The drizzle that started in the afternoon continued until the evening, and even showed a tendency to get heavier. Xia De hoped that the rain would stop before the night operation, but it was still drizzling until Dr. Schneider and Miss Louisa arrived.
The rain formed a curtain, falling from the eaves at the entrance of the Shade family like falling beads. The warm yellow gas lamp in the courtyard was lit, blurred by the rain. In the strange halo, the doctor in rain boots arrived at No. 6 St. Teresa's Square first on this humid night, followed by Miss Louisa who came in a carriage.
"Good evening, Shad."
The doctor was surprised when she called Shad by his name, but he said nothing, for a middle-aged man would not interfere with the relationship between young people.
There were two targets tonight, Mr. Ponton from the East City Steam Engine Screw Factory and Mr. Roosevelt, the accountant at the Star Grass Public Tobesk Nursing Home. After the three of them met up, they planned their route in Shade's study by comparing the city map.
Finally, I decided to go to the accountant, Mr. Roosevelt, first.
According to Mr. Schneider's investigation today, the accountant would live in the nursing home during weekdays and go home on Sundays, and the Star Grass Nursing Home is closer to St. Teresa's Square.
Dr. Schneider paid for the trip, and the three of them got on a horse-drawn carriage and headed for the nursing home. The rainy summer day was exceptionally cool, and the city was silent in the sound of rain. The gas lamps in the upper city and the candlelight in the lower city were all part of this era.
The Star Grass Nursing Home is a public nursing home, and of course, you need to spend some gold pounds to enter. The three of them got off the car at the intersection, Xia De and Miss Louisa stood guard on both sides of the street with umbrellas, and Dr. Schneider entered the nursing home alone.
There would be no pedestrians on such a rainy night, and the surroundings seemed to be surrounded by damp air and darkness. Standing at the intersection and looking around, Xia De thought that if the action of peeping into the door in the alley when he went to visit the girl Sophie last Saturday night seemed like a horror story, then the current scene was probably very similar to a detective or spy novel.
It took the blue-eyed doctor only fifteen minutes to walk out of the nursing home wrapped in his coat, and it seemed that he moved smoothly.
"I entered his dream and saw what the Mercury Blood asked him to preserve. A black cloak and a colorful cookie box that must not be opened. The former must not be exposed to sunlight, and I remember the latter was a poet-level relic cannibal cookie box that could devour living people and turn them into cookies. These are not what I'm looking for."
He lowered his voice in the rain and waved to the two of them:
"I got other information in my dream. Accountant Roosevelt helped Mercury Blood sell the stolen goods. I don't know much about their affairs. There are no more clues here. Let's go to the next target."
Dr. Schneider's ability to enter people's dreams is extremely convenient when dealing with ordinary people.
Mr. Ponton, who owns a steam engine screw factory in the east of the city, is not considered a powerful rich man in a place like Tobesk. He has his own big house in the east of Tobesk, which covers an area of about twice that of the Shade family.
This is a special residential area, and people who can live here at least cross the bottom line of the so-called "middle class".
It was still Xia De and Miss Louisa who were on guard outside. Dr. Schneider nimbly climbed over the fence outside the yard and followed the gravel path to find the direction of the bedroom.
This time he came back even faster. Xia De had the ability to sense time and knew exactly that it only took him two minutes and eighteen seconds.
Not only was Shad surprised, but even Miss Louisa was surprised by the doctor's quick action. The three of them held umbrellas and listened to the sound of rain. When they met at the gate of Mr. Ponton's yard, Miss Louisa congratulated him:
"Doctor, your thaumaturgy is getting better and better. It took you ten minutes half an hour ago, but now it only takes three minutes to get information from a dream."
"What's getting worse? Something big has happened..."
Thunder roared across the sky, and the sudden white light illuminated Miss Louisa's wet hair and the expression of deep disbelief on Dr. Schneider's face.
Then, the rumbling thunder sounded from afar, and the sound seemed to shake the whole world.
Xia De, who was also in the rain, looked at the dark street with his peripheral vision, holding the umbrella and feeling the vibration of the dense raindrops hitting the umbrella. The light of the gas street lamps on the street became even dimmer in the rainy night, and the light could only be reduced to a small area under the street lamps, and even the flying insects could not be seen flying around the street lamps.
Xia De doesn't like this kind of weather. He now envies the cat who can lie on the windowsill in his warm and dry home, listening to the sound of rain and resting.
The doctor pointed to the mansion behind him in the rain, ignoring the rain. Shade came to his senses and followed Miss Louisa to look over:
"Everyone inside is dead."
Generally speaking, a ringmaster would not take the initiative to get involved in troublesome things that had nothing to do with him. But for the fake Philosopher's Stone, the five members of the team almost faced the evil god directly in Lakeview Manor. Now even if everyone inside died, the doctor would not give up the investigation.
On the contrary, the death of an ordinary person related to mercury blood just shows that there is a high possibility that he may contain important clues.
In order to prevent the Church of the True God from causing trouble for "destroying the crime scene", the doctor prepared shoe covers, gloves and hats for everyone before entering the house with only dead people, and Miss Louisa tied up her long hair with a rope. Of course, they could not predict what would happen tonight, but according to the doctor, it was his habit to carry these things when he went out.
It was hard for Shad to imagine what kind of "big thing" Dr. Schneider had done.
The house was divided into three floors, and the doctor had just climbed in through the window. But now that they were sure there were no living people inside, they went directly in through the front door. It wasn't that they used magic or spells to unlock the door, the female writer poked it with a hairpin a few times, and the lock opened.
As they entered the front door, dampness immediately rushed into the house. The house was completely dark, and suddenly there was another thunder that broke through the night sky. In the light of lightning, they saw a woman dressed as a servant lying in the hallway, with a pool of black blood under her.
"He's been dead for at least two hours."
The psychiatrist crouched down to examine the body, while Shad and Miss Louisa hid their umbrellas in the shadows beside the door and went inside. Closing the door blocked the sound of the rain and prevented passersby from noticing anything.
The psychiatrist's autopsy skills were also quite good. He then used the faint light in his hand to check the fatal wound. The light spell was indeed a very common spell:
"The weapon, similar to a dagger, was stabbed directly into the heart, killing him instantly. The method was very experienced."
"Could it be that the short sword-like relic in his care got out of control?"
Because of the "fish scale" incident last week, Shad thought of this possibility, and Miss Louisa seemed to think the same way.
"This possibility cannot be ruled out..."
The doctor looked into the darkness around him and asked again:
"Does your other self feel the whispering element?"
Both Xia De and Miss Louisa pretended to listen attentively:
"No."
Both of them said.
But this doesn't mean anything. Even if the relic is out of control, it won't be able to sense the elements from 800 miles away. The last time they faced the fishman, Shade and Miss Louisa saw that guy and got the clue.
Dr. Schneider made way, and Shade and Miss Louisa went forward to examine the body. But they could not find anything. Shade's fingertips shone with a faint silver light, and under the light, he looked into the corpse's eyes that were still open after death.
He thought of something and blinked. Although the moisture from the rain pouring in from the door diluted the smell of blood, he could still see very faint bloodstains in the air extending into the house.
As a murder weapon, there is no reason why a knife should not be stained with blood.
Then he tried the echo of the past, but unfortunately all he heard were messy fragments of daily life. This kind of place where people live is not a good scene for this spell to work.
"Did you see any blood?"
Seeing that Shade was staring straight ahead, the blonde girl who had worked with Shade once asked in a low voice.
Xia De nodded. While Miss Louisa was explaining to the doctor, he turned his head to look at the door and lowered his voice so that it could just cover the sound of rain outside:
"There is no blood in the direction of the door. The blood extends into the interior of the house. This shows that the possible murderer continued to move inside after committing the crime here and never came back."
He analyzed quietly.
"You're a detective indeed!"
Dr. Schneider also lowered his voice and patted Shade on the shoulder:
"Very good, then follow the direction of the bloodstains. We have already destroyed the scene, so if we can't find the fake Philosopher's Stone, write down the clues we found and leave them here. The church will also know that we, the correspondence ring sorcerers, are not all troublemakers."
Doing this is actually asking for trouble.
Shad was in front, the doctor walked beside him, and Miss Louisa was at the end. With the silver moonlight on Shad's fingertips and the sound of rain outside gradually getting heavier, they continued to go deeper into the house.
The second body was found in the restaurant. A 15-year-old boy was lying on the dining table. After careful inspection, it was found that his neck was cut directly by a sharp weapon.
"The bloodstains were not in a mess nearby, which means that after the knife was brought here, the person killed the victim with one blow and left immediately, so the knife's trajectory did not become a mess nearby."
As Xia De spoke, he turned around and looked around the restaurant. Apart from the area around the corpse, there were no obvious bloodstains left today anywhere else. The murderer did not stay here.
"The killing method was very sophisticated."
Miss Louisa commented, looking around the dimly lit kitchen while the doctor examined the body's eyes.
"Look, there are two sets of silver tableware here. How rich! No, not ordinary silver tableware, this is..."
The blonde frowned as she pulled open the cupboard.
"An antique from the Norov dynasty? Does this factory owner still have this?"