18 Chasing Shadows

It was a Monday morning on Tuinstraat North, a beautiful cobblestone street with a lot of trees. The leaves on the trees had some turned reddish in color, and they started falling slowly. It was sunny, with a gentle breeze carrying the fallen leaves. A public motor carriage was approaching and slowly pulled over to the side of the street. Before anyone stepped out of the motor carriage, a conversation could be heard between the driver and the passenger.

"No, sir, there is no such thing as 'special Monday discount'," the driver spoke with mild annoyance.

"But I'm sure last Monday another driver gave me a special discount." the passenger, a man in a dark brown trench coat and a trilby, was insisting on getting a discount.

"Sir, it's five pennings. That's final." the driver stood his ground.

The passenger looked dejected and unwillingly took out five penning coins from his coat pocket. He handed the coins over to the driver through the opening in the glass separator. The passenger then got out of the motor carriage and looked around the street. It was Graham Hymes, who was there to investigate the death of the unknown man.

On the street where Graham was right now had a lot of houses on both sides. It was one of the streets that were intended as residential areas. The Government had built a lot of medium-to-large-sized residences there which came with sizable front yards. The richer homeowners had usually renovated their houses, while the more humble inhabitants had usually not done any. That was why there were a lot of similar-looking houses as well as many different-looking ones at the same time.

The house that Graham was looking for was a blue one-story one. However, within his vicinity, and even farther away, there were a lot of them that matched his criteria. Blue, along with orange and brown, was the popular color for painting houses in the Republic of Tulp after all.

Graham went somewhere with fewer people so that he won't attract attention while doing divination. He tore off a piece of paper from his thinning notebook and wrote something on it.

'The house of the dead man near the dumpster is within my line of sight.'

He burned the paper right on top of an open trash bin. The flame burned the whole paper.

"So one of these should be the dead man's house. But I can't divine them one by one, Val. I will reach my limit sooner than I can find it."

Graham went back to the street and walked to another spot that was as secluded. Around him now there were only three blue one-story houses. Graham ripped off a piece of paper and wrote his divination question on it.

'The house of the dead man near the dumpster is within 10 meters radius.'

Graham burned the paper and the flame only burned halfway, which meant it wasn't the case. Not long after he finished his divination, he got a slight headache. He ignored it for now and walked to another spot some distance away and repeated the procedure with the same question.

'The house of the dead man near the dumpster is within 10 meters radius.'

This time, the paper was burned entirely. His headache was growing more intense in the process. The ashes fell on Graham's palm and he quickly discarded them to the nearest trash bin while massaging his temples along the way. There were three blue houses around him, and one of them was the one he was looking for.

Of the three blue houses, one looked slightly different, not because it was beautifully decorated, but because it looked unmaintained. The other houses had their lawns mowed and the shrubs trimmed. That one house, however, was not. The grass was overgrown; the paint on the wall was peeling. It almost looked like nobody lived there.

Graham had a feeling that it was the house that he was looking for among the three, but he didn't want to use divination to confirm because he had done it nine times today. One more time would be his limit and he wanted to save it for an emergency.

He noted down the house number in his book and observed it for a while. The windows were visibly dusty, signing that either it had not been lived in for a while or the owner was very negligent. There was also the possibility that the man had lived alone while alive with a full-time job and no time for housekeeping. The house had no porch. From the street, there was a pathway made of flat rocks cutting through the lawn leading all the way to the front door, where it ended in an elevated step.

The curtains inside were drawn, so Graham couldn't see what it was like on the inside. He also wanted to see if there was somebody home, although at the same time he found it unlikely. He decided to use his usual method: talking to neighbors. He walked up to the front door of his next-door neighbor and rang the bell. After ringing the bell twice, he heard the sound of footsteps coming closer and the door being unlocked. A man, about fifty, opened the door and came out. He was wearing only a t-shirt and shorts.

Graham wasn't expecting to see the man of the house because usually, they would be working at this hour. "Good morning, sir," Graham greeted the man with his warmest smile.

The man politely smiled back and replied to him, "Good morning. Anything I can help you with?"

Graham noticed that the man spoke in a mild Rodinian accent, similar to Ruben's but stronger; probably because Ruben Arnaud was raised in the Republic.

Graham concentrated and activated his eye power. He then looked at the man in the eyes and said persuasively, "You will believe me when I say I'm from the Water Company and here to ask about your neighbor because he has plumbing problems. You will answer my questions without asking anything because you are not a busybody."

The man nodded slowly in confusion.

"What can you tell me about your neighbor from that house?" Graham pointed at the unkempt house next-door. He readied his notebook.

The man's confusion was gone in an instant; the lights in his eyes returned to normal. "That is Mr. Dechant's house. He lives alone there. I have never seen any family members since he moved here two years ago."

More Rodinian, Graham thought. "What is his first name? What does he look like?"

"Étienne. That's his first name. He forty-something, but he looks young. Maybe he's one of those people with baby faces? He is not that tall, but not short either." the man gave a not-so-clear description of his neighbor.

"Étienne Dechant. What does he do for a living?" Graham asked while writing down the information the man just told him.

"I think he works in an advertising company. I'm not sure about the detail because he's not very social." the man seemed to be trying to recall.

"Do you know the name of his company? Or the location?"

"No, I really don't," the man sounded regretful, "But he always walks, so I guess it's not that far."

"So how did you know that he works for an advertising company?"

"He mentioned it when we greeted each other for the first time." the man said honestly.

"Val, there are many advertising companies in this city alone, that doesn't narrow it down," Graham muttered to himself. The man saw it but he didn't ask anything. "Have you seen him with anyone lately?"

"No, I haven't. In fact, I haven't seen Mr. Dechant in a while."

Graham thought that we wouldn't get any other useful information from this man, so he decided to stop his interview.

"Thank you very much for your time," he said goodbye politely to the man.

Graham went to several other neighbor's houses and repeated the interview. Most of them said more or less the same thing as the first man. They didn't know Étienne Dechant that well. The man seemed to have actively avoided interactions with his neighbors for some reason for them not to know him after one year. But from the physical description that he got from them, it matched the dead body from this morning. It made Graham suspicious. There must be something about his life that he couldn't show to anyone.

"Val, we need to enter the house to find more clues. You should do it. Illegal trespassing is your specialty after all." he concluded. "But we'd better do it tonight. We don't know where the Police will show up here. It should be anytime soon if they can find his identity card on his person."

Graham needed to wait until nightfall for Valentine to sneak into the house, so he decided to go home first. It was still early, so he wanted to just walk instead of taking the carriage; that way, he could stop by the store to buy more candles and a new notebook.

...

At night, the crescent moon was hiding behind dark clouds. The stars were not shining either, making the street look gloomy. Only the street lights illuminated the streets below, and the lights from the houses gave a sense of direction. A man wearing all black was moving discreetly among the shadows of the trees. He was wearing a face-mask and a beanie; only his eyes could be seen clearly. His dark brown eyes looked cold in the cold night.

Valentine moved swiftly to the backstreet of the houses on Tuinstraat North. He was looking for the back door to break into because it would be safer. Graham had used his last divination of the day to divine the danger, and it was not mortal, but Valentine was still on high alert. As he entered the alley leading to the backstreet, he saw patrolling officers approaching from the main street. They didn't seem to notice Valentine in the shadow.

It was darker in the backstreet because there were fewer streetlights, but Valentine could see well in the dark; everything was glowing a pale yellow shade to him. He found the door of the house not long after. It was easy to notice because the house was the only one in bad condition. The back of the house was worse than its front.

Valentine carefully lock picked his way into the house and entered the kitchen where the back door led to. All the lights inside the house were not on, showing no human activity. Only the streetlights penetrating through the gaps in the curtain lightened up the house.

It was very quiet both inside the house and outside in the streets. Only the occasional private motor carriages would drive by. Valentine checked his watch: it was one after midnight, so he had a lot of time until dawn.

There was nothing that stood out inside the kitchen. The dishes there seemed unused, just lying around on the hanging racks. There were none in the sink nor in the drying rack. The man might have eaten out a lot. Valentine moved on to the living room. He walked very quietly with his knife ready in case someone else was in the house waiting to ambush him.

The living room was just as plain as the kitchen. There was a television and a sofa and chairs, but no decoration. The wooden floor creaked when he stepped on it, no matter how carefully he trod. He stopped moving immediately and heightened his alert. He stooped down and waited for any signs of movement. After some moments of silence, he continued inspecting the room.

The living room was dusty, and only one of the chairs showed a sign of recent use. The dust layer on it was thinner than that on the others. The dead man was indeed enigmatic. His lifestyle was different from that of common people.

Valentine moved on to the next room. He stepped very lightly to avoid loud creaks from the floor. He opened the door a little and saw through the gap. After making sure it was safe, he opened the door and entered the bedroom. Musty smell penetrated his nostril the moment he stepped into the room.

It was a medium-sized bedroom with a king-size bed with a messy blanket on it. There were a wardrobe and a desk with drawers. The room looked simple, without any decoration. Everything in the room was only the bare necessities. The man who lived here probably was a pragmatic person. There was a door at the other end of the bedroom, which probably led to the bathroom.

Valentine lifted the blanket slightly to check what was underneath it, but there was nothing. He carefully returned the blanket to its original position and moved on to the wardrobe. Inside it, there were men's clothes of different styles, but most were formal shirts. He checked the pockets of the shirts and found nothing but penning coins. He looked behind the clothes but there was no hidden cabinet or boxes there.

Next, Valentine checked the drawers. The topmost drawer was unlocked but there were only coins inside. Most of them were penning coins and with some duit and stuiver coins mixed in. He didn't take anything because it might be traced back to him even though something inside him was screaming to just stuff those beautiful things inside his pocket.

The second drawer was full of assorted items like screwdrivers and pins and nail clippers. There was nothing really useful inside, so he moved along to the third drawer.

The third drawer was locked, but it was only a simple mechanism, no match for Valentine's lock picking skill. It was a tiny lock, so he had to focus hard. His night vision helped him a lot. Once it was open, Valentine pulled it and looked at the content. There was a single piece of paper with a drawing on it. He didn't touch the paper, because his instinct told him it was a bad idea. He only looked at the image on it and etched it in his memory.

The image was of four interlocking rings, with each ring having countless eyes on it. Some of the eyes were open and some were closed. All of the open eyes were looking straight at the viewer of the image. In the middle of the rings, there was a silhouette of a figure, but it was unclear what the figure was. It was a bizarre sight.

After having it memorized, Valentine closed the drawer and went back outside. He chose the spot that was about in the center of the house. It was the corridor next to the living room. He took out his knife. Next, he slit open his palm and let the blood pool. He then started chanting.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Secrets, offer this blood as a medium"

The surrounding area became strangely quieter than before. The blood on Valentine's palm emitted a mysterious mist that spread to the surrounding area.

"For I declare this place under the Shroud of Secrecy hereafter!"

Valentine dropped a tiny bit of his blood into the gap between the wooden floor panels. He waited for a while for the blood to dry and his wound to heal. Once the blood was dry, he checked if it was conspicuous. It was only a tiny drop of blood, so it wasn't really that visible.

After his anti-divination ritual was done, Valentine carefully went out of the house through the back door and closed the door behind him. He walked back to the main street and swiftly started walking home.