"...Tromie, thank you for your cooperation. I feel very sorry about your father's matter..."
Secretly leaving a 5-pound banknote in the bedroom, Angel sincerely apologized to the housemaid waiting outside the door, then left this simply furnished two-bedroom apartment.
If she had time, she would have a good chat with her own housemaid, but right now there was no more time to delay.
Leonard, disregarding his dignity, carried the bedding. The three of them, under the curious gazes of passersby, quickly returned along the path they came to the section of Iron Cross Street near the central square.
The hired carriage that brought them here was still parked by the roadside. The coachman sat in the driver's seat, an unlit inferior cigarette dangling from his mouth, already yawning repeatedly from waiting.
Seeing his employers approach, he quickly stuffed the cigarette into his pocket, rubbed his eyes, and perked up to prepare for departure.
"Narcissus Street, quickly."
Leonard threw the bedding into the carriage, then climbed in himself.
"Alright, no problem."
The coachman had followed the group around most of Tingen City's West District all afternoon, seeing these three gentlemen and lady entering and exiting various police stations, residential buildings, and burned houses, occasionally bringing some strange items onto the carriage. He no longer held any curiosity about their bizarre behavior. He called "Giddyup!" to the horses and slowly moved forward on the crowded Iron Cross Street.
———
"Oh no, Melissa has already come home from school..."
Looking at No. 2 Narcissus Street outside the carriage window, already lit up, Klein scratched his neck, appearing somewhat helpless.
"Melissa, who is that?"
Leonard also leaned toward the window, looking at Klein's house, asking curiously.
"His sister, studying at Tingen Technical School," Angel answered for Klein. "This way we can't go to his house for divination. Going back to Zoutland Street would be too late. My house is just nearby. Let's go to my place."
The two gentlemen hesitated briefly, then nodded in agreement.
To avoid being discovered by Melissa inside the house, the three got off the carriage from the other side, each carrying part of the deceased's personal belongings, and came to No. 6 Narcissus Street.
Opening the front door, ignoring the thin paper strips that fell from the door crack, Angel turned on the large gas lamp in the living room. The living room, bathed in golden evening sunlight, gained an extra touch of warmth.
"Study? Or bedroom?"
She looked at Klein who followed into the house, asking.
"Uh... the study will do."
Klein looked around, seemingly surprised that the living room's furnishings were too simple. Hearing Angel's words, he snapped back to attention and quickly replied.
The three came to the study next to the living room, placing Wal's bedding, McGum's burnt clothes and lighter, Lawrence's revolver used for suicide, and other items on the floor. Seeing Klein had already taken out his silver knife to prepare setting up the spirit wall, the two people who seemed redundant at the ritual site quickly exited the room, thoughtfully helping the Seer close the door.
"Tsk, your house is really... the decoration is quite Feysac style."
Sitting on the sofa with its back against the bay window, Leonard lay half-reclined on the backrest like the "Nightmare" Dunn Smith who had intruded into the room last time, legs crossed, surveying the living room's furnishings with amazement.
That's my sofa...
Angel opened her mouth but didn't have the nerve to ask him to give up the seat, only sitting on the two-person sofa across from the coffee table.
"...meaning the decoration style is simple, minimalist, less is more... roughly that meaning."
Seeing no response, Leonard sheepishly added an explanation.
"Aren't you afraid of disturbing his divination?"
Angel saw him being completely unrestrained, shouting loudly, and asked curiously.
"What's the problem? The spirit wall can block most sounds and interference. Can you hear Klein praying inside?"
Leonard said, then suddenly changed from his leaning posture to leaning forward, lowering his voice to ask: "Speaking of Klein, what do you think of that guy?"
What do I think? Are you referring to his secrets?
"Didn't we agree not to pry into each other's secrets?"
Angel was confused, not knowing why Leonard was asking for her opinion of Klein at this time.
"Ah?" Leonard seemed even more surprised than her, his eyes rolling for a moment before he reacted. "No, I don't mean that aspect. I mean your personal opinion of him. Miss Rozanne told me yesterday that you two this past week..."
He showed a smile of unclear meaning, his tone getting lower and lower, as if forgetting that he himself had just said the spirit wall would block outside sounds.
"Bang—"
The study door opened, Klein walked out slowly from the room, holding the silver knife. His eyes were deep, the spiritual leakage after meditation not yet fully controlled, behind him was the just-dissolved spirit wall, inside which seemed to still have breezes blowing.
"I found the location of the altar... What's wrong with you two?"
Seeing the two looking at him like thieves, Klein's mysterious aura surrounding him from just completing divination faltered.
———
"To accurately divine the altar's direction, I used dream divination and saw the scenery around the altar." Sitting on the single sofa Leonard had given up, Klein said slowly. "It's a gray-blue two-story detached building with all windows tightly closed and curtains drawn. Around it is a dilapidated dark garden with black-brown soil where no grass grows, like those commonly seen in ghost stories."
"The perspective in the dream was very close, couldn't see surrounding buildings. I could tell it was roughly the current time, but couldn't determine the specific location... Behind the house is a river, a very wide river. Either the Hoy River or the Tassok River - no other rivers in Tingen City have such wide water surfaces."
The Hoy River Klein mentioned extends from York Mountain in the north toward the southwest, flowing through the university district in Tingen's East District, joining the Tassok River locally.
The Tassok River originates from the Menethes Mountain Range, flowing southeast through the southwestern and southern suburban docks of Tingen City, finally entering the sea at Pritz Harbor southeast of Backlund.
"So we're looking for a two-story house by the Tassok or Hoy River." Leonard frowned as he summarized. "There are hundreds or thousands of such houses in Tingen City. We can only search along the rivers. The probability of finding it before dark is too low."
"And once night falls, once we delay past today, the variables will be even greater." Angel directly spread out their map marking crime locations on the coffee table. "We must determine its location now."
This was a large-scale map of Tingen City district, detailing various streets, districts, and rivers, but not refined to specific houses and buildings. The West District was already marked with several red dots representing confirmed murders influenced by extraordinary power.
"Did you see the building's shadow in your dream divination? Which direction was it facing?" Holding a red pencil, Angel looked at Klein.
The latter frowned tightly, seeming to recall the dream scene.
"I didn't see shadows. In the direction facing me, the building's wall was bright... That's right, the shadow was on the other side, slightly to the right."
"It's evening now, the sun is in the southwest direction..." Angel explained while rotating the map to face Tingen City's southwest side toward herself. "Klein saw the shadow on the other side of the house, slightly to the right. This means his dream perspective was south-southwest of the house, and the river he saw was located northeast of the house."
She directly drew several parallel auxiliary lines on the map with pencil, sweeping across the entire city district in a south-southwest direction. Leonard beside her had his mouth twitching, not knowing if he felt sorry for the map or their afternoon's hard work.
"This rules out the east bank of the Tassok River and all positions of the Hoy River."
With the auxiliary lines' help, the Hoy River entering the city district from the northeast direction, almost parallel to the auxiliary lines, was no longer a possibility. Only a few sparse areas on the west bank of the Tassok River matched Klein's divination vision.
"Remaining are West District, South District, and Dock District..." Angel circled the three areas near the Tassok River's west bank with red pencil. These areas combined still covered a considerable area.
"Dock District can be ruled out," Klein pressed his finger on the suburban area south of Tingen City. "There wasn't a single boat on the river surface. Now approaching evening, boat travel is very dangerous. All nearby boats would return to dock for the night. If it were the Dock District, I would have seen them."
"Then we have two areas left. We'll split up and go there, as quickly as..."
"No need. Perhaps we can rule out one of the areas."
Leonard, who had been watching Angel draw directions on the map, interrupted her words, smiling as he said: "South District belongs to the 'Punishers' jurisdiction. They also received a death list and are conducting investigations. When I was at police headquarters, I roughly understood that their death times concentrated before July 20th, and the earlier the time, the more deaths..."
Before he finished speaking, Angel understood his meaning.
"You mean this extraordinary person first concentrated on committing crimes in South District, then came to West District to select victims here?"
"Should say, 'returned to West District.'"
Leonard's mouth corners lifted, very satisfied with his teammate's reaction.
"For this kind of premeditated criminal preparing to make big news, they would subconsciously select victims far from their own residence, far from the altar's location, to avoid early discovery."
"And when their goal approaches and other areas don't have many selectable targets, only then would they turn their attention to their own area."
"Which is West District!"
Klein exclaimed, his eyes showing a trace of excitement and a trace of fear.
He hadn't expected this extraordinary criminal and her altar to be in his home district.
Angel also heavily circled the southwest area of Tingen City's West District, adjacent to the Tassok River's west bank, with red pencil.
"Let's go. We'll go to the scene and let the Seer use his eyes to find the altar's location!"