Because the people who went out did not return, the two men thought that they should wait for everyone to come back and have dinner together. But this wait, until half past twelve. They stood at the main gate of the villa, looking worriedly at the snowstorm outside. Now the visibility is very low, and there is only a vast expanse of whiteness in the distance.
People who go out must carry a pocket watch, and it is impossible to forget the time. Seeing that they hadn't come back, Mr. Joel Bangkoks was going to gather people to go out and look for them.
As the property of the Mandela family, this villa is usually leased as a tourist resort, so there are a lot of staff in the villa. For safety's sake, the robust servants went out in groups of three to search, while Jenkins and Quick could only stay in the villa and wait for news.
The snow outside was getting bigger and bigger, and the main entrance of the villa couldn't even be fully opened, otherwise the strong wind rushing into the building would blow vases, oil paintings and all kinds of unstable decorations to the ground.
The first group of servants who went out to search came back from the snow half an hour later. They just walked around the main body of the villa, but found no trace of the missing persons.
"The snow is really too big!"
Those who came back had snowflakes on their hats and shoulders, and they were so cold that they couldn't even utter a complete sentence:
"Oh, Mr. Steward, we haven't found any traces where they went out to see the snow."
The second search party went to the bridge and brought back sad news.
"What? The bridge is broken?"
Quick almost dropped the teacup he was holding on the carpet.
"It doesn't matter, sir. This situation was considered at the beginning of the construction of this mountain villa. Although the bridge is the only way to go out in name, in fact, there is a slightly further way to go out of the mountain. It’s just that the road is difficult to walk, and people can only be sent out after the snow stops, please rest assured that the broken bridge will not affect us.”
Mr. Joel Bangkoks, the administrator of the villa, reassured the two, but he also looked worried.
The accident of the broken bridge cast a faint haze on the villa. At least people have understood psychologically that they are now completely isolated from the world.
The heavy snow caused the footprints to be quickly covered, which greatly hindered the search. Even though the weather outside is extremely unsuitable for going out, Mr. Bangkoks, who knew the identity of the missing person, still asked the servants to look for it over and over again. He knew very well that even if one person left his life in these mountains, both he and his master would suffer extremely terrible punishments.
Hathaway definitely left the vicinity of the villa, and Jenkins' eyes couldn't see the aura representing her. As time went on, he also became a little restless, seeing that Quick was the same, so he suggested:
"Let's go out and take a look together. Although this is dangerous, we can't just wait like this."
Quick only hesitated before agreeing to Jenkins' proposal. The two went to Mr. Bangkok and explained their plan, but of course Bangkok did not agree. But they couldn't stand the repeated requests of the two people, and they promised to follow the team every step of the way, so they agreed to go out with them.
The mountains and forests in winter are full of dangers, and every team that goes out to search will carry a shotgun. This old-fashioned shotgun is very difficult to use, but at least it has no problem scaring off creatures such as wolves at close range.
At 2:10 in the afternoon, Jenkins stepped out of the gate of the manor together with three other servants of the villa. Everyone is wearing heavy cotton clothes, and it is pointless to use an umbrella in this weather, because it will only be delayed by the strong wind.
They planned to walk westward along the path outside the villa for 20 minutes, returning on time regardless of whether they could find clues or not.
The weather outside was worse than Jenkins imagined, and the snowflakes were blown on the face by the wind like stones. Even covering a large part of the face with a hat and scarf cannot prevent this condition.
Everything around him looked like white mist, and he walked forward in the snow with one deep foot and one shallow foot, occasionally holding the cedar beside him with his hands to catch his breath. If it wasn't necessary, Jenkins would never go out in such weather. He already missed the warmth of the room.
"What time is it?"
He took a heavy breath, then turned around to ask his companion loudly, but unexpectedly found that there was no one behind him.
"Quinn? Marple? Rain?"
He called out the names of the servants loudly again, but behind him was only a row of his own footprints stretching from afar.
"Isn't it still there just now?"
That was at most five minutes ago, and the four of them discussed together whether they were on the right path.
"Hello~ is there anyone?"
He yelled again, then gave up completely and moved on, turned around and walked backwards along the footprints that had not been completely covered. He soon found some blood from the snow, and then the shotgun that had been left in the snow.
The blood was fresh, which meant it was left by a wounded companion. But Jenkins couldn't hold his head up because of the wind and snow. He didn't know where to look for those missing people.
"Wild wolves following us? Or some other carnivorous creature?"
He tried to find non-human footprints on the snow surface, but the wind and snow had already covered up those tiny traces.
As a last resort, he unbuttoned his chest and pulled out the cat who followed him out but was unwilling to walk by himself. Poor Chocolate had never seen such a terrible weather. He grabbed Jenkins' coat and struggled desperately to drill in, but he didn't want to come out.
"I just borrowed your nose, did you see that piece of blood? I wonder if there is any strange smell around here, and where did this smell go?"
"Meow~"
It retracted into the clothes again while Jenkins let go.
"Alright alright."
He was determined to deal with this ignorant cat after he got home. He squatted down with difficulty and scraped the snow with his cotton-gloved hands. It took a few minutes to find a new bloodstain. Obviously, the direction of the bloodstains extended to the outside of the path. Although the snow-covered road could no longer be distinguished, Jenkins' sense of direction still reminded him that that direction was not the correct path.
Just like this, he walked forward while checking the blood stains, and after a while, he saw some physical stumps. Walking forward quickly, I saw the footprints of dense wild animals, and then found a pack of wolves eating in the open space.
Unintelligent wild animals obviously have a higher sensitivity. They knew that Jenkins was a dangerous monster, so they gave up attacking him after dragging away three companions.