Chapter 146
At the second hearing, witnesses came pouring out in droves. The prosecution put on the stand people who claimed they had suffered, to a greater or lesser degree, because of the defendant’s impersonation. Most of them were people who had tried to befriend Sasha for the sake of connections only after the dowager duchess’s death. In other words, people like the Merrilson siblings, whom she could no longer even remember. That sort.
In the midst of it all, an unexpected face did appear. It was a man named Dylan Henson, who had danced with Sasha on the day of the birthday party. The prosecution claimed that Sasha had deceived and approached innocent, unsuspecting men for the purpose of inheritance. But all they had done was dance and exchange a few letters, so the attempt to magnify it into a crime of sheer insolence failed spectacularly.
She had never imagined that the duchess’s machinations, which had severed her ties with those few men, would help her in this way. Truly, how could anyone have known it would come to this?
However, the matter of dragging innocent men into it with marriage as the objective naturally could not help but call to mind Sasha’s husband, Isaac. Yet to call him a purely innocent victim was difficult, since he was currently wanted on charges too unspeakable to put into words. ……Since that was the case.
Should I be grateful for this situation too, then? Sasha, who had been listening to the witnesses’ testimonies with a face full of boredom all along, muttered gloomily to herself.
Regardless of her displeasure, the trial continued, refusing to give up on trying to shove her into the mud. Some businessman she did not even remember came forward and said that, believing her to be truly wealthy, he had nearly entered into serious dealings with her. But all Sasha remembered was that, at some point, the man had boasted so much about his business that she had given him suitable responses and listened.
Only testimonies of that crude level came spilling from the other side. If Isaac had stood there and actively claimed damages, the situation would have been different. But even after learning the truth, he had chosen to remain by her side, and now he was being chased by military police with a bounty of ten thousand onds dangling from that huge frame of his.
The witnesses for the defense were Mr. Turner the lawyer, the thankfully present Miss Carol, and Miss Iver, the housekeeper they had barely managed to find a few days ago. The first to step forward was Miss Carol, and she testified with utmost honesty about the dowager duchess and Sasha as she had seen them while steadily visiting Dilton Manor for years.
To be precise, she testified very vividly about Sasha’s appearance as not merely a granddaughter unusually devoted to her grandmother, but someone who seemed to have almost no freedom at all. The jury’s reaction was quite good.
Next was Mr. Turner, and he too, perhaps because this was the dowager duchess’s will, revealed everything without concealing a thing. He listed all those damned assignments the dowager duchess had prepared for her in the future, proving that Sasha would have inherited the dowager duchess’s estate one way or another. Yes. There, in that place, not only the dowager duchess’s lie, but everything she had spent so long preparing, was exposed to everyone.
However, the thing some people had been most curious about had not yet come to light. Then the final witness, a housekeeper with unfamiliar features, stepped forward and calmly recited her history. The woman had dark skin, and her appearance was exotic as well, so she looked like a foreigner to anyone’s eyes. As soon as she recited her background in halting Serman, she clearly stated what everyone had been curious about.
The real one had died long ago.
She said calmly that not long after her sixteenth birthday, she had contracted consumption and died. While everyone was in shock, Mr. Benson the lawyer stepped forward and submitted the death registration documents to the judge.
Just as when Sasha had first heard that story, surprise flitted across the faces of those in the courtroom. Before long, each of them was expressing condolences, whispering suspiciously, or glancing toward Sasha. When the judge opened his mouth and said the death registration was not false, the commotion grew even louder.
The housekeeper continued her testimony regardless. She calmly recited everything, from how Mr. Marlborough had taken in a child who had lost her way, to how he had given her the name “Aileen,” how he had cherished and raised her like his real daughter, and how, when that daughter died, he had seemed to follow after her, wasting away until he died as well.
Unlike her words of condolence, the housekeeper’s face was bleak and indifferent, but people were no longer focusing on that.
“They say the real one died. Years ago.”
“The more I think about it, the stranger it is. Apart from the fact that he truly came to cherish that stand-in woman like his own daughter, why go so far as to entrust his real granddaughter to someone else and hide her away while raising her?”
Yes. Why had they hidden her in the first place?
What had they needed to protect her from?
Between the end of the second hearing and the approach of the third, people now began openly gossiping about the peculiar inner circumstances of the ducal house.
Separately from that, the inexplicable drama between the stand-in and the dowager duchess also circulated from mouth to mouth, and public sympathy began gaining strength once more.
Mr. Benson predicted that the outcome of the trial would be very good. Mr. Benson was saying so with a bright face when he quickly realized something and shut his mouth, because he had belatedly noticed that Sasha was holding a newspaper containing the warrant for her husband. In the silence, Sasha rapidly scanned the article.
There was an article about the general. It contained his remarks mentioning Isaac and claiming that he too bore responsibility for how matters had come to this. Beneath it followed the news that he was halting and dismantling the things he had been pushing forward, as if he truly had been preparing for retirement.
Sasha read with an expressionless face and murmured.
He is preparing to flee.
＊＊＊
The third hearing was held, and just as Mr. Benson had assured her, the jury sided with Sasha without incident. Public sympathy had grown as the treatment she had received became known, but what helped most was the point that the stand-in herself had known nothing at all about intimate circumstances such as whether the real one was alive or dead.
At last, the judge declared her not guilty.
Sasha left the courtroom without looking back. She came out with a sickened face, as if she never wanted to set foot in a courthouse again.
Mr. Benson, who had been of great help in many ways, wanted to celebrate in his own modest fashion, but the situation did not allow it, so he quickly gave up. It was because Isaac was still wanted.
The sun was setting, and they were riding in a carriage toward Dilton Manor. Sasha had gathered all the daily papers published that day and was rapidly scanning them. Since she was always like this lately, Mr. Turner familiarly looked out the window.
“They say the general has been accused again.”
“By whom?”
“……The victims. Those who were innocently sacrificed in the Selwood Operation, and their families.”
Mr. Turner hesitated for a moment.
“Wouldn’t you say things have been resolved well? Then your husband will soon be cleared of suspicion too.”
Sasha did not answer.
The housekeeper who had come as a witness sat beside Mr. Turner. Just as when she had first appeared, she stared fixedly at Sasha with an unreadable face, but Sasha did not call out that potentially rude gaze and pretended not to notice as she turned the page.
Before long, the carriage entered Erishall. Rain was falling damply. Of course it was. The capital was, in truth, an endlessly gloomy city where rain poured whenever one was about to forget it, regardless of the rainy season.
And so…….
Sasha, who had been looking out the window, stopped. She stared at the hill leading up to Dilton Manor, at someone climbing that steep hill. Despite it being a sweltering midsummer, the man was dressed neatly in a black suit. The moment the man glanced this way, Sasha called to the coachman and stopped the carriage.
With a clatter, the door opened.
“Get in.”
Sasha spoke to the man standing outside. Only Mr. Turner blinked in slight confusion, and the housekeeper glanced at Sasha with an uncomfortable face, but Sasha paid no heed and once again invited the unidentified man, almost as if ordering him.
The man did not refuse Sasha’s offer, thanked her, and climbed into the carriage. Since there was no spare seat, he had no choice but to sit beside Sasha.
The carriage climbed the hill and entered within the walls. As the carriage stopped, Mr. Turner got out first, then offered his hand to the housekeeper and helped her down. He then extended his hand toward Sasha, but Sasha did not even glance at him and told Jason, who had come out to greet them, to take good care of the guests.
Then she closed the door again and went off somewhere.
She left Dilton Manor once more with the unidentified man.
When only the two of them remained, Sasha said to the man,
“I remember you. You were the person who tried to enter the mansion with the police officer back then.”
“That’s correct.”
The man did not deny it and affirmed her words.
“Where is my husband?”
As soon as Sasha confirmed it, she got straight to the point.
＊＊＊
Isaac picked up the special bulletin that had come in through the narrow crack of the front door. These days, special bulletins were unceasing in one way or another. Today’s bulletin was, yes. The news that his wife had finally won her trial. It was very good news.
Since it was filled with good news in many ways, Isaac read through it with a pleased expression and sat down on the sofa. Then, as if returning to an old habit, he took a cigar from his breast pocket and cut the end into a neat circle with a knife.
At the same time, the door on the other side opened.
Isaac looked toward the entrance with an expressionless face, but soon realized that not one person had entered, but two, and rose from his seat.
Then, realizing that one of the two was his wife, he dropped the cigar from his mouth.
“……Sasha.”
While Isaac muttered with a face startled in every possible way and looked back and forth between his wife and Agent Wilson, Sasha folded the umbrella she had brought with her with a remarkably calm expression.