Part 1 The Joker Chapter 45 The Return

　　The Antigonus family notebook was in the room across from the kidnappers!

　　Coincidental as it was, Klein was confident that his senses were not mistaken.

　　He instantly rolled over and left the bed, stripping off the outdated clothing he had worn to bed in two or three tries.

　　He took the white shirt next to him and draped it over his body, fastening the buttons from top to bottom.

　　One, two, three …… He suddenly realized that one button was missing, and the left and right sides seemed to be asymmetrical.

　　Upon closer inspection, Klein realized that he had been doing the buttons wrong from the start, making the shirt distorted.

　　Shaking his head helplessly, he took a deep breath in and let it out slowly, using some meditation techniques to regain some composure in himself.

　　Putting on his white shirt and black pants, he matched the underarm straps with barely a semblance of composure, and pulled out the revolver he had stashed under a fluffy pillow, placing it inside.

　　Not bothering with a bow tie, he donned his formal attire and walked to the door with his hat in one hand and his cane in the other.

　　Sticking on his half-height silk bowler hat, Klein gently twisted the knob and opened the door into the hallway.

　　Carefully closing the wooden door to his bedroom, he descended the stairs near-silently like a thief, leaving two lines of words with the pen and paper in the sitting room to indicate that he had forgotten to mention last night that something had come up at the office and that he needed to be there early today.

　　Stepping out of the front door, Klein felt a refreshing cool breeze that tranquilized his entire being.

　　The street in front of him was dim and silent, with no pedestrians and only the glow of the gas street lamps shining silently.

　　Crane took his pocket watch from his inside pocket and snapped it open to find that it was just six o’clock; the scarlet moonlight had not yet completely faded, but there was already a glimmer of translucency in the sky.

　　He was about to look for an expensive hired carriage for hire when he suddenly saw a two-horse, four-wheeled, trackless public carriage approaching.

　　”A public carriage this early?” Slightly surprised, Klein greeted it and beckoned it to a halt.

　　”Good morning, sir.” The coachman skillfully made the horses stop.

　　The staff member in charge of tolls next to him covered his mouth with his hand and yawned.

　　”Going to Zotland Street.” Crane said as he pulled two 1p and four halfpennies from his pants pocket.

　　”Four pence.” The staff member in charge of the fare replied without hesitation.

　　Handing over the fare, Klein got into the carriage, only to see that it was empty, with no other customers, and a distinct coldness in the dimness.

　　”You are the first.” The coachman said with a smile.

　　The two brown horses broke into a stride and moved forward relatively briskly.

　　”Frankly, I didn’t expect a public carriage this early in the morning.” Klein took a seat close to the coachman and replied casually as a distraction to ease his inner tightness.

　　The coachman laughed to himself:

　　”Six to nine every day, but, I only get paid a pound a week.”

　　”No breaks?” Klein inquired in surprise.

　　”One day off a week in rotation.” The coachman’s tone became heavy.

　　The tollman beside him added:

　　”We cover six in the morning until eleven at noon, then go to lunch, go on a lunch break, wait until after dinner, which is six, and then replace our colleagues …… Even if we don’t have to take a break, the two horses need it.”

　　”It didn’t used to be like this, and it’s only been rotated like this since some of the coachmen got too tired and made undue mistakes, causing the horses to lose control and the carriages to topple over …… How could those vampires suddenly become kind!” The coachman snorted.

　　In the light of the morning sun, the public carriage headed toward Zoltan Street, only boarding seven or eight passengers along the way.

　　After Klein relieved his tightness a little, he stopped talking and closed his eyes, flashing back yesterday’s experience frame by frame to see if he had missed anything else.

　　By the time the blazing sun had fully risen and the sky was truly bright, the public carriage arrived at Zotland Street.

　　Klein pressed his hat with his left hand and got out of the carriage in a huff.

　　He quickly entered 36 Zotland Street and reached the outside of the Blackthorn Security Company along the stairs.

　　At this time, the gate was closed and had not yet been opened.

　　Klein removed the keychain from his belt, found its brass-colored counterpart, slipped it into the hole, and twisted it with a click.

　　He pushed forward, allowing the door to open slowly back to see the dark-haired, green-pupiled Leonard Mitchell sniffing lightly at the recently popular rolled tobacco.

　　”As a matter of fact, I prefer cigars …… You look eager?” The poetical night watchman asked in an easy, cozy manner.

　　”And the captain?” Klein asked without answering.

　　Leonard pointed to the partition:

　　”In his office. Being an extraordinary promotion for a ‘sleepless’, he only needs to rest for two hours during the day, and I’m sure the factory owners, the bankers, love that magic potion the most.”

　　Klein nodded and walked briskly through the partition to see that Dunn-Smith had opened the door to his office and was standing in the entryway.

　　”What can I do for you?” He wore a black trench coat and carried a gold-inlaid cane, his expression stoic and serious.

　　”I’m getting that ‘I seem to have seen it somewhere’ feeling, it should be that notebook, the Antigonus family’s notebook.” Klein did his best to control himself and make the answer seem organized.

　　”Where?” Dunn-Smith’s face did not visibly change.

　　But Klein’s inspiration told him that there seemed to be a distinct, intangible fluctuation in the other man, which might have been a flash of the Spirit or a change of mood.

　　”It was just yesterday where Leonard and I rescued the hostages, across the room from the kidnappers, and I didn’t notice it at the time until I had a dream and received a revelation.” Klein made no secret of it.

　　”It seems I missed a very big credit yesterday.” Leonard, who had walked up to the partition position at some point, let out a soft laugh.

　　Dunn nodded slightly and commanded with a solemn expression:

　　”Have Kornleigh replace Old Neil in guarding the armory, and have Old Neil and Frye come with us.”

　　Leonard didn’t show any more frivolity, and immediately notified Coenly and Frye in the Night Watch recreation room, one of them was a “sleeper” and the other one was a “corpse collector”.

　　Five minutes later, the two-wheeled carriage belonging to the night watchman’s squad was running fast, in the early morning when there were not many pedestrians.

　　Leonard, wearing a felt hat, shirt and vest, acted as a coachman, occasionally flicking his whip in the air to make it crack.

　　Inside the carriage, Crane and old Neil sat on the same side, opposite Dunn Smith and Fry.

　　The “corpse collector” has a skin so fair that it looks like he has not been in the sun for a long time, or is severely deprived of blood, he is about thirty years old, with black hair and blue eyes, a high nose, thin lips, and an icy, dark temperament, which seems to have a slight smell left by years of touching corpses.

　　”You will tell the story in more detail.” Dunn straightened the collar of his black trench coat.

　　Klein rubbed the citrine pendant hidden by his sleeve and began with the acceptance of the commission and continued on to the dream, with the old Niall beside him hemming and hawing:

　　”You seem to have some sort of fatalistic bond with that Antigonus family notebook, and you can meet it like that.”

　　Yes, this was too much of a coincidence! If it wasn’t for the fact that Leonard just mentioned that the preliminary interrogation results of Elliot’s kidnapping case showed that there was no hidden forces or mysterious forces manipulating it, and that it was just a case of desperation purely for money, I would have suspected that it was deliberately arranged by whoever …… Klein was also quite surprised by this.

　　It was too much of a coincidence!

　　Dunn did not comment, as if contemplating something, also dressed in a black trench coat, “corpse collector” Fry kept the same silence.

　　The silence was not broken until the carriage came to a stop and the building Crane had described appeared in the window.

　　”Let’s go up, Crane, you and old Neil go at the end, be careful, you must be careful.” Dunn got out of the wagon and pulled a strange revolver with a distinctly long and thick barrel out of his pocket, tucking it in his right pocket.

　　”Good.” Crane who dared to be reckless at the front of the line.

　　Once Leonard had found someone to guard the carriage, a group of five Extraordinary People entered the stairway in an orderly back-and-forth manner and arrived at the third floor at a very light pace.

　　”This is it?” Leonard pointed to the room across from the kidnappers.

　　Klein tapped his brow twice and turned on his psychic vision.

　　In this state, his inspiration was heightened again, only to realize that the door was déjà vu, and he seemed to have entered it himself.

　　”Right.” He nodded affirmatively.

　　Old Neil also turned on his own auric vision, and after carefully observing it, he said:

　　”There’s no one inside, and there’s no magic aura.”

　　”Body collectors,” Fry added hoarsely:

　　”No evil spirits.”

　　He didn’t need to turn on his psychic vision to see many spirits, including evil spirits and grudge spirits.

　　Leonard stepped forward and, just as he had done yesterday, struck the door lock with one fist.

　　This time, not only did the wooden boards around it shatter, but even the door lock snapped and bounced off, clanging to the ground.

　　Klein could only feel some sort of invisible seal disappear instantly, followed by a strong stench he smelled.

　　”Corpses, rotting corpses.” “Corpse collectors,” Frye stated icily.

　　He didn’t show any sign of revulsion at all.

　　Dunn reached out with his black-gloved right hand and slowly pushed open the door to the room, and the first thing that caught everyone’s eye was a fireplace, with an uncharacteristically stifling heat permeating it in the early July weather.

　　In front of the fireplace stood a rocking chair, on which an old woman in a black and white dress sat with her head hanging low.

　　Her whole body was abnormally much larger, covered with skin so black and green and bulging to the point of glowing that it seemed to burst open with a casual poke and spew forth a putrid stench, while a single maggot or parasitic organism crawled in and out of the flesh and putrid fluid, in and out of the clothing and folds – in the auror’s vision they looked like points of light clustered in a mass of extinguished “darkness.”

　　Snap, snap.

　　Both of the old woman’s eyes dislodged, fell to the floor, and rolled a few times, leaving a few yellowish-brown trails in their wake.

　　Klein recoiled, no longer able to restrain the effects of the stench, and groveled and vomited.