Shade was playing with the ugly little wooden sculpture in his hand, and the priest suddenly stopped and motioned Shade to look to the side:
"We're here."
Number 12 Hangleton Garden Street was the original residence of the Freeman family. Now the family has moved out of here. The priest who visited them, relying on his strong personal charm, actually borrowed the key of this house which has not yet found a buyer.
The family looked as if they had left in a hurry, and their moving debris was still scattered in the neglected garden, which had grown overgrown with weeds. But they had not been gone for long, so the place looked only slightly messy.
The priest took a bunch of keys and opened the iron lock wrapped around the fence. After walking a dozen steps along the path, he arrived at the door. During this time, neither Shade nor Augustus felt anything unusual.
"From the information we have so far, no one in the family has met with an accident except Mr. Freeman. Mr. Freeman's death also happened over a long period of time, so I don't think the danger here is particularly great."
The priest held the key and said to Shade, who was looking at the garden:
"But don't let your guard down. Whether it's an evil spirit or a relic, they have the ability to kill us directly, so we must be careful later."
"I understand, priest."
The old man nodded, lowered his head, closed his eyes, and prayed softly to Mr. Dawn. Then he held the holy emblem hanging on his chest to confirm that this divine item with exorcism power was fine. Then he used the largest key in the keychain to open the door of the house.
I didn't smell any strange smell after entering the door, but because the house had been closed for a while, after suddenly opening the door, I could see fine dust floating in the air under the sunlight.
Xia De closed the door, then reached out to the wall and turned on the gas light in the hallway.
At this time, priest Augustus held up his holy emblem and turned it evenly around, muttering something. So Shade also used the echo of the past and the echo of blood to check the surrounding situation. The former only allowed him to hear the voices of neighbors passing by the street outside, while the latter did not show any obvious bloodstains.
"It's probably not an evil spirit, but there's definitely something evil here."
The old priest frowned:
"If it is a relic, then we may be in trouble. So, let me take you to see where Mr. Freeman died. He fell from the trap door in the attic, rolled down the stairs connecting the third floor and the second floor, and unfortunately broke his neck."
Even though it was daytime and the place seemed safe, the two had no intention of splitting up and searching separately. It was safest to walk together in such a dangerous place.
The house was almost completely emptied. Only the few sundries scattered on the floor and the traces of dust on the walls from years of picture frames showed that this was once a warm home.
There was no trouble in the process of going upstairs. At the corner of the stairs on the second floor, Shade's eyes finally saw a clear blood-red light. The blood on the ground was distributed in patches, which should be the blood flowing from the places where Mr. Freeman was hit when he fell to the ground.
The old priest squatted down, revealing a corner of the life ring behind him. After the undead rune emitted spiritual light, the priest touched the floor with his hand that was emitting a faint gray light. Shad continued to use the spell and looked up.
What is very strange is that the clear bloodstains not only remain on the landing at the corner of the stairs, but also on the stairs, and spread all the way down from a higher place. Although the amount is not large, it also shows that Mr. Freeman was injured before he rolled down the stairs.
"Was it the injury you sustained when you fell from the attic to the third floor, or was it the injury you sustained in the attic?"
While Shade was thinking, Father Augustus also stood up:
"I felt the fear of the soul. He had experienced great fear before he died. It was not the fear of death. It was completely different from that feeling."
"What happened to Mr. Freeman's body?"
Xia De asked, if there was a corpse, he could actually use the soul to echo directly.
"According to the family's wishes, he was cremated and buried in the public cemetery in Tobesk."
The priest said, looking up with Shade. In fact, even if it is not cremated, according to the current weather, the body may not be enough to support Shade's spiritualism.
"We continued walking up and I saw some blood."
Shade suggested.
So they came to the third floor, and indeed the bloodstains extended from the trapdoor leading to the attic. Shade found the small mechanism to activate the trapdoor from the window, and with the sound of gears turning inside the wall, a square hole appeared in the ceiling, and an iron ladder was lowered down.
The two still could not sense any trace of the elements, so Shad walked in front and the priest followed behind, and they climbed into the attic together.
The attic was also emptied, with only some cardboard boxes left by the wall. The bloodstain appeared from the right side of the attic, but now it was too clean, so it was useless to see the bloodstain.
“In fact, I once doubted it.”
When Shade squatted down to check the cartons, Father Augustus suddenly said:
"I once suspected that all this was actually done by Mrs. Freeman. She made some noises at home to scare Mr. Freeman, and then used drugs to affect his mental state. Finally, she avoided everyone and pushed Mr. Freeman down from the attic, creating the illusion of accidental death."
This speculation was a bit too scary, and it sounded more like a plot from a novel about court politics. Xia De turned to look at the priest in surprise:
"Have you any evidence?"
"No, I'm just guessing based on the darkest side of human nature... Just think of it as me raising a possibility."
But the possibility does exist because they really didn't find anything suspicious in the house.
In the box in the corner of the attic are the paintings of the deceased Mr. Freeman. It is impossible for an artist to sell every painting, not to mention that the practice drawings are worthless to young painters.
The drawings in the box were considered Mr. Freeman's belongings, but for some reason Mrs. Freeman didn't take them away.
The paintings themselves are ordinary items, and the specific painting time is written on the back of each painting. The earliest one was created half a year ago, and the latest one was completed in the last week or two, which is the time when Mr. Freeman claimed that there were problems at home.
In this world, the danger level of the artist profession is not as high as that of a folklorist, but it is greater than that of an ignorant ordinary person. Mental problems will greatly affect the artist's creative style. Mr. Freeman originally tended to use strong colors to depict the scenery under the sun, but the three oil paintings he painted recently are almost all painted in cold colors, and there are some strange things in the pictures.
"Pastor, look at this."
Shade pointed to one of the paintings, which was created a week before Freeman's death. The painting was of Freeman's garden, and he painted his house from an upward angle. He almost painted his house into a haunted house, and there was a very blurry person standing in the second-floor window.
"Was it something strange he saw, or was it just a family member who happened to be at the window?"
The priest was also very puzzled.
In another painting that Mr. Freeman made before his death, he painted the living room of his home. At that time, wood carving tools already appeared in the picture, and next to it was a small wooden sculpture of a priest given to him by Father Augustus. It seemed that Mr. Freeman wanted to make a sculpture based on it.
"So, why is he so fascinated by wood carving?"
Mr. Freeman's oil painting, made two weeks before his death, showed some wooden boxes piled up in a corner. His mental problems were not serious during this period, and the colors and composition methods he used were relatively normal.
Looking at the third painting, Shade asked Father Augustus:
"Priest, look at these boxes. Are they the wooden boxes used by the Kingdom Post Office to transport goods?"
No one had ever sent Shad anything other than a letter, so Shad didn't know much about it. But Father Augustus knew:
"Yes, these are the boxes that the post office uses to ship goods. You see, he even drew the metal fixing corners used to prevent the wooden boxes from falling apart during transportation. These black fixing corners represent that these are valuable items. The red label on it means that it was shipped from Carsenrick."
"Mr. Freeman, have you come into contact with anything strange in the past two weeks?"
Xia De proposed a conjecture and pointed to the content on the painting:
"Like these things sent from far away."
Father Augustus frowned and nodded:
"That's possible. When I go to return the keys later, we can ask together. However, we still need to search the house carefully to see if there are any other problems."
In this way, time came to eleven o'clock in the morning, and it was still foggy outside. Shad and Father Augustus finished their final search of the garden, left the garden, locked the fence, and planned to take the car to return the key to Mrs. Freeman.
The whole house was normal, and Shade touched almost every inch of the wall with his hands, but he could not feel any trace of elements or spirits. The priest even suggested searching the corners of the garden to prevent something from being buried in the soil, but in fact they were overthinking.
After wasting two hours and getting nothing, both of them were a little frustrated. But after all, they came out to try their luck for 15 credits, and it was expected that they would not get anything.
So they first had lunch together at a restaurant in a nearby neighborhood, talked about the truth of the painter's death, and joked that it could provide inspiration for Dorothy. After dinner, the two took a carriage to the apartment where Mrs. Freeman and the children were temporarily renting.
The apartment is also in the eastern part of Tobesk, and it takes 20 minutes to walk to the destination. This is an ordinary street in the city, with shops and apartments for rent along the street. On Thursday noon, people were coming and going and it was very lively. This place was only three blocks away from Dr. Schneider's psychological clinic.