A New Homicide Case

There were six people at the dinner table: Jorgen, Dalia, Mardias, Foudaire, Elin, and another servant named Ryan. Unlike Foudaire and Elin, who looked rough, Ryan looked like a dandy who played polo all day and played hide and seek with young ladies in the courtyard.

Jorgen felt out of place at this occasion. Foudaire resented his participation; Ryan remained silent with an indifferent and mysterious look; Elin kept coaxing Mardias to eat, like a diligent male nanny. Although Dalia tried her best to keep him, Jorgen didn't eat much and left in a hurry.

If he had known what would happen that night at the inn, he would not have done so.

Silence surrounded him. Not that there was no sound, but that he could not hear. The tide hit the shore, the drunkard vomited by the window, the watchdog alertly raised its head and barked into the darkness. He could not hear any of these sounds.

But Foudaire could hear his own heartbeat. In his nearly ended life, his heartbeat had never seemed so clear. He felt it was about to burst out of his chest and fall into the wet and sticky pool of blood on the floor. He would die with his heart bursting out of his body. He did not know it was just an illusion. The desire to survive was so intense that it produced auditory hallucinations.

He did not feel the pain. His nose was stuck with blood, but he still wanted to inhale. He tried to turn his head a little to get his nose away from the pool of blood, but he couldn't.

Things were out of control, he thought. Everything should have been under control. But now it was out of control. You thought you held the sand tightly enough in your fist, but it still slipped through your fingers.

The fatal wound was on his throat. A charred scar.

Ever since Dalia came to Southshore, Foudaire had been her servant. He had always felt that Dalia was a pure gemstone; for this noble and beautiful mistress, he was willing to do anything. He had also fantasized about Dalia lying in his arms, his uncontrollable desire to hold her tight constantly torturing his mind. Since this was impossible, he wholeheartedly served her. If she had the slightest illness, Foudaire would immediately find the best doctor in Southshore. If she quarreled with her father-in-law Panthoniaa Shawl, Foudaire would intercede for her - pleading before the coldest man in Southshore was not an easy task. No matter what mistakes she made, Foudaire would forgive her.

He hated Dean Shawl. How could a man abandon such a perfect wife? But for Dalia's sake, he could not express his hatred for Dean. If reuniting with Dean was Dalia's greatest wish, he would help his mistress fulfill this wish without hesitation.

But now everything was out of control. I'm going to die. After I die, who will take care of her? Who will protect her safety?

A clear voice emerged from the darkness. This time it was not an illusion, but a real voice.

At first, Foudaire thought it was footsteps, but as the sound became more frequent, the volume gradually decreased. That was not the sound of human footsteps.

Foudaire pried open his left eye and looked at the open door of the room. He found the source of the sound.

A ball fell by the door, no longer bouncing, rolled a small circle on the floor and then stopped. A small figure then appeared. He bent down slightly, picked up the ball, and then looked over at Foudaire.

Even in total darkness, Foudaire could recognize it: it was Mardias Shawl.

Save me, young master, Foudaire opened his mouth, wanting to say these words but unable to do so. Call someone, I can be saved, no one can bleed so much and still hold on, but help me young master I still want to live I still want to stay by the lady's side -

With the ball in his arms, Mardias turned and walked away. Before he disappeared on the other side of the door, Foudaire was dead.

The next morning, at the security bureau office. Jorgen dragged Hennessy into the room and slammed the door shut.

"You've released David?"

"Yes, I released him immediately after you left yesterday. What do you want to say? My opinion."

"You didn't ask for my opinion, Hennessy. My opinion."

"To be honest, I really don't know what the point is of holding an already exonerated person. Is this some kind of strategy that I, a country bumpkin security officer, can't understand?

"Hennessy, don't ruin our working relationship. I don't care at all that a cloth merchant died, but this person has been proven to be linked to the Syndicate, which is why I was sent here. So in this case, you have no right to act alone."

"I have no right? I am the security officer here, I manage all security affairs here, I laid the first brick of this office with my own hands ten years ago. Now you come to talk to me about what qualifications? I didn't know you were such an arrogant person, Jorgen. Trusting in your ability is one thing, but I see you are the one ruining the working relationship."

"If you want a reason, I'll give you a reason. We still don't know who the killer is. If we release the only suspect now, it will arouse his suspicion. He will find a place to hide - if he hasn't already done so. This is a simple strategy. "

"It sounds like something you hastily cobbled together."

" ... You want to tell the truth, Hennessy. Was this Shelley's request? "

"First of all, no. This was my own decision. Then, since you don't want to talk about your relationship with my sister, I don't intend to ask either - I asked Shelley, she didn't want to say anything either. But I can see that you hate David. Don't fool yourself, Jorgen. You insist on detaining him because you hate him, not some nonsense strategy."

"What did you say?"

"I said he and Shelley were engaged long ago. Isn't that why you hate him?"

Hennessy saw Jorgen adjusting his breath and immediately realized that he had said the wrong thing. He still didn't know about this. For a moment, Hennessy felt that he would probably be scarred with two ugly scars under Jorgen's nose like that poor drunkard.

A guard came in, felt the atmosphere was wrong, and was about to exit the door. Hennessy cleared his throat and said to him, "What's the matter?"

"Uh ... Chief Hennessy, we just received a report. Foudaire was killed."

Jorgen and Hennessy's anger had not subsided, and their eyes immediately stared at the guard, giving him the feeling of being interrogated.

"Uh, that Foudaire who kept making trouble these days ... it was reported by the cleaning woman at the Red Salmon Inn."

Jorgen looked at Hennessy, indicating a temporary truce. It didn't take long for the two of them to arrive at the scene with some followers.

Foudaire's ice-cold corpse was lying in the middle of his bedroom, face down. Near his head there was a large pool of coagulated blood.

Hennessy had the followers turn over the corpse, revealing knife marks on the neck. Foudaire's eyes were still open, as if there was something terrible on the ceiling.

"No other injuries," Hennessy said after a brief inspection. "He also died from having his throat cut, just like Henry. Jorgen, I have to say, such murders are not common in Southshore."

"Don't jump to conclusions."

"What's your feeling?"

"He's wearing a shirt but no jacket - the jacket is still hanging over there on the back of the chair. He got up in the middle of the night, got dressed in part, and then met the killer. There are no signs of struggle in the room."

"Do you think he might have known the killer?"

"That's one possibility, but not the answer I would choose. Maybe the killer was too skilled for him to react; or maybe he was about to get up and was going to meet someone. Perform an autopsy as soon as possible."

"The cause of death seems obvious to me."

"Even so, I think your coroner should be able to determine from the wounds whether the knife that killed Foudaire and the knife that killed Henry were the same type. I have searched all the files in Southshore these days, and there have been no serial murders here before. If this is the first case, then there must be a criminal pattern to follow."

Jorgen squatted in front of the bedroom door and leveled his gaze with the floor, hoping to find possible footprints in the light coming through the window. Finally, he found two small crescent-shaped mud prints on the threshold. He stood up and pondered for a while, then called the frightened cleaning woman and said, "How many times a day do you clean this room?"

"Three times, sir," said the cleaning woman. "Before breakfast, after lunch and after dinner."

"You found the corpse when you were about to clean the room today, right?"

"Yes, sir. I was so scared at the time, I didn't even think about cleaning ..."

"I understand. Do you know where Mrs. Fouria is now?"

"She should be in her room on the second floor. Poor lady, she must be very scared now ..."

Jorgen came to Dalia's bedroom. The door was ajar. He knocked gently.

"Who is it?"

"It's me, Jorgen."

"Come in."

Jorgen pushed the door open and saw Dalia half lying on the pillow, her eyes tired. She was holding Mardias, stroking his hair.

"Dalia, I'm very sorry to meet again under these circumstances ..."

"No need to be so restrained ... There's no need for that between us."

"I'm very sorry this happened."

"He was the one who took care of me the longest in the past four years ... He objected to me coming to Southshore before, but I ..."

"This may not be the time, but I need to talk to Mardias now."

"Talk to this child? Why?"

"This is important, trust me, Dalia. Of course, if you feel it's not the time ..."

"No, it's okay. As long as it helps your work ... Go ahead, baby. Go to Uncle Jorgen."

Mardias slid out of his mother's arms and slowly walked over to Jorgen. He still wore that wooden toy sword at his waist. Jorgen squatted down and tried his best to relax his expression. He gazed calmly into Mardias' eyes and said,

"You went to Foudaire's room last night, didn't you?"

"Went to Foudaire's ...? What's going on?" Dalia asked.

"I saw children's shoe heels mud prints at the door of that room, left there after dinner last night and before the situation was discovered today." Jorgen turned his head to Dalia and said.

"Is that really the case? Answer Uncle Jorgen's question quickly, child."

Mardias looked at his mother, as if to get her consent, and then said to Jorgen, "Yes."

"Did you see anything? Like strangers you've never seen before, or heard strange sounds?"

After asking this question, Jorgen began searching for noticeable changes in Mardias' eyes. A child's eyes cannot lie. Hesitation, fear, anxiety, these emotions are easy to capture.

But Mardias' eyes seemed somehow different. Jorgen felt he was facing resistance. When a child wants to refuse, his eyes will say a clear "no", which is a "keep out" gesture; but the eyes of an adult expressing refusal often imply violent threats.

Jorgen felt that Mardias' eyes were closer to the latter.

A moment later, Mardias shook his head. He said, "Uncle Foudaire ... died."

As soon as he finished speaking, he turned back and ran to his mother. Dalia reached out and hugged him, stroking the back of his head and kissing his hair. She signaled Jorgen with her eyes "don't disturb the child anymore", and Jorgen could only apologize and leave the room.

After closing the door, Jorgen suddenly felt chilly on his back. Mardias' gaze just now was not just a refusal, but a counter-probe into his intentions.

"He may have seen the killer. But I can't get any information from him." He thought.