"So what do you think of those tomb robbers?"
Shade asked curiously.
"What else can I say? If they steal from the place I'm in charge of, I want to hang them! Besides, disturbing the dead is a serious crime in itself. Even if it's just for a meal, you shouldn't do such a thing. If you dare to deal with the dead, you should be prepared to be strangled to death by the dead."
After saying that, the old man spat on the ground in dissatisfaction. The way he was holding the big scissors for trimming tree branches looked as if he was ready to cut to death any tomb robbers he encountered.
The three stolen tombs are connected to each other in the southeast corner of Tomb Area 3. Because the Tobysk Public Cemetery gradually expands towards the mountain forests further east, the natural scenery of this corner is quite good.
I saw the piles of earth from a distance, and when I got closer I found that they were left behind by tomb robbers when they dug the tomb.
The police at Redwich Field had set up three no-approach signs, connected by warning lines. Iluna walked over directly, her black leather shoes leaving inconspicuous footprints on the grass.
Xia De looked down at the ground. The weeds were messy, but it basically maintained the appearance of the original scene.
He came to the tomb that had been robbed:
"The coffin is still there, and the gravekeeper said there were no signs of wheel tracks. Did the criminal carry the body away in a bag, or did he carry it away directly on his back?"
"It's hard to say. I've read church records and found that some grave robbers even cut up the bodies and took them away... What's that smell so bad?"
Iluna shrugged her nose and complained, then squatted down to examine the three tombstones embedded in the ground.
"This belongs to Mrs. Fennell."
Iluna pointed to the one at the edge. Shade leaned over to take a look. There was nothing important written on the tombstone:
"Did the other two bodies die recently?"
"Yes, all happened more than half a month ago, and they were all female corpses."
Iluna said with certainty.
"I remember the case file said that they died at the ages of 34 and 25 respectively. What was the cause of death? Was it also due to illness?"
Shade asked again, blinking his eyes, trying to find blood nearby or a soul residing here.
"It's not written in the file, but it's written on the tombstone. Let me see..."
"Let me take a look, don't get your hands dirty."
The other two tombstones on the ground were almost buried by the soil. Shade patted Iluna on the shoulder and asked her to move aside. Then he put on gloves, squatted down, and dug up the soil on the ground:
"One hanged himself because he was abandoned, and the other one... choked on beans? Oh, that was really unlucky."
Shade shook his head:
"Except for the time of death and gender, the three bodies have no common characteristics. However, it does not rule out that the perpetrators did not simply steal the bodies, but had a grudge against one of the three people, and were afraid of being found after insulting the bodies, so they stole three bodies at once to cover up their tracks."
"Detective, it's a good thing you're not a criminal."
Iluna joked, but looked around with a serious expression:
"How is it, is there any blood nearby?"
"Yes, but they are all bloodstains left by animals or insects. Wait a moment, let me take a look around."
Iluna continued to check the tomb. She also had a magical skill to find things. Last time at the Lucky Southern Cross Club, she easily found bloodstains. And Shade walked around the nearby bushes, expecting to see the scratches left by the tomb robbers. But the other party was lucky and was not injured during the entire crime.
“Found it.”
When Shade came back, Iluna pointed to the grave in the center:
"It seems like there is something beneath the coffin that does not belong to the earth."
“The police didn’t check?”
"Maybe I didn't expect there would be clues in this location."
Seeing that Shade wanted to jump into the grave and lift up the coffin, Iluna immediately stopped him:
"Don't bother."
She looked around, then raised her hand slightly towards the grave, and the wooden coffin immediately floated up. This was a spell to move objects, but Shade could not use this effect. Even though he had reached the third ring, he could only barely lift Mia at his limit.
Xia De bent down to look under the floating coffin, and what he saw was a rotting human head with maggots crawling in its eye sockets:
"Oh!"
Because he was completely unprepared, he was really scared.
Iluna thought there was some danger below, so she raised her hand and threw the coffin onto the grass beside her. After the heavy voice fell, she held the golden thunder in her hand and wanted to throw it down, but what she saw was a rotting corpse buried shallowly in a grave.
In order to prevent people from discovering traces of digging in the grave, the body was dismembered and buried below. Because the grave was dug in a hurry, the body was not buried deep enough, which led to Xia De seeing the rotten head at once:
"Oh, this is really..."
Xia De jumped out of the grave, not knowing what to say.
"Isn't this the body that was stolen?"
Iluna covered her nose and said, the smell was not obvious just now, but after the coffin was moved, the stench of rotting corpse immediately came up.
"Not sure, let's see if the other two bodies are still there."
So Iluna covered her nose with her left hand and used her right hand to direct the remaining two empty coffins to fly out of the tomb and lie on the increasingly messy lawn.
Shad stood beside the grave and bent over to look. The grave of Mrs. Fennell, whom they were looking for, indeed contained a badly decayed body that had been cut up for easier burial. However, there was nothing in the grave of the 29-year-old woman who had hanged herself.
"It seems that this is really a cover-up. The real target is actually the body of Ms. Julian who hanged herself."
Iluna looked at the scene in front of her with an unpleasant expression.
"Perhaps the body snatcher switched the positions of the three bodies to confuse the suspects."
Xia De raised the possibility again. He looked at the buried bodies and really didn't want to dig them out himself:
"Notify the grave keeper and see if there are any rotten and clean clothes on these bodies. I can use the clothes to determine their identities."
"What if the body snatcher also switched clothes?"
The seventeen-year-old girl also learned Xia De's way of thinking.
"Impossible, the clothes and the body are almost fused together. If I were a body snatcher, I would separate the parts of the body and bury them randomly to confuse people. This would be easier than taking off the clothes one by one. Moreover, it would prevent experienced coroners from easily identifying the body through the skeleton and buy themselves some time."
Xia De said with a frown, he couldn't stand the stench anymore.
They quickly called the old gravekeeper. When he saw the corpse buried at the bottom of the tomb, he was also shocked and didn't even care how Xia De and the others got the coffin out.
They quickly ran to the church to call for help, and then everyone dug out the body parts and tried to put them back together on the lawn.
It is obvious that the criminal did not have as many ideas as Xia De. Judging from the clothes and skeleton, the body at the bottom of the coffin was the body that was supposed to be lying in the coffin.
In other words, Mrs. Fennell, whom Iluna was looking for, and the body of the poor woman who choked to death after eating beans, had actually been here all along. The only one who was truly missing was Ms. Anne Julian, who hanged herself because of relationship problems.
He paid 2 shillings for the carriage and sent someone to the city to find the detective at Redwich Field. Although the detective in charge of this matter did not find anything buried at the bottom of the coffin, he arrived at the scene very quickly.
The bearded detective Mario, who was wearing a brown leather jacket and his assistant, was originally wondering who had interfered with the case he was in charge of, but after rushing over and seeing the ID handed over by Iluna, he stopped talking about the identities of Iluna and Shade, and it was obvious that he was very aware of the relationship between the church and the police department.
"It seems that the next direction of the investigation is to investigate Ms. Julian's social concerns. That damn guy, I will definitely punch him after I find him!"
Detective Mario listened to Shade's explanation of their investigation and looked at the two reconstructed bodies. He said indignantly, "It is understandable that the police in this steam age hurt the criminals when they were arresting them. As for such a bad body snatcher, even if he was beaten to death by the police on the spot, I am afraid that Officer Mario would not be punished."
Compared to the somewhat excited detective, the 17-year-old girl seemed very steady when performing her duties. She hesitated for a moment:
"Does Ms. Julian have any relatives?"
"We investigated when we notified the victim's family."
The detective asked his assistant for another notebook. The young man with red freckles on his face secretly glanced at Iluna, but when he saw Shad beside her, he lowered his head sadly.
"Ms. Julian's parents died early, and she grew up with her brother. Although she was 25 years old before her death, she was still unmarried."
In this era, it was very rare for a 25-year-old civilian girl to not be married. In addition to her own pressure, neighbors and relatives would also gossip.
"Her brother, Toby Julian, also lives in Tobesk. Although they don't live together, they have a good relationship. After Ms. Julian was found hanged, Mr. Toby Julian took care of her funeral. This is his address."
Detective Mario, speaking with a Tobesk accent, tore off a page from his notebook and handed it to Shad, apparently thinking that Shad was Iluna's assistant.
Xia De took a look and saw that it was an address in the lower town in the north of the city, but not a slum.
"And what about the man who abandoned Miss Julian and caused her to commit suicide for love? Who was he and where did he live?"
Iluna asked again, and Detective Mario shook his head in embarrassment:
"I know the name, but not the address. When I took over this case, I thought it was just a simple grave robbery, so I didn't do a more detailed investigation into the social relationships of these corpses. But I think the corpse's brother, Mr. Toby Ullian, should know this."