“Antiques? Are they valuable?”
The doctor asked casually while examining the corpse, and Shade, who was inspecting the surrounding bloodstains, listened in. The sound of the rain was loud, forcing the three of them to raise their voices to communicate.
Silver cutlery remained a symbol of status in this era. In adventure novels, there were frequent tropes of maids eloping with lovers, stealing their master's silver cutlery to exchange for travel funds and living expenses. If the silver cutlery were antiques, they would be even more valuable.
“Extremely valuable. Even for a noble of a Count's rank, owning these two sets of silver cutlery would be enough for them to be treated as family heirlooms.”
Miss Louisa once again displayed her mastery of “useless knowledge,” which most likely came from another princess.
Shade turned and asked
“That’s strange. Didn't the doctor's investigation say that this factory owner was merely an agent holding the Tobesk properties on behalf of [Mercury Blood]? He himself shouldn't be wealthy.”
He then looked suspiciously at the boy's corpse, forming a deduction
“Could it be...”
“It's too early to say. Let's keep moving forward.”
The doctor returned the body to its original position and offered a quiet prayer for the boy amidst the sound of rain drumming against the glass, signaling to the other two that they could leave.
After leaving the kitchen, the bloodstains looped back to the living room and then headed toward the stairs.
A brutal scene awaited them on the stairs: the corpses of the old woman and the middle-aged housewife were locked in an embrace. Thick blood dripped down the carpeted stairs, leaving the three of them with almost nowhere to step.
After examining them, Mr. Schneider discovered that the two surprisingly had no obvious external wounds; the blood seemed to have flowed entirely from their mouths.
“It looks like a curse,” Miss Louisa judged. The doctor nodded in agreement
“I also believe it is a curse triggered by occult arts. After entering the door, the maid was killed in one strike, then the killer entered the kitchen to kill the young boy. When looping back to the living room, they encountered the two ladies coming down the stairs and immediately used a spell or occult art to make them vomit blood and die. There is no doubt that the killer is a Circle Caster.”
Shade looked around alertly to prevent anything from leaping out of the darkness, then jumped slightly at another crash of thunder
“If there is any abnormality, remember to alert me in time,” he said softly in his mind.
【No problem,】 the whispering voice replied.
Perhaps because the blood loss from the two corpses was so great, the killer's boots finally picked up bloodstains here. The stains were faint, still requiring Shade's eyes to distinguish them. The bloodstains on the boots only pointed toward the upper floor, not the lower.
Meanwhile, the two examining the bodies made a new discovery. In the middle-aged housewife's neck, the doctor found a pearl necklace. According to Miss Louisa's on-the-spot appraisal, the necklace was worth at least 3,000 pounds.
“This is definitely jewelry that this factory owner could not afford,” Shade remarked, and the three continued upstairs.
No one suggested taking the pearl necklace or the silver cutlery from earlier. They were not bandits, nor were they thieves. Although they had broken into a crime scene on this rainy night and disturbed the evidence, the doctor, the writer, and the outsider all had their own bottom lines.
The sound of rain masked their footsteps as the three reached the second floor. The bloodstains extended into the interior of the floor, where a sixteen-year-old girl with freckles lay flat on her back in the center of the hallway. Her appearance was very similar to the middle-aged housewife on the stairs, but her cause of death was the same as the maid at the door: a sharp blade had pierced her heart directly.
Shade didn't know what to say to this cruel scene. After his examination, the doctor knelt on one knee beside the corpse to pray for her. Only then did Shade realize that Dr. Bill Schneider believed in the Orthodox God [Lord of All Things], also known as the [God of Nature and Malice].
The divine portfolio of this Orthodox God included “Death.” When Shade first arrived in this world, the corpse-bearer who carried away Detective Spyro's body wore the holy symbol of this god.
Miss Louisa was already suppressing her anger
“This is too cruel. What kind of person could do such a thing?”
If they could find the killer, the blonde girl would likely show absolutely no mercy.
Amidst the gradually intensifying rain outside, the party of three followed the silver moonlight at Shade's fingertips, entering three bedrooms on the second floor one after another. The killer seemed to be searching for something, but there were no signs of their footsteps lingering.
Subsequently, the bloodstains guided them to the third floor, the topmost level of the house excluding the attic. The window directly facing the stairwell on the third floor was actually wide open; rain blew into the hallway with the wind, causing the curtains to flutter incessantly. This scene was particularly eerie on this stormy summer night.
“The bloodstains extend into the hallway, but another trail of blood emerges and disappears near the window,” Shade provided the information he saw.
“After the killer entered the third floor, they did something inside and then left through the window?” Miss Louisa deduced, standing behind Shade. Since entering the house, although not previously discussed, the doctor had always stayed by Shade's side, with the female writer walking last.
The doctor cautiously approached the window and looked out. The rainy night was pitch black; even the lights from the nearby neighborhood could not penetrate the curtain of rain. Such heavy rain would wash away bloodstains, meaning Shade could not continue tracking from outside the window.
“Let's check the third floor first to see what he actually did,” the doctor said, frowning as he glanced at the windowsill, then gave Miss Louisa a meaningful look. Miss Louisa immediately understood his meaning and tried to signal Shade, only to find that Shade already had an expression that said, “So that's the trick.”
The blonde girl smiled at him; the killer had clearly underestimated what Shade's “eyes” could see.
Following the bloodstains into the third floor and turning into the study, they finally discovered the body of the master of the house, Mr. Ponton, who operated the screw factory.
The gas lamps on the study walls were off, but the gas desk lamp was lit, illuminating the corpse.
Mr. Ponton was wearing loose loungewear and was slumped over the desk. Shade stood at the study door, Miss Louisa went to check the papers on the desk, and the doctor examined the body
“The cause of death is different from those downstairs. He should have been struck by the spell [Brain Crush]. I noticed the marks on his forehead; this spell, which operates on a principle similar to [Corpse Explosion], is very famous. This way, unless one uses necromancy, no one can know what was inside the deceased's head. What's on the desk?”
“A ledger,” Miss Louisa said.
Raindrops beat against the window, and thunder rumbled overhead. Shade, standing at the door, suddenly looked toward the other side of the hallway
“I think I saw a figure!”
“A figure? Be careful, don't be impulsive.”
The doctor frowned and walked toward the study door, intending to go to the end of the hallway with Shade to investigate. Miss Louisa continued to look down and examine the documents on the desk.
Lightning flashed across the sky. In the interval before the thunder arrived, within the study illuminated by the flash, the figure of a man holding a short knife appeared silently behind Miss Louisa.
He raised the sharp short knife toward the female writer's back.