Professor Čapek was dead, but… the matter had not ended there.
Strictly speaking, Professor Čapek was only an initiator. The Silver Twilight Lodge behind him still had no trace, and there were still other participants alive.
The Čapek Research Society originally had seven members. Later, one of them, Mariabel, died, and the society temporarily fell into a dissolved state. But after Shari joined, the entire research society still had four people. Now that Professor Čapek was dead and Shari was unconscious, that meant at least two people were still in the school.
After that, Duanmu Huai packaged all of Professor Čapek's information, combined it with clues and evidence, and handed it over to Inspector Lestrade, which temporarily brought this series of serial murder cases to an end. Inspector Lestrade also let out a sigh of relief. Although no body had been found, since Duanmu Huai said so, it meant that similar serial murder cases were unlikely to appear again on the foggy city's streets in the future… and the police could finally relax a bit.
As for the investigation into the Silver Twilight Lodge, Inspector Lestrade had already made a promise. However, he also hinted to Duanmu Huai that investigating this organization would be extremely difficult. The reason was simple: on the surface, the Silver Twilight Lodge was a private club for the upper class. Each of those elements alone was fine, but when combined, it became troublesome. Not to mention that there was currently insufficient evidence proving that the series of murders was orchestrated by the Silver Twilight Lodge—even if it could be proven, it would likely still be very difficult to bring them to justice…
Duanmu Huai didn't care about that at all. What a joke—when the Inquisition wanted to kill someone, who cared about any of that? Upper class, nobility—any heretic connected to the Chaos Gods, even if you were the Queen herself, he would still take you down. Just like Innsmouth: as long as you couldn't find evidence that it was him, then he could do whatever he wanted, right?
So regarding Inspector Lestrade's warning, he only nodded on the surface, without taking a single word to heart…
Of course, Lestrade was also very curious…
"How did you steal Professor Čapek's safe?"
The theft at Čapek's office had become quite the joke in the police station. After all, they had never seen a thief like that. When Duanmu Huai submitted his report, he naturally had to explain the source of his information. This was also an unspoken understanding between investigators and the authorities—you help me solve the case, I help you get off the hook. Now that there was solid evidence proving that Professor Čapek had committed those serial murders, a mere "theft" charge could naturally be offset.
But Lestrade was still curious. The scene investigation had basically turned up no clues at all—so how did Duanmu Huai do it?
"Oh, that thing wasn't heavy. As for me… you've seen it yourself—I'm clumsy, not good at picking locks, so I just carried it back and smashed it open."
"...…"
If it were someone else, Inspector Lestrade would have thought he was lying. But looking at Duanmu Huai, for some reason, the statement suddenly felt incredibly believable.
"Fine. If you don't want to say it, then don't."
Lestrade shook his head and threw the matter to the back of his mind. He had no intention of figuring out whether Duanmu Huai was telling the truth. If it were true, his worldview would shatter; if it were false, then it was just nonsense. Either way, it had nothing to do with him.
For now, the case was considered closed. What remained was to observe the aftermath—if no similar incidents occurred in the coming months, then the serial murders could be considered over. Although there might still be conspiracies from the Silver Twilight Lodge, as far as the police were concerned, as long as nothing like before happened again, everything was fine.
Logically, Duanmu Huai could now leave the foggy city and return to Arkham. But after thinking about it, he decided to stay. After all, it seemed like there were even more things happening here than in Arkham. Over there, he had a bunch of Miskatonic University students and professors competing with him for business. Here, there wasn't even a Holmes—surely no one would compete with him, right?
Over the next half month, Duanmu Huai lived quite leisurely. As for Mary, she gradually adapted to this rhythm of life. Every morning and evening, she would train with Lorena. After school, she would visit Shari. Occasionally, she would come to Duanmu Huai's residence to ask about the progress of the investigation… although there wasn't much progress to speak of.
However, it didn't take long before Mary brought Duanmu Huai a piece of news.
"You're saying something happened at the Royal Academy?"
"Yes."
Mary looked somewhat uneasy, but she quickly explained the situation to Duanmu Huai.
Simply put, this wasn't something Mary had experienced personally—it was something she had heard from her friend Ashelika.
According to Ashelika, a few days ago, a notice suddenly appeared on the bulletin board near the mathematics department building. It was made of letters cut from newspapers, forming a sentence.
"Arrogant knight, tonight you will be killed — The deceased."
At the time, everyone thought it was just someone's prank and didn't take it seriously. But the next day, a male student from the mathematics department actually went missing…
Since there were many male students in the mathematics department, no one paid much attention to it. They simply assumed the student had gone home for some reason. After all, most of the students here were from the upper class, nobility, or middle class—if they had family matters and left for a while, it wasn't unusual.
Moreover, the strange notice didn't specify any name, so at first, many people didn't make the connection at all.
However, a week later, another notice appeared on the bulletin board. Then the next day, another student failed to show up for class.
Only then did people realize something was wrong. For a time, unease spread through the mathematics department. In fact, within the Royal Academy, students had already begun privately discussing a story—that a dead person had disguised themselves as a living person, infiltrated the school, and was issuing notices before killing people.
Since Mary was a student in the history department, and because she spent her days either training with Lorena, attending classes, or visiting Shari, she hadn't paid much attention to these rumors. It wasn't until last week, when she was having tea with Ashelika and noticed her troubled expression, that she learned about the situation.
At the time, Mary had only thought it was just a story and had even comforted Ashelika, telling her not to take it to heart.
But...… this very morning, the same kind of notice appeared on the bulletin board of the history department.
At that point, Mary could no longer sit still and came to find Duanmu Huai.
"This sounds like a campus ghost story. Didn't you notice anything unusual?"
"Sorry, I've been very worried about Shari and didn't pay much attention. Also, in the dormitories, I didn't encounter anything particularly strange."
That was also why Mary hadn't noticed anything wrong. Moreover, the history and mathematics departments were in different buildings. Anyone who had attended school knew that students usually stuck to familiar places and rarely wandered into other departments—like animals marking territory, everyone stayed within their own area and seldom ventured elsewhere.
Some people went through three years of high school without even knowing what was outside their own classroom!
So the incident in the mathematics department—Mary truly didn't know about it. If Ashelika hadn't been in that department, she might have remained completely unaware.
"...…Hmm...…."
After hearing Mary's account, Duanmu Huai frowned and looked at her.
"You think this is related to the previous case?"
"I… think so…"
"Hmm...…"
Duanmu Huai nodded and began thinking.
At the moment, it wasn't impossible. After all, cases where people vanished without a trace weren't particularly rare. But… if you're going to kill someone, then just kill them—why go out of your way to issue notices?
Could it be because this was the hometown of Sherlock Holmes, so criminals here all needed some sense of ceremony?
What a bunch of lunatics.
"I'll look into it later and see what's going on."
After all, there were still two people who hadn't been caught. According to the rules of the Čapek Research Society, when one died, another would take their place. Now that Čapek was dead, it meant the next person should start making moves.
But this one really didn't follow the usual path.
If you quietly killed a few people without anyone noticing, Duanmu Huai might not even have caught on.
But issuing notices and turning it into a ghost story… were they afraid people wouldn't notice?
Now Duanmu Huai finally understood why the police in Detective Conan hated Kaito Kid so much. If it were him, dealing with such shameless bastards, it wouldn't be enough to empty an entire magazine of explosive shells into them—he'd also take a chainsword and carefully mince them into paste, not leaving a single bit of fat!
After sending Mary away, Duanmu Huai immediately called Inspector Lestrade to ask about the situation.
"The disappearance cases at the Royal Academy?"
Hearing Duanmu Huai's question, Inspector Lestrade sounded surprised.
"Could this also be related to a U-level case?"
"You don't think it is?"
Duanmu Huai was equally surprised by Lestrade's reaction.
"To be honest… we think it's just a simple case of running away from home."
"???"
After Lestrade explained things, Duanmu Huai finally understood.
According to Lestrade, the police had received reports from the parents of the missing students and had investigated the Royal Academy, but found nothing. Surveillance footage confirmed that the missing students had entered the academy, but there was no record of them leaving. At least, the cameras at the gates only captured them entering, not exiting.
Of course, given the nature of the Royal Academy, the police had deployed a large number of officers and even used police dogs to search the area—but found nothing. Eventually, the investigation leaned toward the conclusion… that they might have run away from home.
This kind of thing was quite common. Young people at that age were hot-blooded—running away from home over trivial matters wasn't unreasonable.
"Then what about those notices?"
"The notices? Ah, those—we think the students made them themselves. But we didn't find any useful clues or traces on those strange notices."
"So you're saying you think the two missing students ran away from home, and those notices were just a smokescreen?"
"More or less."
After all, the notices were vague—phrases like "arrogant knight"… who knew who that referred to? To the police, it just felt like some chuunibyou kid acting out of boredom.
But there was nothing they could do. That was how missing person cases were—no body, no trace. Without clues, the police had no way forward. Unlike the previous serial murders, where bodies were present, the disappearance of one or two people usually didn't even attract media attention.
So the police could only collect the reports, file them, record them—and that was it.
Because there were simply no leads.
And that was indeed the case.
The case file Duanmu Huai obtained from Inspector Lestrade was extremely simple.
First, both missing students were from the mathematics department. The first victim was relatively well-known, something like a department heartthrob—a talented guy who was sociable, could sing, dance, flirt, and casually pass his papers with ease.
The second victim was the complete opposite. According to police records, he was withdrawn and barely interacted with others. He had been missing for several days before his family contacted the school, which only then realized he was gone… because he rarely attended classes and had few friends.
In short, aside from that, the only common point was that both were top students in the mathematics department and members of a research society—just as mentioned before, only students recognized by professors as master-level scholars were qualified to join such societies and become glorious research workhorses.
Naturally, these two were no exception. After classes, they would go to the research society to carry out their work, and usually wouldn't leave the school until around eleven or twelve at night.
And the problem lay precisely here.
All surveillance footage showed them entering the academy, but none showed them leaving. According to records, other members of the research society—students and teachers alike—confirmed that the two had attended the sessions, completed their tasks, and then left to go home.
In other words, if the testimony of the research society was correct, then the two disappeared sometime between leaving the society and exiting the school gates.
So...…
After finishing the case file, Duanmu Huai thought for a moment, then made a decision.
Tonight, he would go to the Royal Academy and take a look.
(End of Chapter)