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((The Mon/Wen/Fri Double -- page 1 of 2))
'What made you think that this trail of poisonings led to my family?' said Hanton.

Hector considered whether to answer that or not. He couldn't see much harm in it, but he was still reluctant, perhaps because he'd already been fairly forthcoming and didn't wish to overplay his hand. "Why does that matter?" he asked.

'I want to know if you might simply be mistaken or if someone is attempting to frame us.'

Hmm. Were those the only two possible options? Off the top of his head, Hector could think of at least one more in which Hanton was guilty and lying about it. But he didn't want to say that. All he had was a name in a ledger. That was evidence of a connection but not proof of wrongdoing.

'...Does this have something to do with the Vanguard?' said Hanton. 'Is that why you asked about our relationship with them?'

Actually. Wait just a second here.

Hanton could actually be telling the truth here, couldn't he? Hector suddenly felt like a bit of a dumbass, because those two questions just now had caused him to think of a good reason why the Gaolanets were very unlikely to be responsible for the poisonings.

The Vanguard had been run out of Atreya almost a decade ago, right? So, essentially, the basic theory was that the Gaolanets had been poisoning the Vanguard's informants in order to cripple their information network.

But there had been a poisoning only about a month ago. In fact, that case was what had put Hector and Garovel onto this trail in the first place. So if the Gaolanets were responsible for that poisoning, too, then what the hell had their motive been? The Vanguard wasn't even here, anymore.

He supposed that line of reasoning still didn't exonerate Hanton and his family entirely, but it was a decent strike in their favor, he felt.

Agh, so then who else could be behind these goddamn poisonings? Could they really be unrelated?

Man, Hector felt like kind of an asshole all of a sudden, like he should've thought of all this before even coming here.