Part 1 The Joker Chapter 119 The Real Down Street
2 Daffodil Street, Tingen.
Crane, who had left the note, locked the front door and walked briskly toward Leonard Mitchell, who was waiting at the curb.
Leonard’s short black hair was longer than it had been for the last month and sparsely tended, making it look very messy.
But even so, with his good looks, emerald eyes and poet-like demeanor, it still had an otherworldly beauty.
Sure enough, any hairstyle is all about the face …… Klein subconsciously spat out a sentence and pointed in the direction of Iron Cross Street:
”Fry is waiting for us over there?”
”Yes.” Leonard straightened his shirt that wasn’t tucked in, and asked as if casually, “Did you find out any clues from the information?”
Klein held his staff in his left hand and walked forward along the edge of the street:
”No, whether it’s the manner of death or the point in time of death, I can’t find a pattern, you know, rituals involving evil gods and demons have to be paired with a specific point in time or a special manner.”
Leonard touched the special revolver hidden at his waist, under his shirt, and let out a light laugh:
”It’s not an absolute, in my experience there are evil gods or demons that are very easily satisfied, as long as k takes a keen interest in what happens next.”
”And surely a good portion of these deaths are normal, they must be weeded out to get to the right answer.”
Klein glanced at him and said:
”That’s why the captain asked us to resurvey and eliminate the normal events.”
”Leonard, your tone and description tell me that you have ample experience in similar areas, but you’ve been a night watchman for less than four years, and on average you encounter no more than two transcendental cases a month, and most of them are of the simple, easy-to-solve variety.”
He’d always found Leonard Mitchell, his teammate, oddly mysterious, not only in his constant suspicion that he was special, but also in his own right, sometimes godawful, sometimes arrogant, sometimes flippant, sometimes deep.
Does he also have strange encounters? And also strange encounters that make him feel that he himself is the protagonist of a drama? Combining his rich “knowledge” of movies, novels and TV shows, Klein made a rough guess.
Hearing his question, Leonard chuckled:
”That’s because you haven’t officially entered the state of a night watchman yet and are still in the training stage.”
”Every six months, the Holy Church will organize the transcendent cases encountered by various churches in various dioceses into books and make certain deletions in different versions depending on the level of secrecy, and then correspondingly distribute them to various members.”
”You can apply to the captain outside of the occult program for access to the Charnis Gate and borrow those previous case books.”
Klein nodded with some realization:
”The captain never reminded me of that aspect.”
He hadn’t had the chance to enter the Charnis Gate until now.
Leonard laughed out softly:
”I thought you were used to the captain’s style, but I didn’t realize you were naively expecting him to remind you.”
Speaking here, he added meaningfully, “If the day comes when the captain remembers everything and forgets nothing, then we’ll need to be on our guard instead.”
Does that mean out of control? Klein nodded with a solemn expression and turned to ask:
”Is this the Captain’s unique style? I thought it was a problem incidental to the ‘Sleepless One’ sequence ……”
Staying up all night causing memory loss or something ……
”To be precise, it’s a style unique to ‘Nightmare’, where reality and dreams intertwine, often making it impossible to tell which ones are real and need to be remembered, and which ones are fake and don’t need to be put in one’s head …… “Leonard wanted to say more, but the two men had already stepped into Iron Cross Street and saw Fry, the “corpse collector,” waiting at the stop of the railed public carriage.
Wearing a black felt hat with a round brim, a thin trench coat of the same color, and carrying a suitcase, Fry’s complexion was so pale that one wondered if he might fall ill at any moment, and his cold, shadowy demeanor kept the people waiting around him at a distance.
After nodding to each other, none of the three men said a word, and in silence they met, and together they crossed the “Slim’s Bakery,” and turned into the lower street of the Iron Cross.
The hustle and bustle of the street vendors selling oyster soup, sautéed meat and fish, ginger beer, and fruits slowed the pedestrians to a standstill.
It was now a little after five o’clock, and a number of people returned to Iron Cross, and the sides of the road began to be crowded, with a part of the children mingling with them, looking on indifferently at it all, and watching all the pockets.
Crane, who had often come this way for cheap delicatessen food, and had formerly even lived in the neighboring apartments, was quite aware of the state of the place, and spoke up to warn:
”Watch out for burglars.”
Leonard smiled and said, “Never mind.”
He pulled on his shirt and adjusted his gun pouch so that the revolver at his waist was exposed.
Horrifically, the gazes watching him moved away, and the pedestrians around him unconsciously made way.
…… Klein froze and quickly followed Leonard and Frye, and lowered his head to prevent anyone he knew from noticing him.
-Benson and Melissa still kept in touch with some of their former neighbors, after all, they hadn’t moved far enough.
Passing through the area with its many street vendors, the three of them entered what was truly the lower streets of Iron Cross.
The passersby here were dressed in old and tattered clothing, both wary and greedy at the presence of strangers and polished people, as if they were vultures staring at carrion, ready to attack at any moment, but Leonard’s revolver effectively put a stop to any mishaps.
”We’ll begin our investigation with last night’s death, starting with Mrs. Lauwers, the matchbox gluer.” Leonard flipped down the information and pointed not far away, “134, 1st floor ……”
As the trio moved forward, a ragged, playful child darted to the side of the road and gazed at them with bewilderment, curiosity, and fear.
”Look at their arms their legs, they’re like matchsticks.” Leonard exclaimed, taking the lead and entering the three-story 134.
Various smells mixed with gases instantly drilled into Klein’s nostrils, he could vaguely distinguish the foul smell of urine, the stench of sweat, the musty smell of dampness, and the smell of burning coal and wood.
Unable to resist raising a hand to cover his nose, Klein saw Beech Mountbatten waiting in the area.
The sheriff in charge of the surrounding neighborhoods had a brownish beard and was full of fawning affection for Leonard, who had flashed his identity as an inspector.
”Sir, I’ve got Lauwers waiting in his room.” Beech Mountbatten laughed in a slightly shrill distinctive voice.
He obviously didn’t recognize the much more refreshed and decent Klein, and was only concerned with pleasing the three officers as he led them into the Lauwers’ house on the 1st floor.
It was a one-room house, with a two-story raised bed leaning against the innermost part, a table on the right with glue, cardboard, and other items, baskets full of matchboxes stacked in the corner, and a ragged cupboard on the left, holding both clothing and dishes.
On either side of the door of the room were crowded stoves, toilets, and small quantities of coal, wood, and other things, and in the center were two dirty floor bunks, where a man was huffing and puffing under a quilt so rotten with holes in it that one could scarcely get down from it.
On the lower bunk of the high and low beds, a woman lay, her skin cold and dank, obviously having lost all of her life.
Next to this body sat a man in his thirties with greasy, messy hair, who looked shriveled and lost his gaze.
”Rauwes, these three officers have come to examine the body and ask you something.” Beech Mountbatten shouted at the top of his voice, not caring that there was someone else sleeping on the floor.
The shriveled man looked up breathlessly, surprised, and asked:
”Didn’t we check and ask this morning?”
He was wearing a gray and blue workman’s uniform with more than a few stitches on it.
”Answer when you’re told to, where’s the question!” Beech Mountbatten reprimanded the other man severely, then smiled towards Leonard, Klein and Fry, “Sir, that’s Rauwes, and on the bed is his wife, the deceased, who died of a sudden illness after our initial examination.”
Klein and the others padded over to the bed through the gap between the floor bunks.
Fry, who had a high nose and thin lips with an icy temperament, did not say anything, but only softly patted Lauwers, signaling him to move out of the way to make it easier for him to examine the body.
Klein glanced at the sleeping man on the floor and asked suspiciously:
”And this one is?”
”Me, my tenant.” Rauwes scratched his scalp and said, “This room costs 3 Soule 10p per week, I’m just a dockworker, my wife gets two and a quarter pence for gluing 1 bucket of matchboxes, and 1 bucket has, has, 130 boxes or more I think, and we, we have children, and I can only rent out the spare space to someone else, and a ground floor bunk only costs 1 Soule per week ……”
”I have a tenant who helps with the sets at the theater and won’t be off until 10 p.m., so I sold the use of the floor store during the day to this, this gentleman, who guards the theater doors at night, and, well, he’ll only pay 6 pence, per week ……”
Listening to the other man’s rambling, Crane for a moment couldn’t help glancing at the baskets in the corner.
1 basket of 130 boxes or more only earns 2.25p, almost the price of two pounds of black bread …… How many baskets can be battered in a day? (Note 1)
Leonard looked round and asked:
”Was there anything unusual about your wife some time before her death?”
Lauwers, who had long answered similar questions, pointed to his left chest and said, “Since last week, well, maybe last week, she used to say that she was stuffy here and couldn’t catch her breath.”
A precursor to heart disease? A normal death event? Klein interjected and asked:
”Did you see her die?”
Lovis recalled:
”She stopped working after the sun went down, and candles and kerosene can be much more expensive than matchboxes …… She said she was tired and asked me to talk to the two children while she rested, and by the time I looked at her again, she had, had stopped breathing.”
Speaking of this, Lovis’ sadness and pain could no longer be hidden.
Klein and Leonard asked a few more questions each, but neither could find any unnatural or abnormal elements.
After glancing at each other, Leonard spoke up:
”Mr. Lauwers, please go out and wait for a few minutes while we do an in-depth examination of the body, I don’t think you’ll want to see what’s coming next.”
”Okay, okay.” Lauwes scrambled to his feet.
Beech Mountbatten stepped to the side, kicked the sleeping tenant awake, and roughly shooed the other man out of the room, himself having the good sense to close the door and stand guard outside.
”Well?” Leonard then looked over at Fry.
”Death by heart disease.” Fry withdrew his hands and said with certainty.
Crane thought for a moment and pulled out a halfpenny denomination copper coin, intending to make a quick determination.
”‘Mrs. Lovis’s heart disease had a transcendental element to it’? No, that’s too narrow, and the answer is easily misleading …… Well, ‘Mrs. Lauwers’ death had the influence of transcendental factors’ …… That’s the one!” He whispered silently as if in thought, quickly settling on the divination statement.
In the midst of his silent recitation, Klein went to Mrs. Lovis’s body, his eyes turned deep, and flicked the coin upwards.
The brass-colored coin tumbled down to a steady rest in his palm as the aftermath of the pawn echoed.
This time, the king’s head was facing up.
This suggests that there was indeed a transcendental element in Mrs. Lovis’s death!
Note 1: In the late Victorian era, a waddle was 144 matchboxes at 2.25p for labor, and the limit for a woman working from morning to night was 7 waddles.