Chapter 173 - 172: The True Culprit Behind Barbra Fien’s Death

The newspaper office was smaller than Eleanore expected. It was a cramped, ink-stained building tucked between a print shop and a tailor’s, with stacks of old papers piled haphazardly against every wall. The moment she and Victor stepped through the door, the young clerk at the front desk went visibly pale.

"We’re looking for Pat Pattison," Victor said, tone even but carrying enough weight that the clerk straightened immediately.

"He’s, um—" The clerk’s eyes darted toward the back hallway. "He should be in his office, let me just—"

The sound of a door slamming somewhere further back answered the question before the clerk could finish the sentence.

Victor was moving before Eleanore had even fully registered what happened, coat flaring behind him as he pushed past the front desk and down the narrow hallway. She followed at a slower pace, catching only the tail end of it. A back door swinging wildly on its hinges, Victor already threw it out into the alley beyond, quick and sure-footed in a way that made it clear he’d chased down more than a few reluctant informants in his time.

She reached the doorway just in time to see it happen: Pattison, sprinting with the particular clumsy desperation of a man wholly unsuited to running, made it barely twenty feet before Victor caught up, one hand closing firmly around his collar and yanking him to a stop with more patience than force.

"Going somewhere?" Victor asked, mild as anything, as though he hadn’t just sprinted the length of an alley in dress shoes.

"I don’t know anything!" Pattison’s voice came out high and frantic, his arms flailing uselessly against Victor’s grip. "Whatever you think I did, I didn’t—"

"We haven’t said what we think you did yet," Victor said, already turning him back toward the building with a grip that left no room for further argument. "Which makes the running rather suspicious, don’t you think?"

Pattison didn’t have a response for that.

By the time Victor deposited him into the private meeting room at the back of the office, Pattison had gone from frantic to visibly, thoroughly terrified. A transformation that only deepened the moment he registered exactly who was sitting calmly at the head of the table, waiting for him.

Eleanore said nothing at first. She simply watched him, hands folded neatly in front of her, expression carefully composed into something cool and unreadable, the same expression she’d once used to unsettle board members twice her age into reconsidering whatever terrible proposal they’d walked in with.

It worked considerably faster on Pattison.

"Grand Duchess Lancaster," he said, voice cracking slightly on her title, lowering himself into the offered seat like the chair itself might bite him. "I — I want to say, whatever this is about, I’m sure we can—"

"Sit still," Eleanore said, quiet and even, "and don’t talk until I ask you something."

He snapped his mouth shut immediately.

The silence that followed stretched long enough to be its own kind of pressure, Eleanore letting it sit there deliberately while Pattison’s hands twisted anxiously in his lap, his eyes flicking between her and Victor, who had positioned himself by the door with arms crossed, blocking the only exit with the casual, immovable presence of a man who had no intention of letting this conversation end early.

"Barbra Fein," Eleanore said finally.

Whatever color remained in Pattison’s face drained out entirely.

"I don’t—" he started, then stopped himself at the look she gave him, swallowing hard instead. "I don’t know that name."

"You wrote the article," Eleanore said, sliding one of Marina’s recovered clippings across the table toward him, his own byline printed plainly at the bottom. "Several, actually. All naming me as the prime suspect in her death. And then, two days later, every single one of them simply vanished, along with any further mention of her case." She leaned forward slightly, voice dropping lower, sharper. "So let’s try this again. Barbra Fein."

Pattison stared down at the clipping like it might somehow save him from the conversation, hands trembling faintly against the table’s edge. "I was paid," he said finally, voice barely above a whisper. "To write it. And then paid again, considerably more, to make sure it disappeared."

"By whom?"

He hesitated, glancing toward the door, toward Victor’s unmoving frame, and seemed to realize all at once that there was no version of this conversation where he simply got to walk away without answering.

"I don’t know the name," he said quickly, before Eleanore’s expression could darken further. "I swear it. It was arranged through a third party, someone I never met directly. The instructions came by letter, the money came in cash, and I was told very clearly that asking questions would not be a good idea for my health."

"Convenient," Eleanore said flatly.

"It’s the truth." Pattison’s voice cracked again, some genuine fear bleeding into it now. "I write gossip columns, Duchess. I’m not brave enough to lie to your face right now, not with him standing there." He gestured weakly toward Victor. "Whoever they were, they wanted the blame to land on you specifically. That part wasn’t vague at all. The letter was very clear that your name needed to be attached to it, and then just as clear that it needed to disappear before anyone actually investigated the death itself."

Eleanore sat back slowly, the pieces settling into place with cold, deliberate clarity. Someone had wanted her blamed, not exposed, not ruined, just quietly, deniably associated with a death that had never actually been investigated. And then, just as quickly, they’d wanted it buried before anyone asked the one question that actually mattered.

"Who killed her, then?" Eleanore asked. "If not me."

Pattison shook his head slowly, and for once, the fear in his expression looked entirely genuine. "I don’t know," he said. "But whoever set this up clearly does. And I don’t think they wanted anyone finding out."

|| Chapter 1: The Woman Named Barbra

Barbra was known to be a very gentle and kind woman of the kingdom. She was always quiet and had no enemy. Until she fell for the wrong person and tried to win him over only to be trampled on completely by the queen of the social circle, Eleanore Sinclair (You)

Quest 1: Death Case Of Lady Barbra Fein

Task 1: Who killed Lady Barbra?

Do you accept the task?

Yes/No

Note: Reward: +100,000 reputationPenalty: -200,000 coins

Total Reputation: -100,000Total Coins: +90,100||