Chapter 65: Helping Others

Chapter 65: Helping Others

Wendel was not at all unfamiliar with murder. Hearing those words, he felt no panic. Quite calmly, he let his gaze pass over the woman standing in the doorway and look into the room.

Immediately, he saw a man collapsed on the floor. His chest was stained a deep red.

“Are you certain he is already dead?” Wendel asked peacefully.

The young lady in her twenties first looked blank, then answered with some uncertainty,

“He should be… I don’t know…”

“If he can still be saved, he needs to be sent to the hospital immediately.” Wendel spoke as though addressing the family member of a patient, not a murderer.

The lady holding the blood-dripping dagger instinctively turned sideways, making way for him.

Wendel took several steps forward and approached the victim.

He did not need to crouch. With only a sweep of his gaze, he drew a judgment from all kinds of signs:

“He is indeed already dead.”

The young woman in her twenties, her long flaxen hair somewhat disheveled, showed no obvious change in expression. She lowered her head, looked at the tips of her feet, and said,

“Call the police.”

“What should I call you?” Wendel had already heard hurried footsteps coming from the stairs.

Clearly, either a waiter or the owner of the inn had heard the scream and come up to check what had happened.

“Tracy…” the young lady, who carried both wildness and purity, answered in a low voice.

She then sank into her own world and said no more.

Just as Wendel was about to say something, the innkeeper who had handled his check-in earlier had already rushed to the doorway.

“Goddess!” After seeing the situation inside the room, the elderly man could not help crying out.

Wendel pressed his right hand downward, signaling for the man to calm down, then said,

“Go call the police immediately. I will keep watch here.”

His temperament and his words naturally gave people a feeling that he could be trusted and obeyed. The innkeeper did not ramble at all. He immediately turned and ran downstairs.

For Wendel, coming over to check the commotion had initially only been a gentleman’s habit. In truth, he had no intention of involving himself deeply. After all, he still had a mission. Yet Miss Tracy’s blank, detached, and forced-cold attitude stirred a little pity in him. This was a normal male reaction.

He looked around the room and spoke as though addressing the air.

“Not every murder results in a severe sentence. There are many different circumstances.”

Tracy slowly raised her head and cast her gaze toward this gentleman.

Inside her eyes, which seemed so dead, confused, and hollow, there was now a hint of something difficult to describe.

Wendel glanced at her bruised face.

“He beat you?”

“Mm.” Perhaps the other party carried some form of authority, for Tracy, who had wanted to remain silent, ultimately answered.

Wendel lowered his gaze to the dagger that had stopped dripping blood.

“Did you bring that here, or did he?”

Tracy responded a little sluggishly.

“He did.”

Wendel nodded slightly.

“Legitimate self-defense is in accordance with the law. I can testify to the police that you two had been having a fierce quarrel beforehand and that a fight had broken out. Clearly, in this regard, men hold a natural advantage. I am not discriminating against women. Science and experience both tell us this.”

He paused and asked,

“What exactly was your relationship with him? What happened between you?”

Tracy’s eyes moved slightly. She recovered a little from that state of deep self-isolation and detachment from reality.

Like someone answering a policeman’s questions, she said with a hint of hope and sorrow in her gaze,

“I am—heh, I was his mistress.”

At this point, a self-mocking smile appeared on Tracy’s face.

“I was once an ugly woman who pursued money until I lost my reason. Not long after leaving grammar school, I was lured by him and became his mistress.

“He gave me an inn and had me stay there, waiting every week for his arrival or his summons.

“I gradually lost interest in that life. I became more and more depressed and inferior. I wanted to return everything to him and break free of him completely, but he refused. He threatened me in all kinds of ways and would not let me leave him. Our last several meetings were all spent in quarrels.

“Just now, he said there was only one way to leave him, and that was death. Then he beat me and took out the dagger. Afterward… you already know what happened afterward…”

Mistress… Wendel swept a regretful and pitying glance across Tracy’s face.

“The traces at the scene also preliminarily support that development.”

He had originally thought Tracy and the deceased were husband and wife. Who would have known their relationship was even more unbearable than he had imagined?

Tracy nodded woodenly.

“Thank you.”

She said no more until the police of Utopia arrived. Only then did she break her silence, voluntarily raising her hands to accept the handcuffs.

Wendel glanced at Tracy’s slightly unsteady steps and said to the police,

“Take her to have her injuries examined first, and treat them to prevent an accident.”

The policemen did not know why they were listening to a witness’s instructions. In short, without raising any objection, they led Tracy and brought Wendel through the pouring rain to the small hospital in town.

Because Tracy was a woman, Wendel and two police officers waited in the hospital corridor and did not follow her inside.

As time passed, Wendel saw a pregnant woman being hurriedly sent into the delivery room. There seemed to be some problem, requiring surgery.

After a while, he heard the cry of an infant. It was the announcement of new life arriving in this world. And just then, Tracy happened to come out.

“Did you feel it? The beauty of life.” Wendel said seriously to Tracy.

Tracy listened to the infant’s cry mingled with the wind and rain, and her expression was clearly touched.

Her face had already been wiped clean, appearing quite plain.

After a few seconds, Tracy returned to herself, nodded to Wendel, and said again,

“Thank you.”

This time, she was no longer so wooden, sluggish, and withdrawn.

Wendel secretly breathed out in relief, then followed them to the police station and gave a statement.

After finishing what he needed to do, Wendel walked to the side of the street, preparing to take a rental carriage back to the Iris Inn.

However, in this wind-and-rain-swept late night, he could not see a single pedestrian or carriage on the road.

“This is the drawback of a small city. Not convenient enough.” Wendel whispered a complaint, opened the umbrella he had brought with him when he went out, identified the direction, and returned toward the Iris Inn along the same route.

As a former Sheriff, he had a mysticism-based memory ability for the routes he had walked. He did not worry at all about getting lost in an unfamiliar small city.

By then, the heavy rain had lessened considerably, but the fierce wind still raged. It swept past in wave after wave, carrying rainwater and striking Wendel’s body at an angle.

That made Wendel unable to resist raising his right hand and shielding the area between his chest and abdomen.

The confidential document was hidden inside the clothing at that position.

Even while sleeping earlier, Wendel had kept the document close to his body, preventing it from separating from him. For this, he had already formed the habit that, as long as he gave himself the corresponding reminder beforehand, he would not roll over after falling asleep.

Utopia was not a large town. Wendel walked for about a quarter of an hour before seeing the Iris Inn. By then, because the wind was too strong, both his top hat and clothing had been somewhat soaked.

This made him a little worried that the confidential document had been permeated by water and might be damaged.

Strictly speaking, I have already violated the rules for carrying out this mission. But when facing a lady like that, how could I not offer help? That is the self-cultivation a gentleman should possess… Wendel felt somewhat vexed, but not at all regretful.

After entering his room, he immediately took off his coat, removed the document, and placed it on the table.

The paper envelope around the document already showed clear traces of moisture. In several places, it looked as though the slightest forceful touch would tear it open.

Wendel immediately pulled the bell and summoned the waiter, asking for a coal stove in the hope that it would raise the room’s temperature and speed up the sealed envelope’s drying.

While waiting, he discovered that the surroundings had no deep-night quietness at all. It seemed that the earlier scream and the police visit had awakened the guests here and nearby residents, and they had not yet fallen asleep again.

The howling wind had weakened quite a bit. Amid the dripping rain, Wendel heard the cries of children, the quarrels of married couples, violin sounds like a saw cutting wood, intermittent sobs, footsteps moving back and forth upstairs, and discussions whose voices were sometimes deliberately lowered and sometimes uncontrolled.

He did not sigh sentimentally over this scene filled with the breath of life. He only felt they were noisy, preventing him from calming down.

After a while, the waiter delivered the coal stove, already filled with burning charcoal.

Wendel relaxed a little and casually asked,

“That Miss Tracy earlier—do you know her?”

The thin waiter shook his head.

“I don’t.”

He then added,

“I heard she is indeed local, but before this year, I had always lived on a plantation outside the city.”

“What do you know about her?” Wendel subconsciously followed up.

“She comes to our inn three to five times every month, with the man who died.” The waiter suddenly sighed. “She is not happy at all.”

Wendel was silent for several seconds. He dismissed the waiter and sat back at the table.

Time passed second by second, and the envelope outside the confidential document gradually dried.

At this moment, the interior of the inn and the outside had become relatively quiet. Only the dripping of rain and the wind making the windows rattle echoed from time to time.

Energetic and alert, Wendel recalled what had happened earlier and lamented Miss Tracy’s life. As he did so, he picked up the document envelope and flipped it over.

At that moment, he discovered that the part of the envelope pressed underneath had suffered a little damage, faintly exposing the paper inside.

Wendel’s brows furrowed at once. He knew that he was going to be disciplined.

Of course, the punishment would not be too severe, because if the document’s secrecy requirements were high enough, they would not have had him escort it alone.

Wendel originally intended to maintain the envelope’s current state and show the damage to the handover party. However, as his gaze swept across the tear, he saw one word on the document inside:

“Utopia.”

Wendel’s mind instantly tightened. He felt as though the sounds of wind and rain outside had abruptly stopped.