Chapter 188: Military Knife
Kand’s Room was almost the same as what he had seen yesterday, with no signs of being touched, but inside the fake book that sealed the stone sculpture was empty, the stone sculpture had indeed been taken away, and the stone sculpture that smashed Bluebeard the Count’s head was indeed taken from here.
Immediately after, not knowing if it was a hallucination, Clark felt he smelled a faint fragrance, so weak that it made one doubt it.
To verify this, Clark leaned close to the fake book which was actually a box, sniffed deeply and carefully several times, confirming the fragrance came from the box surface, then he seriously used the back of his hand and palm to feel the sensation of touching the box surface, and discovered a greasy substance on the box surface, that slippery feeling should be from some skincare item used by a female.
So, was it Hera?
Clark was very familiar with this fragrance, because on the first night he arrived at the castle, when Hera brought him dinner, there had been close contact between them, and the same scent had wafted from her.
Closing the fake book and putting the thing back in place, Clark left Kand’s Room and headed to Bluebeard the Count’s Room.
The castle was deathly quiet, the howling of the gale against the glass became clearly audible, like a group of devils pounding on the doors and windows, the wind sound seeping through the gaps being their invading strange roars, sending chills down the spine.
In a depressed mood, Clark turned into the corridor, walking up the spiraling stairs, feeling this uphill stretch longer and farther than last night, looking up at the dome of seemingly endless darkness, as if he was voluntarily walking into an inverted abyss.
Perhaps, the murderer and the demon-subduing sorcerer were waiting for him in the room he was about to enter, like a lamb walking into a tiger’s mouth, or perhaps they lurked in the dark corners, striking like hidden arrows to seal the throat with blood, killing in one blow.
However, his wild thoughts vanished the moment he quietly pushed open the door of the count’s room and entered Bluebeard the Count’s Room, because everything was still deathly quiet as before.
Poor Bluebeard the Count still lay coldly on the large bed soaked in blood, that deadly military knife still stuck straight in his heart, the blade’s cold gleam ghastly, illuminating the stone sculpture half-embedded in that ruined face with a ghostly qi.
Based on his suspicion of Butler Valente, Clark guessed that something unfavorable to Butler Valente existed in this murder case scene.
Since someone said during the day that Valente entered and exited Bluebeard the Count’s Room every night under the reason of reporting the castle’s daily work summary, was Butler Valente really so diligent with Bluebeard the Count every night?
Thinking of Bluebeard the Count’s attitude toward him as a stranger, not even carefully verifying his identity, almost perfunctorily inquiring, Clark did not think Bluebeard the Count was a ruler serious and responsible about his own castle.
Clark recalled the places everyone had searched during the day, carefully rechecking the unchecked corners and gaps, searching for a long time with no special discovery, so he began to focus on recalling Butler Valente’s search behavior during the day.
“He checked the bookshelf here, checked the small cubicle here, checked the fireplace…” Clark tried hard to recall the details, these places everyone had double-checked, finally his gaze fell on Bluebeard the Count’s corpse, “Corpse… right, only he checked the corpse, and throughout only he touched the corpse alone.”
Recalling that during the day when preparing to check the corpse, Mireille and Hera the two women didn’t dare touch the corpse, so the work fell to the two men, and Butler Valente, being the only one wearing gloves and not trusting the outsider Clark, didn’t let him touch Bluebeard the Count’s corpse.
Did this corpse hide something else?
Clark secretly shook his head, the corpse check was fairly thorough, the women although didn’t dare touch the corpse, but looked at it very carefully, the chance of oversight was small.
Clark’s gaze then fell on the bed, his eyes lighting up slightly, could it be the bed has a problem?
He glanced at the corpse on the bed, muttered an apology inwardly, roughly dragged the corpse to the floor, then got on the bed, groping every place on the bed.
“Hm?” Just as Clark lifted the bed sheet and mattress, he unexpectedly discovered that between the solid bed board and the seamlessly flush bed frame there was actually something solid.
“No wonder when sitting on this bed, it’s hard to feel any movement or sway.” After discovering the anomaly, Clark felt the bed board definitely hid some mechanism or such, so he tapped around everywhere, soon discovering a hollow space about two adult males’ shoulder width in the center of the bed board, guessing there must be a hidden tunnel below the bed board.
So he began searching for possible places to activate the mechanism, finally finding a clue on a hanging painting in the room.
At the bottom right corner of that hanging painting’s frame, there was a deep slit, since the frame was black, perfectly fusing the blackness presented by the slit, hard to see with the naked eye. Moreover, even if discovered, if not for Clark sensing there was a mechanism here, probably wouldn’t find it suspicious.
“If this is the keyhole for activating the mechanism, then what is the key?” Clark used his imagination to think, racking his brain to recall memories, then slapped his palm, “I got it.”
Clark’s line of sight suddenly turned to the corpse sprawled on the floor, his attention fully on that military knife.
Muttering another apology, Clark stepped forward to draw sword, but unexpectedly found the knife seemed stuck in the bone, steadily fixed in the corpse, hard to pull out.
He straddled Bluebeard the Count’s armpits with both feet, took a deep breath, and yanked with all his might.
Whoosh!
Using too much force, Clark sat butt-first on the ground, making no small commotion, his finger accidentally getting cut.
“Ah!” A sharply suppressed scream rang out in Bluebeard the Count’s Room, Clark was instantly startled, turning his head to see a female figure who had fallen beside a bookshelf.
“You! When did you come in?” Clark said in shock.
In the darkness, Clark couldn’t see her face clearly, but from the body outline it should be Mireille, only hearing her embarrassedly say: “Not long, because I saw you doing that… I hid, then just now you fell, the sound startled me, so… ow, my hand seems to have been cut by the bookcase corner…”
Hearing her voice and explanation, Clark relaxed inwardly a bit, he thought for a moment, walked toward Mireille holding the knife, softly saying: “Since you came in, why didn’t you call me?”
Facing Clark who held the bloody weapon and approached her, Mireille was not only unafraid, but lit a candlestick to illuminate the room, then tore a cloth strip from her apron to bandage the wound on her finger, dryly laughing: “Wasn’t this afraid of disturbing the law enforcement officer sir’s case investigation, breaking your train of thought?”
