Whispering Verse

"So what do you think of those tomb robbers?"

Shade asked curiously.

"How else can you watch? I want to hang them for stealing things in the place under my care! Moreover, disturbing the dead is a serious crime in itself. Even if it is to eat, you should not do such a thing. If you ask me, you dare to deal with the dead , you must be prepared to be strangled to death by the dead."

After saying that, the old man spat on the ground in annoyance. He looked like he was holding a pair of scissors for pruning tree branches, as if he was preparing to cut down all the tomb robbers he encountered.

The three stolen tombs are connected to each other and are in the southeast corner of Cemetery No. 3. Because the Tobesk Public Cemetery gradually expands toward the mountain forests further east, the natural scenery in this corner is pretty good.

I could see the mounds of earth from a distance. When I got closer, I found that the mounds of earth were left by grave robbers when they dug the graves.

Police at Ridwich Field have erected three no-access signs with warning lines connected to each other. Iluna walked directly over, her small black leather shoes leaving inconspicuous footprints on the grass.

Shade looked down at the ground. The weeds were messy, but it still basically maintained the appearance of the first scene.

He came to the stolen grave:

"The coffin is still there, and the tombkeeper said there are no traces of ruts. Did the prisoner carry the body away in a bag, or did he just carry it away?"

"It's hard to say. I've read church records. Some grave robbers even cut up the body and took it away. What's so smelly?"

Iluna shrugged her nose and complained, then squatted down to look at the three tombstones embedded in the ground.

"This belongs to Mrs. Fennell."

Iluna pointed to the one on the edge, and Shade took a look. There was nothing important written on the tombstone:

"Did the death time of the other two corpses also happen recently?"

"Yes, they were all more than half a month ago, and they were all female corpses."

Iluna said with certainty.

"I remember that the case file said that they died at the age of 34 and 25 respectively. So what was the cause of death? Was it also illness?"

Shade asked again, blinking his eyes, trying to find any blood stains nearby or the souls residing here.

"It's not written in the file, but it is written on the tombstone. Let me take a look."

"Let me come and see, don't get your hands dirty."

The other two tombstones on the ground were almost buried in the soil. Shade patted Iluna on the shoulder and asked her to move aside. Then he put on his gloves and squatted down to remove the soil from the ground:

"One hanged himself because he was abandoned, and the other one choked on his beans? Oh, that's really unlucky."

Shade shook his head:

"Except for the time of death and gender, the three corpses have nothing in common. However, it does not rule out that the other party did not simply steal the corpse, but had a grudge with one of the three people, insulted the corpse and was afraid of being found, so he stole it all at once Three corpses to cover up."

"Detective, fortunately you are not the criminal."

Iluna joked, but looked around with a serious face:

"How's it going? Are there any blood stains nearby?"

"Yes, but they are all blood stains left by animals or insects. Wait a minute, let me take a look around."

Iluna continued to check the tomb. She also had thaumaturgy for finding objects. Last time at the Lucky Southern Cross Club, she easily found blood stains. Shade walked around in the nearby grass, expecting to see the scratches left by the tomb robbers. But the other party was very lucky and was not injured during the entire crime.

"found it."

When Shade came back, Iluna pointed to the tomb in the center:

"There seems to be something under the coffin that doesn't belong to the earth."

"The police didn't check?"

"I probably didn't expect there to be clues in this location."

Seeing that Shade wanted to jump into the grave pit and lift the coffin, Iluna immediately stopped him:

"No need to bother."

She looked around, then pointed at the grave and raised her hand slightly, and the solid wood coffin immediately floated up. This is the spell [Moving Object], but Shade cannot use this effect. Even though he has three rings, he can only barely lift Mia in his extreme state.

Shade bent down to look under the floating coffin, and what he saw was a rotting human head with maggots crawling in the eye sockets:

"Oh!" Gu

Because he was unprepared, he was indeed frightened.

Iluna thought there was some danger below, so she raised her hand and threw the coffin onto the grass aside. 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 the grave.

In order to prevent anyone from discovering traces of digging in the grave, the body was dismembered and buried underneath. Because the pit was dug in a hurry, the body was not buried deeply, which is why Shade saw the rotting head at once:

"Oh, that's true"

Shade jumped out of the grave, not knowing what to say.

"Isn't this the stolen body?"

Iluna covered her nose and said, the smell was not obvious just now, but after the coffin was moved, the stench of the rotting corpse immediately came up.

"I don't know. Let's see if the other two bodies are still there."

So Iluna covered her nose with her left hand, and with her right hand she directed the remaining two empty coffins to fly out of the tomb and lie on the increasingly messy lawn.

Shade stood next to the grave and bent down to look. The grave of Mrs. Fennell they were looking for did indeed contain a badly decomposed body that had been cut into pieces for easy burial, but the grave of the 29-year-old woman who hanged herself There is nothing in it.

"It seems that it may be a cover-up. The real target is actually only the body of Ms. Julian who hanged herself."

Iluna looked at the scene in front of her with an ugly expression.

"Perhaps the body snatchers switched the positions of the three corpses to confuse the public."

Shade raised the possibility again. He looked at the buried corpses and really didn't want to dig them out by himself:

"Inform the tombkeeper. Let me see if there are any rotten and clean clothes on these corpses. I can judge their identity through the clothes."

"What if the body thief also changed his clothes?"

The seventeen-year-old girl also learned Xia De's thinking.

"Impossible, the clothes and the body are almost integrated. If I were a corpse thief, I would divide the body parts and bury them in random order to confuse the public. This is easier than taking off the clothes one by one. Simple. Moreover, it can prevent experienced coroners from easily identifying the corpse through the skeleton and delaying themselves some time."

Shade frowned and said, he couldn't stand the stench anymore.

They quickly called the old tombkeeper. When he saw the corpse buried at the bottom of the tomb, the old tombkeeper was also surprised. He didn't even care how Shade and the two got out of the coffin.

He quickly ran to the church and called for help, and then everyone dug out the body parts and tried to recover them on the lawn.

It was obvious that the criminal did not have as many thoughts as Shade. Judging from the clothes and skeleton, the body at the bottom of the coffin was the body that should have been lying inside the coffin.

In other words, the body of Mrs. Fennell that Iluna was looking for, and the body of the poor woman who ate beans and choked to death, were actually here all along, and the only one who was really missing was Annie You, who hanged herself because of emotional problems. Ms. Ryan.

He paid 2 shillings for the carriage and sent into town to find the detective at Ridwich Field. Although the police detective in charge of this matter did not find anything buried at the bottom of the coffin, at least he arrived at the scene very quickly.

The bearded Detective Mario, who was wearing a brown leather jacket with his assistant, was originally curious about who was involved in the case he was responsible for, but after he hurried over and saw the ID handed over by Iluna, he kept silent. Luna and Shade's identities clearly indicate that they are very aware of the relationship between the church and the police.

"It seems that the next direction of the investigation is to investigate Ms. Julian's social concerns. That damn guy, after I find him, I will definitely give him a punch!"

Detective Mario listened to Shade explain their investigation just now, and after seeing the two corpses that had been pieced together and restored, he said very indignantly. It is understandable that the police in this steam age hurt each other when arresting criminals. For such a bad corpse thief, even if he is beaten to death by the police on the spot, I am afraid that Officer Mario will not be punished.

Compared to the somewhat agitated police detective, the seventeen-year-old girl seemed very steady when performing the task. She hesitated:

"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 after seeing Shade beside her, he lowered his head sadly.

"Ms. Julian's parents died young, and she grew up with her brother. Although she was 25 years old before her death, she was still not married."

In this era, it is very rare for a 25-year-old civilian girl to be unmarried. In addition to your own stress, neighbors and relatives will also gossip.

"Her brother, Toby Julian, is also in Tobesk. Although the two do not live together, they have a good relationship. After Ms. Julian was found hanging, her funeral affairs were all Toby Yu Mr. Ryan did it. This is his address."

Detective Mario, who spoke with a Tobesk accent, tore out the notebook pages and handed them to Shade, obviously thinking that Shade was Iluna's assistant.

Shade took a look and saw that it was an address in the Lower City area in the north of the city, but it was not a slum.

"Then what about the man who abandoned Miss Julian and made her commit suicide for love? Who is he and where does 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 robbing case, so I didn't conduct a more detailed investigation into the social relationships of these corpses during their lifetime. But I think that the brother of the corpse, that Mr. Toby Julian should know this."