"We need to first connect the three murders; otherwise, we won't get anywhere," began Evelyn, speaking directly to her cousin, who was seated on the opposite side in the room, snuggled cozily on the warm armchair.
Nobody else was present in the room; silence took over whenever the two had no words on their tongues, making it the perfect tranquil environment for thinking until the occasional crackle from the glowering fireplace made itself known.
"Don't be hasty," warned Sigerson, shutting his eyes to concentrate the flow of thoughts. "Let us start from the beginning.
"We have three victims killed in various ways which suggests different killers. The time between them are also close to each other, despite that being quite rare in the quiet region of Alms. Also, there's no clear motive linking the crimes together… yet. It could be a coincidence or a deceptive plot in order to throw our attention away from the truth, but I think we can both soundly agree that this could hardly be a coincidence, so now we are left with the latter option.
"All three victims had some connections to the Custodians with Miss Paulos having the strongest, being a direct bond between Sardis and Ecclesia."
He was reading off a telegram reply from Mr Mansell, who hurried away to gather information at his request—Harvey too had been sent to mingle among the criminals in the underworld, extracting what Sigerson called 'vital data'. The telegrams were then delivered to their hands from the post office by Rose, their optimistic helper.
Evelyn gave a stiff nod to show her readiness.
"First, the motive. Every crime is established by a motive, whether it be money, revenge, or any other reason. The three victims' behaviour changed erratically according to multiple witnesses, suggesting something happened around that time. Now if you remember, an item was taken from the first scene related to an event ten years ago; we can further prove the item was targeted, since there were traces of it being compared with a sheet of paper, which was most likely used to distinguish the specific item from a sea of unwanted junk."
"How can you be sure that the item taken wasn't the paper itself?"
"Because the paper was found. Through Mr Mansell, I asked the police, and after determining that the paper was the same one at the scene by ink-testing (the ink traces left behind was a particularly rare kind, you see), they sent it to me. Here."
A slip of paper smudged in blue ink floated into her hands. On it were a few words written by a hasty hand. It read:
Ring box should be found on the highest dark grey shelf on the left of the kitchen stove
Box is about 2 inches long and wide, navy coloured
"This is a description," mused Evelyn, returning the paper.
"And it proves my point. Now, we can conclude that the killer's purpose in paying Foster a visit was not only to kill him, but to take a ring as well."
"Do you know what the event from ten years ago even is?" she inquired.
"I'm sure you've seen it as well," said Sigerson, opening an eye at his cousin knowingly. "After all, you flipped through those folders I explicitly told you not to, didn't you?"
Evelyn laughed shortly, a drop of guilt mingled in her voice, while trying to recall the hundreds of individual cases she had read from the folder.
"Ah, I remember now!"
A yelp of apprehension shot out; a particular newspaper article substantiated in her mind.
"There was an accident ten years ago, or at least, they wrote it down as an accident, involving three people, one of them being Annabelle Paulos. If I remember correctly, it was Levi Arestor who read through them—"
She stopped suddenly, her lip trembling slightly as an inevitable conclusion hit her.
"Yes," said Sigerson gravely. "This all leads back to Levi Arestor, who in turn can be traced back to Blight. What I need now is information on our suspect which I presume is right outside the door."
A pattern of muffled thunks were approaching the front door.
"Before I let the man in, I'd like to tell you how much progress I've made with this investigation, Evie. Of course, after seeing the paper left by the police, I immediately thought of the case Arestor had been reading years back and easily found the prime suspect: Dr Barrett, whose wife was the victim of the unfortunate 'accident'. Currently, his expertise lies within the medical field and human anatomy, you know, surgery and those kinds of things, but as far as I know, he has not been employed for about a decade now. Remember that. Well, he is at the doorstep now, but before he comes in, let me assure you, I am and will always be in full control of the situation."
Sigerson opened it to let in their visitor, who entered with the air of a regal monarch, the expensive tailored coat fluttering about. A white cast hung curiously on his right arm, signalling a recent injury. He turned his shaven face towards Sigerson.
"Mr Barrett, I presume?"
"That is correct."
Unsurprisingly, his voice was also rich and suave, matching his elegant dress.
"Now, you might be unaware of this, Mr Barrett, but currently, you are the prime suspect of a series of murders committed over the past few days."
His face twitched ever so slightly.
"Surely you are joking, sir?"
The voice, though controlled almost perfectly, contained just a hint of apparent confusion and nervousness.
"Unfortunately, I am not. You have heard of Miss Annabelle Paulos, have you not?"
A flash of anger and surprise ran across his face then disappeared without a trace.
"Yes, of course."
Sigerson took a deep breath before his final attack.
"May I ask then, why did you kill those three people?"
Silence.
"This is ridiculous" said Barrett abruptly, storming in the direction of the door; Sigerson, however, didn't move a muscle.
"No matter where you go, the police will most certainly arrest you," he said silkily. "I'd suggest you return to your seat and give us the details."
"If you continue to jest like this, sir, I will be the one calling the police."
"Go ahead then."
The warm smile had been wiped from the detective's face. Instead, the gaze directed at Mr Barrett was one of a predator locking onto its prey; this uncanny feeling sunk into Barrett unnoticeably, shattering his confidence on the inside. In spite of this, the cornered suspect in a half-hearted manner, still put up resistance, hoping to worm himself out of the tight situation.
"Explain. Where's your evidence that I did it?"
Sigerson straightened up, crossed his arms, and gave his pocketwatch a quick glance.
"Five minutes should be enough."
The man only scowled.
"I will begin where we left off. Someone had taken a significant ring from the first victim, Mr Graham Foster, and in the second scene, another item was also taken from Mr Colley's household along with his valuables; both objects have a connection to an accident ten years ago. I'm sure you're aware of what happened back then, Mr Barrett."
"I–I don't recall anything."
Suddenly, a searing bitter wrapped itself around Evelyn's tongue.
He's miserable?
"Let me fill you in. Ten years ago, there was an accident involving your wife and three young scoundrels. From the article I read, it wasn't that hard to see what'd happened… The cab swerved but not in time, hitting the unfortunate lady full on, sending her flying… Her skull crushed on the pavement as soon as it hit the—"
Crash.
Up leaped Barrett, his face deadly pale as he relived the worst day of his life.
"I'll kill you too, if you don't stop," he breathed murderously.
"I'll stop," replied Sigerson harshly, his eyelids barely open enough to see Barrett in front of him, poised like a striking cobra, "once you come to your senses and agree to turn yourself in to the police."
Barrett gulped, bent down, and lunged at Sigerson with the force of a train. Thump went a gleaming metal object in the detective's hand and when the dust had settled, it was clear how the situation had resolved itself. Barrett was kneeling at the floor, the grey barrel of a revolver aimed right in between his shrewd eyes. A final clink of the handcuffs and Barrett was subdued at last, but not without a ferocious struggle and a few words from the revolver.
"Harvey, are you there?"
Out scampered the youth who had been hiding the entire time in the bedroom.
"Watch over him carefully, Harvey, and please make sure he arrives at the police station safely."
Harvey gave him a salute before marching Mr Barrett out, who fortunately put up little resistance after being hit with a metal barrel a couple of times.
While he was being taken away, Evelyn said, "I hope you're going to explain what just happened."
"Oh that? I only hit him lightly enough to restrain him, that's all. He shouldn't have any major injuries or—"
"Not that; how did you already narrow him down as the murderer?"
She clearly did not appreciate the fact that Sigerson had taken the spotlight.
"Well, I was just going to tell you the rest when Barrett appeared here after my call."
"Explain away then."
"Anyways," continued Sigerson, ignoring his cousin's beady stare. "As I reasoned out, everything so far had led me to the conclusion that the three murders were committed as revenge for the accident ten years ago.
"Now, Foster's murder, as we had determined previously, was by the hand of a professional—the precision of the attack, the nonexistent struggle and mess, the suspicious lack of witnesses in that busy urban neighbourhood—all of those points lead to a trained killer. Or at least, that's how the real culprit wanted us to think."
Here, he picked up a letter among dozens of others lying on the carved table on his right.
"In the autopsy, they found chloroform in the victim's tissue. Foster had no reason or way to apply the chloroform to himself, so somebody else must have done it, who could only be the assailant.
"Here, the possibilities are narrowed down to an assassin or a close enough acquaintance since there was no struggle, meaning a stranger could not have applied the chloroform. As I've studied on the only assassin group in the underworld, I do have a fair bit of knowledge on their methods. Dexter Eiter was never the one to subdue his enemies before killing them; his methods were always swift, unseen, and unpredictable; the chloroform could hardly have been used by him and what's more, Harvey sent me a message telling me that Eiter and his gang were not hired for the week, reducing the probability of a trained assassin to near zero.
"Barrett, on the other hand, had sufficient knowledge and skills to kill Foster and make it seem like a professional's work if he could've knocked out the victim first. Since the housekeeper confirmed that Foster was indeed quite close with Barrett, this theory holds up and actually became my starting point in this brief investigation.
"Anyways, that's the first murder cleared, now for the second. We know that the window of Mr Colley's apartment was broken by the killer—"
"And that made you suspect a set-up, because the window's position made it harder to break in from than the front door; the owner's absence made it even more suspicious, so you thought somebody must've told the robber that the valuables were on the upper floor where the window was broken," interrupted Evelyn, trying her best not to fall behind.
"T–That's right," continued Sigerson, secretly supporting this little demonstration of capability. "As we both saw, the room got absolutely ransacked. Why? The valuables were moved away to some other place, but not by the owner; this part is important and I'm assuming you know why."
"Somebody else moved it, so when the thief saw there was nobody present in the apartment, they took the opportunity to search the rest of the apartment, causing them to stay until the owner, Mr Colley, arrived back home, only to be killed in a desperate attempt to hide his identity."
"Correct. Here, I have the testimonies of both the thief and Mrs Colley; the thief claims that he was tipped off by a man with messy writing, apparently unable to use their right hand. Have a look at this."
An official-looking medical report was given to Evelyn—on it the patient's name was enough to give her the information she needed to understand the rest.
"As you can see, Barrett's right arm was broken and didn't heal until yesterday. Mrs Colley's testimony also stated that Mr Colley had gone out for a drink with a bandaged man, meaning that if it were Barrett, he could control the timing of Mr Colley's return to his home.Both of these statements connect him to the second murder, so now, only the third one remains in the dark."
"That one's easy," scoffed Evelyn, tossing her hair to emphasize her confidence. "There were fingerprints on Paulos' neck, yet the supposed killer, the Butcher (it does mimic his style so similarly, don't you think?), had his hands badly burnt in a recent accident, rendering him incapable of leaving those fingerprints. There was nobody present except the victim and the culprit then, so if the fingerprints don't belong to Miss Paulos or the Butcher, they must belong to another culprit. Since the records show that Barrett's arm was already healed, the reason he was still wearing that cast on his arm is that he wanted to avoid getting his fingerprints tested. Every one of the three murders can be traced or at least connected to Mr Barrett.
"Seeing his devotion to his wife just then, it's pretty clear what his motive was; the ring was his late wife's that was taken by Foster during the chaos of the crash, the newspaper cuttings must've had her picture on them, which he thought were desecrated in Mr Colley's possession, and Miss Paulos was most likely the one who hushed it all up with her power, explaining her more, umm, violent death."
"I couldn't have said it better," agreed Sigerson, relieved to see her deductions matching his own.
Clearly pleased at this compliment, Evelyn laid back in a relaxed manner and asked, "Now what should we do, Will?"
Sigerson, in contrast to Evelyn's laid-back attitude, sat muttering to himself, looking a bit like a maniac from an asylum.
"What's wrong?"
"Something… Something feels lacking again… It can't just be a coincidence that Annabelle Paulos was murdered during this war, could it?"
Evelyn shrugged her shoulders.
"I can understand you suspect Blight using Levi Arestor, but there really aren't any connections between them and the murders. The murderer was just caught, wasn't he?"
"That's what puzzles me," he continued to mutter. "I need information… If not… Well, I have a feeling I'll be meeting Grock very soon."