Chapter 424

424 The Poisoned Wine

Benson Walton’s POV:

Bertha looked as stiff as I was, and she almost tripped over her left foot and fell when she left. I subconsciously tried to help her, but her servant was one step ahead of me. Bersha didn’t say anything and hurriedly apologized to me for her loss of self-control. She then left with her servants.

Only then did I retract my hand that was frozen in mid-air and watch her disappear around the corner. I silently retracted my gaze and continued working.

After that, there was nothing much to say. The journey was calm, and there was no danger. Naturally, there was no need for me to cooperate with anyone.

It was rare to encounter such a peaceful mission.

However, things would not always be smooth sailing. Just when I thought the mission had ended safely, a bolt from the blue came. General Aldrich was poisoned after drinking the special wine from the welfare supplies!

As the person in charge of the supplies, I was naturally locked up as the most suspicious person.

I didn’t poison the wine supply, even though no one believed me. What made me even more distressed was the choice of the murderer.

The wine came from the palace’s wine cellar, a royal tribute. Every bottle had been checked 800 times before being put into the cellar, so there was no problem. This meant that the bottle of wine had been tampered with during the transfer, transportation, and distribution.

Every day, I would personally go and check the supplies. I could guarantee that Aldrich’s specially sealed supplies had not been opened at all, which meant that the poison was injected into the wine during the process of mixing or distribution.

It would have been fine if it was during the distribution, as the people who handled it were all from the Spring Rain Pack. The noble lady from Selma’s side would not be so stupid as not to investigate this point.

However, if the poison came from the process of extraction...

I couldn’t help but think of Bertha.

Wouldn’t she also become the most suspicious person? After all, as the acting head servant, she must have had access to the key to the wine cellar. She was more capable than anyone else in the palace of poisoning a bottle of wine without anyone noticing.

If you stayed in the mobile patrol team for too long, you would become suspicious of everything in the world. Thus, I couldn’t help but suspect Bertha.

However, I quickly rejected this conjecture, not because I had any evidence, but because of my irrational feelings. Bertha was a kind and grateful girl. The royal family had done her incredible kindness, so she would never poison Aldrich!

This was based entirely on my biased judgment, but I couldn’t control myself from finding excuses for Bertha’s innocence.

I wasn’t the only one who could think of all this. After being locked up for an entire day, I was interrogated again. This time, it was the noble lady herself.

“Hello, Mr. Walton.” Her expression was cold, but she surprisingly didn’t have any hostility towards me. I could see the fatigue on her face that she couldn’t hide. The heavy workload and pressure had probably robbed her of any power to generate unnecessary emotions. This was a daily occurrence for everyone on the mobile patrol team.

“Hello, Ms. Charlies.” Her name and position were written on her badge, so I knew she must have come to me because of the poisoned wine case. “What do you want from me?”

“Let’s make the long story short.”

Jordin Charlies put a dozen reports on the table and motioned for me to look. I flipped through them and found that they were test reports.

The test subject was the bottle of wine that had put Aldrich in danger. In addition to alcohol, aromatic amine, sugar, and other common ingredients in wine, there were also some things that should not have appeared, including silver and holy water, the two great weapons against werewolves.

In addition, a handwritten report by a werewolf grandmaster mentioned that the wine contained some very evil concentrated power, which wrapped the silver and holy water.

There was also Aldrich’s own blood within. The wine bottle was engraved with a very secret witchcraft. Only when it came into contact with someone with the same blood source would the witchcraft catalyze the reaction of evil power, silver, and holy water. After the three were combined, they would form a ‘poison’ that would attack the body and soul at the same time.

This was simply a trap that was directed at Aldrich.

According to the magic fluctuation test, the sorcery on the wine bottle came from about five days ago, the day the wine was loaded into the car.

Ms. Charlies spoke, her tired eyes flashing with unconcealed anger derived from irritation and exhaustion.

“As the person in charge, you followed the entire process of mixing and loading the wine into the truck. The palace has confirmed that you have not touched any wine during this process, so the traces on your body have been washed away for the time being.”

I didn’t feel relieved at all, even though she said that. I knew that there must be more painful things waiting for me. At that moment, fresh flowers, a clay pot, paella, and a snow-white apron suddenly appeared in front of me. I almost wanted to shout to stop Ms. Charlies from saying what she would say next.

However, the reality was that I was like a block of wood, motionless. I looked expressionlessly at Ms. Charlies’ mouth, opening and closing, throwing out the question I didn’t want to answer the most.

“As an outstanding member of the mobile patrol team, the palace believes in your judgment. So please tell me, from a professional point of view, who are the most suspicious of all the people who came into contact with the wine supply that day?”