“Didn’t they get the better of you, Walter?”
“Ah, Posha.”
Walter turned around and gave a bitter smile.
He already felt sorry enough for causing his partner trouble, so showing such a pathetic side made him feel inevitably embarrassed.
“I suppose so. I must have let my guard down.”
It wasn’t that he hadn’t been watching the Everton Villa.
However, people with private carriages were extremely rare, and Walter did not belong among those few individuals.
Just as the dawn sun rose, a carriage appeared, picked up the women from the Everton Villa, and sped away, vanishing from sight.
Walter had no means of pursuing them.
— *Whistle!*
He had blown his public carriage whistle with all his might, but no carriages were operating at such an early hour.
“Clearly, Hayes, who must have slipped out in the middle of the night, went to a carriage office first thing in the morning.”
Walter laid it all out as if the scene were plain as day.
“He probably paid a large sum to the first driver on duty. He would have asked him to pick up the women in front of the Everton Villa and flee the scene at full speed to evade pursuit.”
“So, what are you going to do now? Are you going to the carriage office?”
“That wouldn’t be a bad idea, but…”
Despite having been outmaneuvered, Walter spoke calmly with an expression that wasn’t particularly dark.
“Rather than waiting for a driver who might not return for a while, wouldn’t it be better for me to go look for Hayes myself?”
The two women who escaped by carriage, and the photograph he was so desperately seeking.
Ultimately, they would all have to regroup with Hayes.
“In that sense, let me introduce you, Posha.”
Walter made a playful sound effect, and held up a leash in his left hand. Posha looked down.
“Woof!”
A dog with bright eyes and long fur was wagging its tail.
“Cute, isn’t he? His name is Murphy. He looks gentle, but he’s a well-trained military dog. I borrowed him specifically for this job.”
After speaking, Walter held a handkerchief to Murphy’s nose.
It was a handkerchief he had previously treated with a special chemical.
— *Sniff, sniff.*
After catching the scent, Murphy’s gentle demeanor vanished instantly. He bared his teeth and let out a low growl.
Then, unable to contain his excitement, he even let out a long howl.
The dog’s nostrils flared, and its eyes became bloodshot with excitement.
“Understand, Murphy? You have to find this scent! Find it!”
Walter shouted.
Murphy pressed his nose to the ground, circled around, and soon began to bolt toward the front of the Everton Villa.
“Wait, Walter!”
Unable to contain her curiosity, Posha chased after Walter and asked.
“How is this dog tracking Hayes’s scent?”
“It’s not tracking Hayes’s scent! It’s tracking the scent of the chemical I applied yesterday!”
In truth, it was like this.
Yesterday afternoon, Walter had approached the Everton Villa carrying a bucket of water, pretending to be a kind young man coming to put out the fire.
Hayes had dismissed it as a mere prop for a disguise, but that was not the case.
The water bucket contained a diluted chemical mixture.
It was a chemical with a distinct, pungent odor that a human might miss, but a military dog certainly would not.
‘I originally planned to use the chemical to make a puddle in front of the villa’s front door, but I got lucky.’
Hayes had been drenched in the substance from head to toe.
Even if he had washed afterward, the scent would not fade so easily.
It would linger for at least a day.
“Woof! Arf!”
Murphy ran busily, following the scent.
Wagging his tail frantically, he dashed across flower beds and pushed through bushes.
“Murphy! Slow down! Go a little slower!”
‘Murphy really needs to realize that my physical stamina isn’t what it used to be!’
Walter panted as he ran after the dog.
Murphy dashed past the villa garden and onto the road.
As he ran, Walter realized he was heading toward the riverbank.
By the time they reached the river, the sun had fully risen.
On the road, people like milkmen and laborers were beginning their busy mornings, and they were frequently startled by the sight of Murphy running frantically with his tongue out.
“Oh my!”
At one point, the dog even brushed against a lady’s skirt.
“I’m sorry! My apologies!”
Walter apologized profusely and tugged on Murphy’s leash as the dog came to a halt.
“Woof!”
Murphy barked once and then quickly moved his feet again.
Finally, after running for another five minutes.
“Huff, huff!”
At last, Murphy’s sprint came to an end.
Walter bent over for a long moment to catch his breath, then finally lifted his head to see where they had stopped.
He saw a weathered sign.
[Harriet Moulton — 2/4/8 Person Boat Rental]
Murphy ran past the building to the very edge of the river, then whimpered as he looked back at Walter, as if he could go no further.
“So the scent ends here…”
Walter muttered.
“It seems Hayes took a boat from here.”
But just as he was about to open the door to the boat rental shop, Walter stopped.
He belatedly noticed a notice board attached to the entrance.
It was a slate notice board.
[Closed for a while due to shop circumstances.]
The handwriting looked rushed, and when he brushed his hand against it, white chalk dust came off on his fingers.
“…Wait a minute.”
Walter quickly recalled his memory.
That woman who had bumped into him a moment ago.
That lady who was walking away in such a hurry.
Hadn’t there been white chalk dust on her hands?
‘…Come to think of it, Murphy stopped for a moment then.’
What if the scent on the lady was stronger than the faint lingering scent on the road?
“…! Murphy! We have to chase that lady from before!”
Murphy let out a disgruntled snort, but he obediently followed Walter’s will and ran back toward the woman.
Walter dragged his exhausted legs and ran back the way they had come.
The woman’s pace was so fast that by the time Walter caught up with her, another twenty minutes had passed.
Coincidentally, the encounter took place almost exactly at the point from which Walter had first started running.
“Wait a moment! Mrs. Moulton!”
The woman turned around at his strained shout.
“Yes? Do you know me?”
“You are Mrs. Moulton, right? The one who runs the boat rental shop down there!”
“I am, but… are you looking to rent a boat? I’m afraid I have bad news.”
The woman said with a sympathetic frown.
“I won’t be taking any more jobs for a while.”
“Oh, that’s truly a shame! I desperately needed a boat. I heard Mr. Moulton’s boats are sturdy and high-performing, so I really wanted to rent one of his.”
In that short time, Walter crafted the image of a kind and polite young man to win the lady’s favor and asked.
“If you don’t mind me asking, could you tell me why the shop is closed? Did some young man fall in love with you at first sight, visit in the middle of the night, and whisper about eloping together?”
“Hoho, look at this man! There’s no way that happened.”
The woman laughed heartily, finding the sly Walter amusing.
“A young man did come by last night. But he didn’t come to sing a love serenade; he came to rent a boat.”
The woman’s expression shifted subtly, as if she were lost in a memory.
“He was a very strange young man. He said he couldn’t tell us the destination or the specific schedule, but he offered a large sum of money to let him take the boat. My husband and I were going to refuse immediately. But…”
Walter was a detective.
He could easily guess the woman’s next words.
“He offered a massive sum of money. A very massive sum.”
“Ah, that’s right. Actually, along with a pouch full of gold coins, he said he would give us a villa. Can you believe it? A whole villa! And a noble mansion in such an affluent area at that.”
‘He offered the Everton Villa.’
Since he had already decided to leave the country, it seemed he was throwing money around without a second thought.
“For me, it sounded too good to be true, so I was a little scared to accept the request… but my husband said we couldn’t miss such an opportunity. In the end, he let them take our fastest boat.”
“The fastest boat? Might I ask what kind of boat it is?”
“It’s called the *Eos*. It’s a steamship, and while it mostly travels the river, it can last for three days at sea.”
“What does it look like?”
“It’s a white boat with black stripes. There are also black stripes on the top of the funnel. It’s a very handsome and sleek vessel.”
Walter struggled not to let out a sigh.
To think they would escape via the river.
‘The stage of the chase has moved from land to water.’
It seemed he would have to request help from Balthazar.
***
‘Walter will surely notice soon enough that we rented a boat.’
I thought to myself as I sat leaning against the hull of the ship.
‘I hope he spends plenty of time scouring the docks.’
If he expected us to be out on the water, he was sorely mistaken.
Our group was currently hiding inside a boat repair shop.
‘He wouldn’t have expected this.’
When people think of fugitives who vanished with a boat, it’s easy to imagine them frantically fleeing to a distant place on that boat.
He surely wouldn’t expect us to be hiding in a nearby repair shop.
“Ahem, ahem. You lot… how much longer did you say you’d be here?”
the man from the repair shop cleared his throat, giving us an awkward look.
“I said we’d be here for two more days.”
“And it’s absolutely not okay for me to go out for a drink in the meantime?”
“I told you it wasn’t.”
“But… a man of the sea can’t go a day without a drink.”
“Ugh, fine. I get it.”
I pulled out something I had kept beside me and handed it to the man.
“Here, happy now?”
It wasn’t alcohol; it was just a wad of cash.
“More than happy! I feel like I’m drunk even without the booze!”
The repair shop owner stepped aside with a beaming face.
‘Indeed, there’s nothing money can’t buy.’
Although it wasn’t my money, but Christine’s.
‘Good. I just need to hold out for two more days like this.’
I mentally checked the plan once more.
The building next to this repair shop was a shipyard, and that shipyard was fully equipped so that a constructed ship could go directly into the river.
The repair shop owner agreed to handle moving the boat from the repair shop to the shipyard, so all we have to do is set sail in two days.
‘Walter can just keep chasing shadows until then.’
I really hope that’s the case.
***
“Was it really not there?”
Walter asked with a sigh.
Among the street urchins, a boy with a particularly large build stepped forward as a representative and answered in a dejected voice.
“I’m sorry, sir. We searched every landing and dock downstream, but we couldn’t find the *Eos*. No one knew anything about Mr. Moulton’s whereabouts, either. It’s as if they vanished like smoke.”
“Is that so…”
Walter sank into deep thought.
These street urchins were no ordinary children.
They were prepared young informants trained and selected by Balthazar himself.
There was nowhere these children couldn’t go, and nothing they couldn’t find.
And yet, despite having borrowed the intelligence network by asking a favor of Posha, they hadn’t found a single trace…
“Perhaps the boat is still on land.”
The eyes of the relentless Walter flashed with a sharp light.