Chapter 13
“Oh my, I’m sorry. I was lost in thought for a moment.”
Kent scratched her flushed cheek as if it had truly been a mistake.
Beneath the table where the Bureau agents couldn’t see, Wesson gave Kent a discreet thumbs-up.
As the head of the investigative team, Raven should have reprimanded his subordinates for inappropriate behavior, but he pretended not to notice—because he felt the same as they did.
Chase’s analysis was nothing but the barking of a dog.
No—that wasn’t right.
A dog barks for a reason, so calling such baseless nonsense “dog barking” was actually an insult to dogs.
‘Still, even blunder-prone Kent can be useful sometimes.’
The clueless slip had broken Chase’s momentum as neatly as a calculated maneuver would have.
Thanks to that, the Central Bureau’s shameless attempt to seize the initiative faltered, giving Raven the perfect opening to step forward.
“Agent Chase, anyway, thank you for your input. A very fascinating analysis.”
Raven threw back at the Central Bureau the very words Chase had once used to belittle the Eden City Police Department.
‘As expected, our captain had a plan!’
The moment their leader opened fire with a counterattack, the faces of the police officers already lit up with confidence.
“But it’s truly a shame—it isn’t a correct analysis.”
“Then could you tell us in what way it is wrong?”
Raven didn’t answer right away. Instead, he deliberately paused, wearing an apologetic expression.
“Well now… since not a single part of it is correct from beginning to end, I’m worried about where to start without hurting Agent Chase’s feelings.”
He treated Chase as though he were a sulking child who might pout at being corrected. A faint crack appeared in Chase’s forced smile. But in an instant, Chase slipped back into the guise of a seasoned fox.
“Please, speak freely, Inspector Hunt.”
He spread his arms wide as if to show just how generous his heart was.
“Opinions are always welcome.”
Even though Raven had just declared his entire analysis wrong, Chase deliberately downgraded his rebuttal to nothing more than “an opinion.”
‘So, he wants to save face.’
And that only made Raven all the more eager to crush him.
“The Crow Thief is from the upper class? Wrong.”
“Your evidence?”
“The tone may be a little haughty, but the vocabulary and intonation are far removed from those of the upper class.”
Raven recalled the night the Scarlet Queen’s Heart had been stolen—the brief moment when he’d actually exchanged words with the woman.
“I can vouch for that personally, as someone who spoke face-to-face with her.”
Raven, after all, knew the language of the upper classes very well. Chase knew this too, so he couldn’t seize on it as a weakness.
“But isn’t that something you can tell even without speaking to her directly? The warning letter carries the Crow Thief’s language habits intact.”
The Central Bureau agents began rifling through their copies of the investigation materials, searching for the photograph of the warning letter.
“I assumed the Central Bureau would have naturally figured that much out as well.”
If they’d actually read the letter, they would know the thief didn’t use upper-class vocabulary or grammar. To miss such a basic detail—unthinkable.
His roundabout remark landed, and one of the Bureau agents, unable to bear being treated like a fool, interjected.
“Of course we’re aware of that. But we can’t rule out the possibility that the thief deliberately used commoners’ speech to hide her true identity.”
It was a laughable excuse.
“That may be possible, but when people are under pressure, their natural way of speaking always comes out.”
Raven cited the moment at the museum when he had grabbed the Crow Thief by the ankle.
“Hey! Are you out of your mind?!”
Even then, her blunt words had been nothing like the speech of the upper class.
“Therefore, the Crow Thief is not from the upper class.”
No one could refute him any further. As the Bureau agents’ uneasy gazes shifted toward him, Chase put on a fake smile and nodded.
“Inspector Hunt is correct.”
For someone who hated losing to Raven, it seemed strange that he would concede so easily…
“But it seems there was a misunderstanding. By ‘upper class,’ I meant the wealthy. Allow me to revise my expression to ‘the affluent.’”
He twisted words to make it sound as though his expression—not his analysis—had been wrong.
“The Crow Thief appears to be a nouveau riche commoner with an inferiority complex toward the upper class. They may have struck it rich, but no matter how much money they have, they can’t enter high society, and so that inferiority grows.”
He even slyly revised his analysis.
“That’s why she steals from the upper class—those jewels money alone can’t buy—and derives a warped thrill from it.”
And he didn’t stop there. He went on about unquenchable inferiority, vanity, and the desire to show off.
‘Isn’t he just describing himself?’
At this point, Raven could almost pity him.
Desperate not to lose, Chase was thrashing about—without realizing that he was only digging his own grave deeper.
“I won’t bother pointing out the fact that, if you’d read the investigation records, you’d know the Crow Thief hasn’t stolen exclusively from the upper class.”
Which, of course, pointed it out all the same.
“Rather, what shocks me is the assumption that theft is driven by inferiority.”
Chase folded his arms and asked,
“Then, Inspector Hunt, what do you think motivates the Crow Thief to steal jewels?”
“Coercion.”
Thunk.
At that moment, Claire Kent dropped her pencil.
“The Crow Thief steals because someone is forcing her to.”
But Raven, engrossed in his struggle for dominance with the Central Bureau, didn’t notice.
“I also think she’s stealing under duress,” Lieutenant Wesson added in support of his superior.
“If the jewels aren’t being sold, but instead offered up to someone, that would make sense.”
Raven nodded in agreement and moved on to his next point.
“If, as Agent Chase assumes, the motivation is inferiority, vanity, or the urge to show off, then the thief would have to flaunt the stolen jewels to satisfy that lack. So why hasn’t the culprit boasted about them?”
“Because if she did, she’d be exposed?”
“Even if she holds back, human desire eventually breaks through. One way or another, they would have shown them off. Yet in the past ten years, not a single report has surfaced of those jewels being seen again.”
“They could be showing off something other than the jewels.”
“Please elaborate, Agent Chase.”
“If they’re compensating for that lack by flaunting their skill and daring in slipping through every trap we set? That brazen warning letter itself is proof of their vanity, isn’t it?”
“It’s a plausible idea, but unfortunately, an incorrect deduction.”
“Then please elaborate, Inspector Hunt.”
“The Crow Thief’s warning letters always contained false information.”
The time and place would be accurate, but the object to be stolen would be wrong, throwing the pursuit into confusion every time.
“In other words, even while writing the letters, this person was trying hard not to get caught. If the letters were meant to boast of skill and courage, why would they include what amounts to a confession—‘I am a coward’?”
“……”
“The warning letters too were written under coercion.”
“Your evidence?”
“The last warning letter.”
Right after nearly being captured at the museum—a time when anyone would have lain low—the woman wrote everything with striking honesty. Even though she didn’t want to be caught.
“That means whoever forced her to write the letters had ordered her to be precise from then on.”
Three years. That was how long Raven had spent searching for a motive that could tie together all the contradictions of this unique criminal.
“There is only one hypothesis that fits all these absurd actions like pieces of a single puzzle: this person doesn’t want to steal, but is being forced into it.”
And his theory gained even more weight from Lady Doris Hunt’s sharp observation.
“Take this, then…”
When she had tried to hand the Crow Thief the emerald necklace for free, the thief had refused.
“I can’t accept it if it’s given.”
Receiving was not allowed. In other words, it had to be taken—stolen—by form.
In that moment, the thief’s reaction had resembled a subordinate employee, afraid of being scolded by their employer for breaking the rules.
In other words, someone being blackmailed into committing crimes they had no desire to commit…
