Chapter 52
*
After stopping Tina's convulsions—that is, the baby's convulsions.
I checked once more that the IV line wasn't twisted, then sat in the chair by the bed.
The countess stayed pressed close to the child, looking down at the sleeping baby.
Holding the baby's finger tightly in her own, she gazed at the child with a sorrowful look.
The warmth from the tip of the baby's finger gradually eased her expression too.
The baby's father, the count, was counting the spring rain outside the window.
The raindrop marks on the window looked like tears shed by the count, but I brushed it off as my imagination and looked away.
And Father was talking with the aide in the hallway.
It seemed he would proceed with the investigation once the count and countess had calmed down.
During that brief lull, I opened my notebook and picked up my pen.
'I think I’ve got the rough cause.'
I went over the children's symptoms again in my head.
Intermittent rigidity. Horizontal nystagmus. Hypertonia. Pupil dilation.
The external factors that cause these symptoms have one thing in common.
Namely, that they're substances used in rat poison.
Of course.
If it's a substance that paralyzes the nerves, it kills humans and rats by the same principle.
That's why, historically, powerful neurotoxins were almost always used as rat poison or insecticides.
Strychnine is a representative example, along with arsenic, thallium, and so on.
The rat poisons that dominated each era were always used to poison people too.
Of course, later on, for efficiency's sake, rat poison gradually came to be replaced by anticoagulant poisons rather than neurotoxins.
Still, the history of rat poison has always been one of neurotoxins.
'So the question is how the child ingested a substance used in rat poison.'
There were three main possibilities.
First, food was accidentally contaminated while rat poison was being handled in the kitchen.
But this hypothesis has a problem.
It can't explain why the adults were fine while only the child was affected.
Rat poison doesn't selectively sneak into food by accident.
So this hypothesis is rejected.
Second, someone secretly mixed poison into the food.
But this is also unlikely.
According to the records Father examined, the six families had no shared midwife or wet nurse, and their meals were all different.
It wasn't for nothing that they ruled out poisoning and suspected a curse instead.
That leaves the third and final possibility.
'Honestly, this seems like the right one.'
Without even needing to think it over, I'd already been considering that third possibility from the start.
But doctors must always think in terms of evidence-based reasoning.
No matter how likely something seems, you can't make it your conclusion without evidence.
Therefore, evidence was needed.
'It'd be faster to check the kitchen myself.'
I closed my notebook and stood up.
"Count."
The count, who had been standing by the window, turned around.
"Since our little Tina has just recovered, it would be best to be careful with her food for the time being. To that end, I can check the food in the kitchen and sort out the foods she must absolutely avoid."
"...Is food that important?"
"Babies just after a convulsion have little strength in their muscles, so their swallowing ability is extremely weak. In the worst case, they may not be able to swallow food and it can get stuck in their throat."
Of course, that's true too.
For a baby right after a seizure, all foods that could get lodged in the throat, including peanuts, are forbidden.
The count must have found my explanation reasonable, because he immediately agreed.
"Thank you. I'll have a maid accompany you."
The count called over a maid and pointed at me.
"Guide this person to the kitchen. Show them everything they need."
"Understood, my lord."
I picked up my house-call bag and followed the maid out of the room.
When Father, who had been standing in the hallway, asked where I was going, I brushed it off and said I was heading downstairs because of the baby's diet.
I followed the maid down to the first floor.
The Belheim Count family's kitchen was spacious.
It was about twice the size of our kitchen, and it even had a modern oven.
I want to cook in a place like this too.
Of course, I didn't forget why I was there.
I held back my rising urge to cook and searched the kitchen thoroughly.
First, I checked where the rat poison was kept.
"Do you keep rat poison in this kitchen?"
"No. The lady ordered all the rat poison removed from the kitchen after the baby was born."
"Then where do you store the rat poison?"
"In the underground storage room. It's on a different level from the kitchen."
As expected, the first hypothesis was ruled out.
After all, no matter the era, everyone knows rat poison is dangerous to eat, so that was only natural.
Next, I checked the foods the baby ate.
"Could you show me what you feed the child?"
The maid opened the cupboard and began placing the ingredients one by one on the countertop.
Barley flour, honey, distilled water, and dried chamomile flowers in a small porcelain jar.
"These are the ingredients for barley gruel and honey water tea."
"Yes."
"Hmm. Honey has nothing to do with this incident, but please don't feed the baby honey until after the child is one year old."
"Huh? Is honey dangerous?"
"Yes. Honey can be poisonous to babies. Please explain that to the count as well."
"Understood, doctor."
There was honey, for one thing, but it wasn't related to this incident.
A baby can die from honey too, but the symptoms are completely different.
Tina's symptoms are a case of hypertonia, where the muscles stiffen too much,
while honey causes hypotonia, a symptom where the muscles can't exert force.
In other words, it has nothing to do with this case.
"Is this everything the child eats?"
"Yes? Yes. For now..."
"Then does the child take any special medicine?"
"Hmm... if it's medicine, the head maid would know."
Head maid, huh.
That probably meant she was the person who spent the most time with the baby.
"Could you call the head maid?"
A little while later, a woman who looked to be in her forties came down to the kitchen.
As befitting her title as head maid, she was neatly dressed, with sharp eyes and a matronly air.
"I heard there was medicine being given to the child."
"Yes. It's the medicine we use whenever our little miss gets stomach cramps."
I knew it.
Stomach cramps.
That's the term this world uses for infant colic.
Infant colic isn't a particularly serious condition.
It's a symptom where a newborn, for no special reason, screams and cries inconsolably at night, and it usually goes away on its own after about four months.
No special treatment is needed; just tell the parents to hang in there a little longer, and that's the end of it.
And I know the medicine used for babies with infant colic.
"Are you using star anise?"
"Oh? How did you know?"
"May I ask where Count Belheim is from, the western or eastern part of the empire?"
"The west."
"I see. It's also the medicine used as a substitute for anise, which is often given to babies in the western region."
"Yes, that's right!"
The head maid looked at me with astonished eyes.
That look made me feel a little smug for the first time in a while.
Lately, people around me had started reacting as if this level of deduction were perfectly normal, so the thrill of deduction had been fading.
'This is why I do deductions.'
Anyway, I had completely figured out the truth of the case.
Star anise.
This bastard was the culprit.
'There's no doctor who doesn't know this about star anise.'
In the early 2000s, there was a similar case in Europe.
The details of the incident were as follows.
Originally in Europe, especially Spain, there was a folk remedy of boiling an herb called "anise" and giving it to babies with stomach cramps.
Then, at some point, cheaper Chinese star anise with a similar scent began replacing it.
The problem was that Westerners didn't know there were two kinds of star anise.
Chinese star anise, which is used as a spice.
And Japanese star anise, which is only ever used as rat poison—the poisonous variety.
If you dry them and crush them up, you can't tell them apart with the naked eye.
Merchants from 'a certain country' who supplied Chinese star anise took advantage of that.
To cut costs, they secretly swapped Chinese star anise for Japanese star anise.
As a result, newborns all across Europe were poisoned en masse by rat poison.
The fallout from the incident was so huge that even pediatric textbooks were revised.
The takeaway was: don't do bizarre folk remedies for infant colic; just soothe the baby.
Since it's a condition that gets better on its own anyway, the message was basically not to feed them strange things.
'Doctors, especially pediatricians, definitely couldn't have missed this.'
It was literally a case that changed textbook content.
It was such a major incident that even toxicology textbooks had it underlined.
If you were a doctor back then, there was no way you could have missed it.
Well, young doctors might not know it, though.
...Come to think of it, I was a young doctor. Damn.
Anyway.
The same thing was happening in this world.
I lowered my head to the head maid and said,
"Thank you. That was a great help. Please keep the child's diet to breast milk and barley gruel, leave out honey for the time being, and stop the star anise tea until I tell you otherwise."
"The star anise tea too? Why...?"
"Right after a seizure, digestive function is weak, so it's safest to leave out anything that could be irritating."
That's not a lie.
I just didn't say everything.
Even if it isn't poisonous star anise, plain star anise is still hard on a baby right after a seizure.
When the head maid nodded, I left the kitchen.
And as I was going up the stairs, I thought,
'I've found the culprit.'
Star anise is the cause. I can even guess how it was distributed.
But the problem is what comes next.
How am I supposed to tell the parents?
'This count's family is at least better off.'
Because the baby survived.
Once they learn the truth, the parents will be shocked, but that will be about it.
But what about the five families that already lost their children?
'The tea you brewed killed your child.'
Would any parent accept that?
Or would they drag it into a factional feud instead?
Because they can't accept that they're the ones at fault, they'll rationalize it as a curse somehow.
Otherwise, they themselves won't be able to come to terms with it.
'How do I even tell them this?'
What I lack in times like this is authority.
It was something both Yulian, who had only just entered high society, and his father, merely a baron, lacked.
'Still, I should at least tell Father.'
Figuring out how to handle the truth would be his responsibility.
That was when I entered the second-floor hallway, deep in thought.
From downstairs, the sound of several people's footsteps began climbing the stairs.
I heard a servant's voice.
"The inspector has arrived."
Inspector.
The same inspector Father had mentioned at breakfast earlier.
Since a sixth victim had suddenly turned up, he must have come from the imperial palace, which made him later than us.
At the far end of the second-floor hallway, Father came out.
Father glanced toward the stairs, then at me, and gave a short nod.
He meant for me to stand beside him.
I stood next to Father.
Creak, creak.
The footsteps climbing the second-floor stairs drew closer, and two shadows fell across the hallway.
The first person to appear was a man in his mid-fifties.
Gray hair neatly slicked back, and a black coat bearing the inspector's insignia.
And there were countless scars etched across his bulging forearm.
"Magistrate Hendel. You've already arrived."
"I had to see the child first."
Father took the inspector's hand and bowed.
Judging by the fact that Father bowed first, the magistrate seemed to hold a much higher rank.
That was only natural.
The inspector's main job was to investigate noble corruption or mediate disputes between nobles.
Of course, not just anyone could do that, so an inspector's authority was comparable to that of a marquis's house.
"I understand. So, then, this child?"
"My son saved the child."
"That child?"
The inspector's gaze turned to me.
I bowed my head and showed proper respect.
"I'm Yulian Nihirit."
The inspector stroked his chin and looked me up and down.
He seemed mildly interested.
"You mean you did what three healing priests couldn't?"
"I was lucky."
The corners of the inspector's mouth lifted slightly.
"Humility is the virtue of the incompetent, and vanity is the vice of the capable. Which are you?"
"I think that's for history to judge, not me."
"Hah. That's an answer I like."
The inspector snorted a laugh.
Then he turned and gestured behind him.
"Come in."
Another person came up the stairs.
What had been hidden behind the inspector was a girl about my age.
The first thing I noticed was her golden hair.
Gold hair, as if a field of wheat had been pressed into it, was tied up with a sky-blue ribbon.
The girl was wearing a navy cape.
Her clothes beneath the cape were those of a noble young lady, but somehow streamlined for practicality.
The moment I saw her, what came to mind was...
'A detective?'
Right. "Classic detective look" would be the apt phrase.
If she had a pipe in her mouth too, she'd be a complete great detective with one mental disorder.
The eyes that had been scanning the small notebook in her hand turned toward me.
Gold eyes lazily swept over me.
Then the girl opened her mouth.
"What sort of patients are usually seen in Limbus Pit D-Sector?"
……
The hallway went silent.
The inspector pressed a hand to his forehead.
"Charlotte, I told you over and over not to start with that as your first words."
The inspector placed a hand on Charlotte's shoulder and gave me a slight bow.
"Sorry, young Lord Nihirit. Our child is a bit eccentric."
"Not at all."
But even with the inspector's apologetic look, I shook my head.
I could tell at a glance what kind of character this girl was.
I’d already guessed as much from the name Charlotte and the detective outfit.
So despite the girl's opening line, I wasn't particularly flustered.
Instead, I gave her a broad smile.
"Were there traces left on my body? As a doctor, I pride myself on washing thoroughly."
Light shone in the girl's languid eyes.
Her pupils widened slightly too.
"...Usually people get offended if you do that when you've just met them."
"Is there any reason I should be offended?"
"Because we're an inspector family. People think their information is leaking, that they've been investigated, or that someone used magic to spy on them."
"Well, I see things differently."
I rolled up my sleeves and said,
"Extremely advanced observation and deduction are no different from prophecy. So you must have deduced I was a healer from what my father just said, and that I work in Limbus Pit from the color difference between the backs of my hands and my palms?"
"Amazing. I thought you were just a healer who goes down to Limbus Pit. Do you also have another line of work?"
"No, nothing like that. I do similar work myself. I read the traces left on a patient's body and find the invisible illness. Since the methodology is the same, there's nothing surprising about it, isn't that right?"
The girl's face brightened.
Her languid gaze was already sparkling.
"You must be a very skilled healer."
"It's a trivial talent. So, young lady, was my guess right?"
No sooner had I finished speaking than, as if she'd been waiting for it, the young lady began laying out her deductions.
"Yes. First, the color difference between the backs of your hands and your palms that you mentioned. There's a reddish-brown to yellow-brown stain on your neck and the backs of your hands. That kind of discoloration doesn't come from the air in Sanctum Hill. It only appears if you regularly go beyond the Red Copper Wall, and even into fairly deep areas."
"But I wash my hands often. And I wear a mask too."
"That's why only those two parts had a different color."
Her gaze then moved to my shoes.
"I deduced the D-Sector from the animal fat stuck to your shoes."
"Ah, the welt on my shoes has changed color, hasn't it."
"Yes. You probably frequent a slaughterhouse, and a lot of blood and fat must have gotten on that area."
"Indeed, even if you clean shoes every day, traces like that always tend to remain between the welt seams. Excellent deduction, Miss Charlotte."
At my praise, the young lady grinned.
"It's only the basics, Young Lord Nihirit."
"True. Basic deduction."
In response, she offered a faint smile and extended her hand.
I took that lovely hand in mine.
"Yulian Schnabel Nihirit."
"I'm Charlotte von Hausen."
The inspector watching this showed surprise in his eyes.
"My goodness... Charlotte initiated a handshake first."
Judging by the earlier exchange and reaction, I could more or less tell what kind of character this young lady named Charlotte was.
The name Charlotte von Hausen.
The ability to read traces on a person's body the moment she met them.
Social skills enough to make the inspector react like that.
Anyone with enough web-novel mileage would know exactly who this young lady was modeled after.
'What on earth was the original work about?'
No, I mean, sure—mixing magic with punk and even medicine is one thing.
But Sherlock Holmes too?
'The character lineup in this misunderstanding story is art.'
Then here's the problem.
The original work's protagonist, meaning 'me,' is a doctor character.
And the girl in front of me is modeled after Sherlock Holmes.
Then, by the conventions of the genre, what role am I supposed to have?
'So I was Watson, huh.'
That much I was certain of.
What kind of character the original Yulian Schnabel Nihirit had been.
'As expected, a misunderstanding-story protagonist should be an ordinary commoner.'
A doctor with average skill, as diligent as the average doctor, and a little fond of gambling.
Except for the last part, he wasn't all that different from me now.