The lawyer returned to the study.
Compared to the master bedroom and the living room, which was a mess with bloodstains strewn about, he felt that the study might yield more useful information.
As the master of the villa, this might be his "territory".
The lawyer examined the stack of candid photos over and over, finally determining that none of them showed the female writer wearing any brooch on her clothes.
The female writer wasn't always wearing that chiffon shirt, either. She was indeed wearing it when she drank tea with the blind girl and the piano teacher in the garden, and when she performed a duet with the piano teacher.
The garden photo was taken from a side angle, so it was unclear whether the female writer had a brooch on, while the angle of the duet was from the back, completely preventing a view of it.
This meant that the brooch was a recent affair?
Or could it be that, having seen the brooch on the female writer last night, the lawyer began harboring a murderous intent?
The lawyer put down the photos and opened another drawer, which contained his recent work files.
Most of them were litigation and defense documents from clients. The lawyer glanced at some casually and then rummaged through the drawer for other irrelevant documents.
They were employment contracts for the servants and the chef. The servant's contract was a bit old, he had been hired a year earlier than the chef.
The lawyer searched the desk and unfolded the calendar that was buried underneath, revealing the page for June, while the chef had been brought in during May.
It had only been a month.
Wait, where was the piano teacher's employment contract?
If the piano teacher was a residential musician, there should be a contract as well.
The lawyer searched for a while and eventually pulled out a contract from under the desk that had been crudely torn and crumpled into a ball before being stuffed into the wastebasket.
Getting this angry over something not yet proven made one worry about the lawyer's mental state.
Muttering to himself, the lawyer pieced together the contract to read it.
The contract with the piano teacher was for half a year, and the other party had also been hired in May, a little later than the chef.
The lawyer glanced at the stack of photos.
Doesn't this mean that almost as soon as the piano teacher was hired, the lawyer started to be suspicious?
Indeed, his wife was fond of music, and then a talented and handsome young man who understood music appeared; probably anyone would be a bit worried.
The writer didn't respond, carefully examining each photograph, especially focusing on those featuring the blind girl and the pianist.
Because the main subjects of the candid shots were the writer and the pianist, the camera's focus on the blind girl was sometimes blurry, making her appear like an unwitting third party.
But...
The pianist's gaze was sometimes strangely placed.
The writer brought a photograph up close and squinted for a better look.
But in the candid shots taken from a distance, trying to discern the exact focus and gaze of the people in the photos was indeed quite difficult.
"A serial killer who appeared a year ago, with the most recent crimes occurring a month ago?" mused the pianist, his attention returning to the newspaper.
No wonder the lawyer had been giving him strange looks just now, clearly suspecting him, the newcomer.
The lawyer, who was rummaging through the trash can, paused and unfolded another crumpled newspaper; the trash can was quite deep, and there were still many wads of paper piled inside.
Before long, he had dug out three bundles of newspaper.
"The dates are consecutive. Do you have a habit of subscribing to the daily?" asked the pianist.
"Probably. After all, it's not unusual for me, given my profession, to keep up with daily events, and sometimes the writer might also draw inspiration for stories from reading the newspaper," the lawyer said as he brushed the dust off his hands and examined the three crumpled newspapers.
Two were daily papers, one was a weekly publication.
Apparently lacking any important information, the newspapers were thrown into the trash can entirely intact, with no sections cut out.
The lawyer had intended to look at the weekly paper first, but the pianist quickly snatched it up before him and started to read it earnestly.
The corner of the lawyer's mouth twitched.
"Speaking of which, what were you planning to do when you came to find me just now?" he queried with suspicion.
"Do you like the blind girl, Pianist?"
"Was the victim a month ago a dance performer?"
Neither responded to him, but at the same moment, the writer cast a suspicious glance at the pianist and questioned him, while the pianist frowned at the newspaper he was holding.
After the words were spoken, silence fell in the study for a while.
...