The detective looked interested. "Why do you say that, Uriel?"
"The intersection of the two murder cases is not only Hobson, but also the Church of Gaia." The apprentice replied. "I-I just think we can't find Hobson now, but the church would be easy to find."
"Do you want to hear my thoughts?" Agatha asked abruptly.
Uriel tried to find a polite word for rejection, but soon found that it was impossible. "my pleasure."
"As you said, the two murders are related to each other. The suspect Hobson failed to kill Father Fielding, and I can't say for sure whether he killed Bowman. But he seems to be involved in two cases. There is a line connecting them, so it is crucial. But, and but, is this line the only line between them? I can’t see clearly.”
"Church," he whispered.
"The second line has appeared, and it seems easy to verify whether it is true or not. Uriel, your thinking is quite sharp, but it still lacks training. You can think of the church, but why don't you think that the clues between Hobson and the church may actually be the same line? What?" Agatha said slowly, "The murderer and the victim may not be unrelated to each other."
Bowman and Father Fielding? All Uriel knew was that they were killed on the same day. "But, there is no evidence." They were all dead.
"Who could possibly know what happened between them?"
"Well, Mrs. Verner? Hobson is her brother after all, and she cares about him and might understand." But she had just died. Could this also be a coincidence? If someone wanted to cut off the clues, it would be easy to kill her... A shudder ran through Uriel's mind. He and Wittek looked at each other, both shocked.
"Let's go to Verner's," said Agatha.
…
On the way to Verner's house, Uriel was in a rare calm mood. He found that he seemed to have forgotten the course choices in the tower, Joey and Jising, the trial of fire, the devil and even Bertha. He almost forgot who he was. When crossing the stone bridge of the Night Whispering River, Uriel saw the stars above the Far Light Harbor. The morning star of the Harp constellation is like the bright eyes of a lover, separated at the other end of the night sky by the river of destiny.
There is no complete harp stand to be seen in Brumnot, the apprentice thought. The land it faced was Eastman's Wynneworth, and I was thousands of miles away from the Ice Territory. Astrologically, Harp represents the past. I don’t know if there is any difference between Table World and Knox. Does my past belong to another starry sky? He knew there was no answer to this question.
"What are you doing here again?" The maintenance man's voice was hoarse.
He looked extremely tired, as if he had lost most of his remaining youth in just a few hours. Andrew Furner was probably not without some affection for Bertha, for his swollen face was clouded and his words were full of hatred. "I have nothing more to say to you."
"It's not about Lady Bertha." Uriel was in charge this time. He said softly: "We are not here to pursue responsibility... There is no responsibility here, and there is no legislative provision in the Tower Affairs Department. We want to talk about other things in order to solve the church's case."
He looked at his apprentice and smiled sarcastically. "Okay." The maintenance man gave up the passage, "Then you can come in, and it's best to prove my innocence. Those bastards in the City Daily have ruined the reputation of the Verner family, and I don't want to do that again. The dead woman lost her job.”
The room was shrouded in dim light. In the afternoon, the patrolmen searched the entire house, and Uriel and the others followed suit. But when I returned to the old place at night, the scene in the Verner family villa was completely different.
"It's so cold in here," Wittek said.
Ghostly shadows followed the footsteps of the four people, and even the creaking of the stairs was sneaky. Uriel caught a glimpse of a light blue thermometer bottle under an oil painting in the living room, which indicated that the indoor temperature was lower than the optimal temperature. The Fiery Moon in Brumnot has long since ended, and the most obvious feature is that after the sun disappears, people have to wrap up their collars when walking on the streets.
With the Broken Moon gone, Knox's Harvest Moon walks into everyone's home from the hearths lit at night. But the bottom of the Verner's fireplace was filled with black ashes, and there was no firewood to burn. The ashes were also stirred up by the patrolmen and scattered miserably on the ground.
It's time for the detectives to come into play. Agatha sat down opposite the host unceremoniously and got straight to the point: "I want to know when Bowman left the villa the night before yesterday?"
"At midnight," Andrew said.
"Were you home at that time?"
"Of course. I don't have time to hang out."
"Bowman came to your door. What did he say to you?"
The room seemed colder. "It's still the same old way of asking for debts. The Whistle Gang takes on a lot of work and works even more efficiently. These idiots don't say a single curse word to me, they just keep saying IOUs. They know the salary I earn in a month better than I do."
"Someone said Bowman knocked on the door at night and made a huge noise," Agatha pointed out.
"I worked overtime that day, and the prodigal woman was the only one in the house."
"You have no servants?"
Andrew snorted, "She's the only one."
"Did Hobson come to see his sister?"
"He didn't dare to come. You won't believe what ridiculous thing he did this time. I can't pay back the money even if he calls me daddy. Maybe he came to see that loser who only had her dear brother on his mind. Woman, she can’t come up with the money... After the Whistle Gang came, I told her that if Hobson dared to show up at home again, I would break his legs. She knew how serious my attack was, she knew it."
Such threats seemed to be a specialty of Blumnot, and Andrew Furner had no remorse for such a crude and despicable act as beating his wife. Uriel couldn't help but interject: "Don't you love her?"
"How is that possible? She is my wife." The maintenance man replied matter-of-factly. "We have lived together for decades. If she didn't have that bastard brother, it might have been longer. You know, I only thought about changing my wife when I was the most angry." His attitude suddenly changed again.
Uriel wanted to ask something else, but Agatha interrupted him. "How about you go upstairs and see Mrs. Verner's room, Uriel?" she asked dissatisfiedly.
He had no choice but to do so.
"Do you often go to church?" A faint question came from under the floor. Mystery exists as naturally and harmoniously as breathing. Uriel walked around an empty chair, walked directly to the window, and opened the heavy curtain. The tassels leave sweeping traces in a layer of floating dust. He couldn't help but take two steps back to avoid the flying dust. It seemed that even after the patrol officers' search, the dust in the room still did not decrease.
"I don't go there often," Verner's answer came, "but my wife is happy to pray to the goddess. She likes to collect different types of indulgences issued by the church. Those things are just for money fraud."
There was a thud, as if someone accidentally kicked over the stool. After a long moment of silence, Miss Agatha sighed. "Go and stay with your surety, Whittaker. Mr. Verner can't beat my legs here." Soon the Sheriff climbed the stairs.
"Is your injury healed?" Uriel asked casually.
"almost done."
There was silence for a moment. "What do you think is the relationship between the priest and Bowman?" the apprentice asked.
"This is just a guess."
It seemed like he didn't believe there was a connection between the two. "Without key clues, we can only rely on guesswork."
"So did you find any new clues here?"
"No, no." Uriel would not consider himself more professional than the sheriffs. It is said that they even found a box of tobacco leaves that Bertha had hidden for Hobson. Andrew looked extremely angry when he saw the evidence. He did not open the window, but looked around in the moonlight.
For members of the Tower, this bedroom seemed too shabby. The wallpaper is old, the window eaves are creaking, and the floors are cracked. Even the decoration of the red-roofed cabin is more solid than this room. The cabinet was carefully checked and it was filled with women's clothes. Uriel did not dare to look at it. However, there is a razor in the dresser cabinet, indicating that Bertha and Andrew slept in separate rooms not long ago, and it was Andrew, the head of the family, who moved out of the bedroom. He felt a little strange.
"Uril." The Sheriff's tone made the apprentice predict that his next words might have nothing to do with the case. "Fire trial..."
"...I won't take any chances." He interrupted, "I don't know why you care more about this matter than I do."
"We are brothers sharing the same fate."
"It must not have been our mother who made us 'brothers'." Uriel said sarcastically.
"It's an extraordinary power." Witek said without hesitation.
"I didn't realize that I had any extraordinary power. My profession brought me magic, and knowledge exists deep in the fire. The arrival of the mystery is reasonable. What's more, Gunther said he was a devil, isn't he fine now?"
"People who are alone will only be hunted by hunters." Wittek explained, "Our power is the mystery of mysteries, but this cannot make up for the gap in strength. You are lucky to have entered Chloe without passing the test. Not everyone is like you, and even the spontaneous combustion of fire has certain risks... Order has removed us, and we can only rely on each other."
"No, in my opinion, you are asking for something from me."
"I know your secret."
"But I also know yours." Uriel didn't feel that he was being pinched. In fact, he never answered the question directly. "Don't think that I don't know your purpose. You want me to join you. No matter what happens, I can make it easier for you, right?" He used the word 'you'.
Witek paused. "I thought you didn't know us."
"I dealt with demons in a land country. You may have seen this in the newspapers: a necromancer tried to gain the power of demons and started killing people in a city."
"It's a pity that not all of our brothers are good people."
Is this how you feel? Uriel looked him directly in the eyes: "That city is my hometown."
()
