Albert stood in front of the tree by the well, looking at the ground. Stella just contemplated him without speaking.
Finally, he spoke after a long silence, " I'm sorry."
He looked like he was talking to someone else.
" As far as I know this person, although it is a short time ago, would not do such a thing out of the blue, there must be a big reason for him to do all this."
She spoke up and said, " So tell me, why did you do that ? Why did you kill them ?"
" We had always been together since childhood, he and I. It was more than just friendship ; we were brothers. He always cherished that, he helped me as much as he could. But what did I do in return ? I caused his death ! As for her, I was irresponsible and left her alone, ignoring their wishes. I easily let her go to ruin ! "
He spoke with a burning passion, tears streaming from his eyes.
" So, his friend died by accident." Stella thought to herself.
The sound of fast footsteps coming from the other direction was heard, Stella guessed that Adam and the others had discovered her absence. She turned to Albert to find him drinking a small bottle, without much thought she knew it was a poison bottle.
Immediately after drinking it, he fell to his knees and collapsed, Stella quickly ran to him to prevent him from drinking another bottle he had, but to no avail, despite his collapse he managed to push her away.
She yelled at him, " Stop what are you doing ?"
He didn't stop and drank the whole other bottle.
Stella caught him completely collapsed, he began to spew blood from his mouth after just a minute. An extremely small amount of arsenic poison is capable of causing a significant malfunction in the body's systems, but such an amount will completely damage them in a matter of minutes.
" It's too late now, the poison has spread all over his body. What a loss. I was wondering who those guys are."
He was muttering with difficulty, tears streaming from his eyes, "Elva… Norman… I am … I am… Sorry… "
" Your suspicions were already right."
She turned around to find Adam standing next to them.
" I wish it wasn't true, but unfortunately."
Stella thought in her heart. She was grateful to him for having helped her before, but now her feelings have changed to pity for him, who would have expected to end up committing suicide like this.
While she was thinking about it, Albert had already died.
That's when Adam noticed something in his clothes, pointing at it and saying ," Look at this."
At first Stella didn't pay attention to her, but when Adam pointed it out to her she saw it clearly, there was a badge hanging under Albert's coat on the shirt.
The badge of the white orchid flower.
" He belongs to the 'Caden family'."
Adam seemed a little angry when he saw that logo, Stella noticed it, and she asked him, " I heard about them from some of my relatives, are they that super-rich that they describe ?"
Stella didn't know about them this is the first time she heard this name, but she acted like this to find out more without having any doubts about her.
Her intuition was telling her that it was a famous family from the West because Albert was from the Western region.
The second reason is that she claimed to be from there too, if she didn't know about a family that famous she might become suspicious.
" Yes, they may be the richest of all the nobles." Adam replied emphatically.
" So he's been under their command all these years."
She said that as she closed his eyes with her hand, and she felt his clothes, hoping to find some evidence, but there was nothing.
Adam ordered his assistants to take Albert's body for burial somewhere.
At that moment Stella was looking around the tree, and while she was focused on finding something, she stumbled upon something.
It was a rock covered with grass and vegetation, when Stella took a closer look at it, she found a name written on it in clear handwriting, " Elva Brown."
Not too far from her, there's a rock about the same size, after checking it I also found a name, " Norman."
It looked hastily written, and the line was not as consistent as the others.
After making sure the area was clear of anyone else, Adam returned to her, to find her reading a small black book.
" What's that ? "
He asked her suddenly while she was distracted by the content of the book, which made her panic and become indescribable. Seeing this, Adam said with a straight face, " I just asked you what is this ?"
" I just found nothing in the village and we were looking, so I took it out of curiosity."
After hearing that, he sighed and said, " Well, well, take what you want, I just came to tell you that our work here is over. At dawn, we will return."
" Well, as you like."
She put the book in her bag and followed it to the place where they decided to stay overnight.
At dawn, they returned to the city.
After arriving at the family home, the two went straight to the library to meet Liam, who was waiting for them there.
He greeted them with his usual smile, " Welcome back."
After that, the two talked about everything on the topic of the village.
Liam put his hand on his forehead and said anxiously, "Everything is clear now, the Kaden family would like to enter normal trade as well."
Stella said with surprise, " Normal trade ?"
Adam replied, " Usually the Caden family's business was in weapons, it is even rumored that they deal with the biggest gangs and pirats, to the point that even the governor of the western region does not dare to say something."
Liam said, " When Grandfather regains his health, we'll see what we're going to do with this."
" So tell me what you found about Grandfather's poisoning ?"
Liam, looking at Stella, " In this regard, I have to thank Miss Alina because she told us what she saw."
Before they go on their trip to the village, Stella tells them about what she has seen over the past few days about Hannah and Jacob.
" So Hannah's the one who did it."
" Not alone, but also Jacob is her assistant."
Adam said angrily , " Just how could they hide between us all these years ? The problem is that they were close to us."
" I couldn't figure out, originally the period of my investigation, Hannah was suspicious of me all the time, so much that they escaped in time before I caught them."
" Did you know who they were working for ?"
" No, unfortunately, they won't leave any evidence behind."
At that moment, Stella said, " Could it be that Hannah, Jacob and Albert are all working for the same people ?"
Liam replied," Yes, that's possible, the Caden family is trying to overthrow the trade East, and we are the most prominent in it."
After that, Stella asked permission from the two to go to her room.
" Indeed, all this may be related to each other, if it is, then this family is horrified, that they would make such incidents look like a coincidences… And I'm still in this, and what was originally the point of thinking about it, the most important thing for me now is to explore the area, no need other problems."
Stella went into her room to rest, but she remembered something important that she brought with her, it was that book she was found next to the grave.
" It is neither dirty no damaged, he must have fallen out of it when he committed suicide, or he may have deliberately put it up for something."
After reading a few pages, it turns out that this is not a book, but the diary of 'Elva Lynette.'
" She must be the owner of that grave, Elva and Norman, those are the names I've heard before."
She didn't want to introduce the book to Adam either, simply because he didn't care about any of this, the most important thing for him was to find only the truth about the village curse.
Stella knew that Elva was Albert's sister and Norman was his friend.
That was when she was talking to Meryl and Helena one time. Then they talked about Albert and the relationship he had with them for a long time, mentioned his sister who died after her marriage, and also mentioned Helena's father Norman.