Chapter 45: Return

Chapter Forty-Five
Return

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

Although this was far too coincidental, Klein trusted that his feeling was not wrong.

He immediately rolled out of bed and removed his worn sleeping clothes in a few quick motions.

Taking the white shirt beside him, he draped it over his body and rapidly fastened the buttons from top to bottom.

One, two, three… Suddenly, he realized one button was “missing,” and that the left and right sides seemed misaligned.

Looking closely, Klein discovered that he had fastened the wrong button from the very beginning, leaving the shirt twisted.

He shook his head helplessly, took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled, applying a little meditation technique to restore a certain level of calm.

After putting on the white shirt and black trousers, he at least managed to equip the underarm holster with some steadiness. He took the revolver hidden beneath the soft pillow and placed it inside.

With no time to tie a bow tie, he put on his formal coat, took his hat in one hand and cane in the other, and walked to the door.

Putting on the half-top silk hat, Klein twisted the handle gently, opened the bedroom door, and entered the corridor.

After cautiously closing the wooden door behind him, he descended the stairs almost silently, like a thief. In the living room, he used the fountain pen and paper to leave two lines explaining that he had forgotten to mention company business the previous night and had to go in early today.

The moment he stepped outside, Klein felt a refreshing cool wind. His whole body quieted.

The street before him was dark and still, without pedestrians. Only the light of the gas streetlamps shone silently.

Klein took out his pocket watch from his inner pocket and snapped it open. It was just past six. The crimson moonlight had not yet faded completely, but a streak of brightness already glowed on the horizon.

He had been about to search for an expensive hired carriage when he suddenly saw a two-horse, four-wheeled trackless public carriage approaching.

“There are public carriages this early?”

A little surprised, Klein went forward and waved it down.

“Good morning, sir.”

The coachman skillfully brought the horses to a stop.

Beside him, the man responsible for collecting fares covered his mouth with a hand and yawned.

“To Zouteland Street,” Klein said while taking two one-penny coins and four half-pennies from his trouser pocket.

“Four pence,” the fare collector answered without hesitation.

After handing over the fare, Klein boarded the carriage and found it empty. There was not a single other passenger. In the dimness, the carriage felt noticeably cold and deserted.

“You are the first,” the coachman said with a smile.

The two brown horses began moving, traveling ahead relatively briskly.

“To be honest, I did not expect public carriages to run so early,” Klein said casually as he sat near the coachman, using conversation to distract himself and ease the tension in his heart.

The coachman said self-mockingly, “Six in the morning to nine at night every day. And yet my weekly wage is only one pound.”

“No time to rest?” Klein asked in surprise.

“One day off each week, on rotation,” the coachman replied, his tone turning heavy.

The fare collector beside him added, “We take charge from six in the morning to eleven at noon. Then we go eat lunch and rest. After dinner—that is, at six o’clock—we replace our colleagues again… Even if we do not need rest, the two horses do.”

“It was not like this before. Ever since one coachman became so tired that he made a mistake he should not have made, causing the horses to lose control and the carriage to overturn, they introduced this rotation… As if those vampires would suddenly become kindhearted!” the coachman said with a derisive laugh.

In the glow of early morning, the public carriage drove toward Zouteland Street. Along the way, only seven or eight passengers boarded.

Once Klein’s tension eased a little, he stopped talking. He closed his eyes and replayed yesterday’s experiences frame by frame, seeing whether there were any other omissions.

By the time the blazing sun had fully risen and the sky was truly bright, the public carriage reached Zouteland Street.

Klein held his hat down with his left hand, half-walking, half-jumping down from the carriage.

He quickly entered Number 36 Zouteland Street and climbed the stairs to Blackthorn Security Company.

At that hour, the front door was closed and had not yet opened.

Klein took the keyring from his waist, found the brass-colored matching key, inserted it into the keyhole, and turned it with a click.

Pushing forward, he let the door swing slowly inward. He saw Leonard Mitchell, black-haired and green-eyed, smelling a recently fashionable cigarette.

“In truth, I prefer cigars… You look rather urgent?” the poet-like Nighthawk asked with ease.

“Where is the Captain?” Klein asked instead of answering.

Leonard pointed toward the partition.

“In his office. As a Beyonder advanced from Sleepless, he only needs to rest for two hours during the day. I imagine factory owners and bankers would love that potion.”

Klein nodded and quickly passed through the partition. He saw Dunn Smith had already opened his office door and was standing in the entrance.

“What happened?”

He wore a black windbreaker and held a cane inlaid with gold, his expression steady and grave.

“I experienced that feeling of ‘seeming to have seen it somewhere before.’ It should be that notebook—the Antigonus family notebook,” Klein answered, doing his utmost to control himself and make the explanation clear.

“Where?” Dunn Smith’s face showed no obvious change.

Yet Klein’s inspiration told him that the Captain seemed to produce a clear, invisible fluctuation. Perhaps it was a flash of spirit, or perhaps an emotional change.

“In the place where Leonard and I rescued the hostage yesterday. In the room across from the kidnappers. I did not notice it at the time. It was only after having a dream that I received the revelation,” Klein said without hiding anything.

“It seems I missed a very large contribution yesterday,” Leonard said with a light laugh from the partition, though none could say when he had arrived there.

Dunn nodded slightly. With a solemn expression, he ordered, “Have Kenley replace Old Neil guarding the armory. Then have Old Neil, Frye, and us go there together.”

Leonard did not continue acting frivolous. He immediately informed Kenley and Frye in the Nighthawks’ recreation room—one a Sleepless, the other a Corpse Collector.

Five minutes later, the two-wheeled carriage belonging to the Nighthawk team sped quickly through the not-yet-crowded early morning streets.

Leonard wore a felt hat, shirt, and waistcoat. He temporarily acted as coachman, flicking the whip through the air from time to time and making it crack.

Inside the carriage, Klein and Old Neil sat on one side. Opposite them were Dunn Smith and Frye.

This Corpse Collector’s skin was pale, as though it had not been touched by sunlight for a long time—or as if he suffered from a severe lack of blood. He looked about thirty, with black hair, blue eyes, a high nose bridge, and thin lips. His temperament was cold and gloomy, seeming to carry a faint lingering smell left behind by years of touching corpses.

“Tell the matter again in greater detail,” Dunn said, tidying the collar of his black windbreaker.

Klein rubbed the citrine pendant concealed beneath his sleeve and began with accepting the commission, telling the story all the way to the dream. Old Neil beside him chuckled.

“You and that Antigonus family notebook seem to have a certain fated bond. To think you could encounter it even like this.”

Exactly. This is far too coincidental! If Leonard had not mentioned just now that the initial interrogation results in Elliott’s kidnapping case showed no hidden force or mysterious power behind it, that it was only a simple crime committed for money, I would suspect someone had deliberately arranged it…

Klein too found the matter exceedingly strange.

It was too coincidental!

Dunn expressed no opinion, as though pondering something. Frye, the Corpse Collector, who also wore a black windbreaker, maintained his silence as before.

Only when the carriage stopped and the building Klein had described appeared outside the window was that heavy quiet finally broken.

“Let us go up. Klein, you and Old Neil stay at the very back. Be careful. You must be careful,” Dunn said as he stepped off the carriage. From his inner pocket, he drew a strange revolver whose barrel was clearly longer and thicker than ordinary, then slipped it into his right-hand pocket.

“All right.”

Klein would hardly dare charge ahead.

After Leonard found someone to guard the carriage, the five Beyonders entered the stairwell in orderly sequence, their steps light, and reached the third floor.

“This is the room?” Leonard pointed toward the room across from the kidnappers’ former hideout.

Klein tapped the space between his brows twice, activating spirit vision.

In that state, his inspiration improved again. He felt that the door was familiar, as though he himself had once entered the room.

“Yes.” He nodded with certainty.

Old Neil also activated his own spirit vision. After careful observation, he said, “There is no one inside, and no magical radiance.”

Frye the Corpse Collector added in a hoarse voice, “No evil spirits.”

He did not need to activate spirit vision in order to see many spirit bodies, including evil spirits and wraiths.

Leonard stepped forward and, just as he had the day before, punched the door lock.

This time, not only did the surrounding wooden boards splinter, even the lock itself popped free with a snap and clanged onto the ground.

Klein felt some invisible seal vanish in an instant. Immediately afterward, he smelled an overwhelming stench.

“A corpse. A rotting corpse,” Frye stated coldly.

He showed not the slightest sign of nausea.

Dunn extended his right hand, already wearing a black glove, and slowly pushed the door open. The first thing that entered everyone’s sight was a fireplace. In early July weather, it exuded an abnormal, stuffy heat.

Before the fireplace stood a rocking chair. An old woman in a black-and-white dress sat upon it, her head hanging low.

Her entire body had swollen to an unnatural size. Her skin was black-green and stretched shiny and taut, as though the lightest poke would make it burst and spray out the stench of rot. Maggots or parasites crawled in and out through flesh, putrid fluids, clothing, and folds. Under spirit vision, they were like specks of light clustering around an extinguished mass of “darkness.”

Plop. Plop.

The old woman’s two eyeballs fell out, landed on the floor, and rolled a few times, leaving behind several yellow-brown trails.

Klein’s stomach lurched. He could no longer resist the influence of the foul smell. Bending over, he vomited.