Who Was the Killer?

"Ah—!!!"

A scream rang out from somewhere.

As though a horn had sounded, the once polite, reserved guests scattered like frightened goblins. They ran blindly in circles around the reception hall, blocked one another's paths, collided and tumbled into heaps, smashed through windows, or snatched glasses from maids and flung the wine everywhere—

Augusta Olmedo watched the chaos with a calm that stood in stark contrast to it. "Look. People brought together by self-interest are as fragile as a pile of sand."

"They seem afraid of you."

Annan's attention remained fixed on the old man who called himself Augusta Olmedo.

He felt conflicted. The attack made him wary of the old man, but their pleasant conversation made it hard to see him as a villain.

Augusta Olmedo merely said, "People who huddle together out of fear will also scatter out of fear."

"There's one more person."

Annan glanced at the figure seated on the sofa. The man's head was slightly bowed, and he seemed to be taking everything in with the composure of a true person of importance.

Ida Holloway. Annan committed the name to memory. He even admired the man's composure, which eased some of the tension he felt about learning the truth.

Augusta Olmedo glanced over. "He's simply fainted from fright."

Ida Holloway sat motionless, his head hanging low.

"Are you always like this?" Annan looked away, at a loss for words. "Is everything you say full of philosophy?"

Annan struggled to reconcile the wise, philosophical man before him, with his graying hair and beautiful pale-blue eyes, with a killer. He had imagined Augusta Olmedo as a hook-nosed schemer with deep-set eyes and a cold, vicious air, spreading plots, fear, and death.

"Appearances cannot define a person. Neither can rumors." Augusta Olmedo studied Annan appreciatively. "You're more remarkable