloves, pinched the limbs of Barry's corpse, and spoke.

"There is no blood spattering around, and this is probably not the first scene."

Saying this, the two of them subconsciously looked up, and there was a room with a closed window on the second floor of the castle directly above Barry.

It is said to be the second floor, but it is actually seven or eight meters away from the ground.

After all, this is also a castle where the king of a small kingdom lives, and it is still different from those ordinary apartment buildings in the outside world, and the first floor of the castle alone is six or seven meters high.

An elderly person falling from this height, even if there is grass underneath, the probability of causing a fracture is quite high.

"Whose room is up there?" Mary turned back and asked Hans, a guard not far away.

Hans, the guard soldier who had previously served as a guide for them, was sent to cooperate with the two in their investigation and to act as an interpreter because of his proficiency in English.

Incidentally, after his previous boss, Captain Gunner, committed suicide after the murder of Commander Birune, he was promoted to replace Gunner as the new Captain of the Guard.

"Uh...... Miss Mary, what do you ask this for? Hans glanced at Mary's point, and his face was suddenly embarrassed.

"What's wrong?" Mary asked.

"That's ...... It was His Majesty's room ......"

With this in reply, Hans looked at the two people in front of him with a strange expression, scratched his head and asked:

"Miss Detectives, do you suspect that Chief Bali's death has anything to do with His Majesty?"

Hearing his words, Mary and Karasuma Ying glanced at each other, and Mary saw the solemnity in Karasuma Ying's eyes.

It's a bit of a serious problem, not that Barry's death is complicated, but for now, Mary doesn't feel complicated.

What really trickled them was that they had a vague premonition that the murder was likely to involve the king of the country......

The problem has become a bit of a hassle.

"I'll go up and have a look first, Xiaoying, you continue to investigate the situation here." Suppressing the thoughts in her head for a moment, Mary spoke.

"Okay."

Karasuma nodded, and after watching Mary brisk away, she crouched down again, taking a closer look at the dagger on Barry's back.

Barry's body lay on his side on the ground, the dagger on his back was so deep that the blade was completely pierced into Barry's body, only the hilt was still outside.

This is a relatively rare situation, because this dagger is not small, under normal circumstances, unless the murderer has a lot of strength, it is basically impossible to completely stab the blade into it with a single knife, and it is also a position with more muscle groups such as the back.

Wearing gloves, Karasuma Ying tore the clothes on Barry's back slightly along the tear and took a closer look at the wound inside.

[Indeed, there are no traces of a second knife around the wound, and the murderer did stab Barry through with only one knife.] 】

There are two possibilities, one is that the murderer is an extremely strong person; The second is that Barry was killed by the murderer with some kind of mechanism.

At the same time, Karasuma Ying also noticed the blood stains around the corpse...... Or rather, there was almost no blood around the body, which was obviously not right.

Not only that, but she also observed that there were no signs of heavy objects being dragged on the nearby grass.

They were right, this was not the first scene of Barry's murder, but the actual first scene of the murder......

Karasuma stood up and looked up at the king's bed above.

"Rustling ......"

At that moment, she keenly heard the faint sound of footsteps on the grass behind her.

Turning back quickly, Karasuma Ying saw Hans, who was not far away, walking right behind her, holding an overcoat in his hand.

"Mr. Hans?" Karasuma Ying squinted and looked at him with some confusion.

"Don't worry, Karasuma-san."

Met with her skeptical gaze, Hans only replied with a smile:

"The temperature is a little low today, I see that Karasuma Xiaoying, you are dressed so thinly, I am afraid that you will get cold, so I found you a coat, which is very warm."

With that, he handed the coat in his hand to Karasuma Ying.

"Well, thank you......"

Despite the doubts in her heart, Karasuma Ying took the coat and smiled back at him.

“……”

Inside the castle, Mary ran up the stairs to the second floor, to the king's bedchamber they had seen outside.

This bedroom is large, the door is a double wooden door nearly three meters high, and the decoration is very luxurious, I don't know what kind of fine wood is used.

In front of the door was a guard soldier armed with a rifle, and when he saw Mary coming, the soldier glanced at her, and quickly withdrew his gaze.

"Can you let me in?" Walking up to the soldiers, Mary asked straight to the point.

"No way!" The soldier rightly refused.

"I'm here to investigate the truth about the murder of Chief Barry."

"Forgive me!"

"Oops, Detective Mary seems to be in trouble......"

At this moment, a gentle and elegant male voice sounded at the other end of the corridor.

(﹃)

(End of chapter)