“Adriel. What do you mean by that? Hmm? What on earth do you mean?”
Claire shook the child, looking flustered.
“What did Dolores tell you to keep secret?”
“What Dolores told me to keep secret was… it’s a secret, so I can’t tell you…”
The child rolled his eyes, looking embarrassed.
‘What exactly did the victim want to hide?’
Just as I was about to coax the child further, Inspector Serret cut in bluntly.
“Why are you making it so difficult?”
Unlike Claire or me, he had an indifferent expression.
“Did you forget that on the day before the incident, that child was making such a fuss about the shadow of the clock hands that the housekeeper scolded him severely? At that time, the housekeeper must have told him to stop saying such crazy things to other people.”
“That’s…”
That was true, but…
“Don’t you think he considered being told ‘don’t tell anyone’ as a secret? Children always interpret things their own way. Though, I don’t know if we should treat that little devil as a child.”
Aside from the last remark, the inspector was right. There are plenty of cases where a child misrepresents something from their perspective, leading to confusion.
For example, calling a cousin ‘a brother with a different mom,’ making it seem like there is a half-brother, or calling someone who eats mint chocolate ice cream a ‘pervert,’ causing them to be viewed with suspicion by those around them. This might be one of those cases.
Adriel wasn’t exactly a child with great verbal expression.
‘But… isn’t it still strange?’
The child mistook something because he was scolded by the housekeeper after whining about the same thing all day. That much was possible.
But in the first place, why was the child crying and repeating the same words—that the shadow of the clock hand had disappeared? What on earth did that mean?
“Anyway, can we stop the interrogation now? The three people here are the only ones who could have been in this house at the time of the incident.”
“Are you sure there is no one else besides them?” I asked, unable to let it go. “Other neighbors besides Sarah, or at the very least, a mail carrier?”
“No one,” the inspector said firmly. “The mailbox for this house is in front of the main gate outside, so there is no reason for a mailman to come inside. The same goes for the newspaper delivery. Also, it seems the people in this house have lived cut off from the neighborhood ever since that brat was born. This house was no different from an isolated island. Am I wrong, Mrs. Washers?”
Claire hugged the child tightly without answering. The oblivious child hugged his mother back. It was as if the two of them were the only ones in the world.
“It seems I’m right. So, there was no one else who would visit this house other than the people I called.”
An ex-husband who divorced for bad reasons, a scoundrel relative in debt, and a neighbor who wanted the child kicked out.
To think these three were the only people who would visit. It meant there was no one who would visit this house with good intentions. I couldn’t help but feel sorry.
“…As the inspector said, further questioning seems meaningless.”
To be precise, questioning without any dark shadows present felt meaningless.
“I want to conduct an on-site investigation.”
Walter hadn’t arrived yet. I wanted to look around the house before he did. I had to check the crime scene and verify if there really were no other entrances besides the front door. Given the family’s limited social circle, I had my doubts about whether the culprit was really an acquaintance.
***
Even though I said I could check the scene alone, the inspector insisted on joining me.
“I haven’t finished my investigation either. Besides, I can’t let a detective wander around alone; who knows what trouble you’ll get into? Who’s to say you won’t manipulate evidence?”
Claire, who was standing nearby, took my side.
“That’s too much. Mr. Hayes is a detective who has made a name for himself by solving major cases recently. Why would such a person try to manipulate evidence? That’s an act that shows a lack of even the most basic honor.”
‘To be honest, I have tried it before…’
Inspector Serret, you aren’t saying that because you know something, are you? Feeling a bit guilty, I let out a fake cough.
“Ahem, if you want, let’s go together.”
Claire put Adriel down, comforted him briefly, and then led us.
“Adriel’s room was prepared even before he was born. To make it the safest and happiest space in this house, I set it up at the very back of the first floor, next to the stairs leading to the second floor.”
*Click.*
The door opened.
The first thing that caught my eye was the wallpaper. Vivid bloodstains on pure white wallpaper. A palm-shaped bloodstain was stamped on the wall.
‘A handprint made of blood…’
“Is that the victim’s handprint?”
“It is. The police confirmed it themselves.”
The victim, Dolores, had leaned her bloody hand against the wall. Probably to support her body. The victim eventually lost too much blood and died leaning against this pure white wall.
‘This must be where the victim died.’
Around the bloodstained wall, I saw broken glass fragments and a fallen lamp.
“It looks like there was a lamp here.”
“Yes. It was a low lamp suited to Adriel’s height.”
I looked away from the gruesome scene and glanced around the rest of the room. A low, wide sofa that seemed tailored to a child’s frame, a cute and small bed for a young child, and cute, fluffy stuffed animals and a toy train. At a glance, it was a room overflowing with love.
“Adriel loved this room. He spent a lot of time here.”
As she said that, Claire pointed toward the sofa.
“He sat here all day and watched the wall clock.”
I approached the sofa Claire pointed to and looked at the opposite wall. I saw an empty nail where nothing was hanging. Normally, a wall clock would have been there.
“Where is that wall clock now?”
The wall clock that the child had made a fuss about, saying the shadow of the hands was gone; the wall clock that the victim was reportedly clutching when found dead. That was the core of this case.
“The inspector said he would keep it separately…”
Claire also trailed off, seemingly not knowing why.
“It’s here,” Inspector Serret said calmly as he walked to the corner of the room and opened a drawer.
‘He kept the evidence in a place like that?’
I had a bad feeling.
“Now, this is the clock in question.”
When Inspector Serret pulled out the wall clock, I asked in a voice that couldn’t quite hide my anger, “Just in case… let me ask one thing, Inspector Serret.”
“Was the wall clock found in this condition at the scene?”
“No,” the inspector spoke quite confidently. “I soaked it in salt water.”
I threw aside any polite tone and shouted, “Are you insane?”
Manipulating evidence? Manipulating evidence, my foot! You’re the one manipulating it! To treat the most important piece of evidence in this case like this?!
No wonder the clock, which should have been covered in blood, looked clean without a single bloodstain on the glass.
“How on earth are we supposed to find out what secret was hidden in this clock now?!”
“Do I look like I lack that much foresight? I conducted a thorough investigation of the clock before soaking it in salt water.”
As if proud of himself, the inspector continued.
“The glass was broken, but the clock was working perfectly. When I compared it to my pocket watch, it was showing the correct time. Even when I opened the inside to investigate, there was nothing particularly strange. It was no different from any other clock sold by Peter Herring Co.!”
However, the clock in front of my eyes now didn’t move an inch. It was no longer working. Probably because Inspector Serret had soaked it in salt water.
“You are the worst police officer. I feel sorry for Detective Beron, who had to work with someone like you.”
I take back the fact that I inwardly thought Detective Beron was incompetent. Compared to this crazy man, Detective Beron was practically the FBI.
Claire also seemed equally shocked.
“You’re quite convinced that Adriel is the culprit who committed the murder while possessed by an evil spirit, aren’t you? That’s why you didn’t even want to keep the evidence with you and put it in the drawer in the child’s room, and why you soaked the clock in salt water to drive out the evil spirit.”
With a pale face, Claire snapped at him.
“If you were an apprentice in our laboratory, I would have kicked you out immediately. You arrogant, narrow-minded, superstitious human.”
Perhaps our alternating verbal attacks were quite unpleasant, for the inspector’s face turned red, and he trembled.
“Talk all you want. Even so, it doesn’t change the fact that I am the one in charge of this investigation!”
The inspector spat back and left the room with thumping footsteps.
‘How can such a person exist?’
In my life, I had never encountered such a one-dimensional, villainous human. He was someone who shouldn’t exist in this world.
“Mr. Hayes…”
Claire’s worried voice pulled me out of my anger and back to reality.
“What do we do now? Can we still find the truth through evidence that has been damaged like this?”
“…I will do my best.”
I suppressed a sigh and examined the clock in my hand. Except for the coarse grains of salt I could feel, it looked like an ordinary clock. The body was made of dark wood and was somewhat mottled, but thanks to the damn inspector, I couldn’t tell for sure if it was because of the salt water or bloodstains. A glass cover was over the clock face, but it was cracked in various places, likely from the incident.
‘That means it took an impact.’
Perhaps the clock fell onto the housekeeper’s body during the struggle, and the housekeeper, losing consciousness, ended up clutching it.
I examined the clock a bit more. The clock face was white, and the black clock hands, positioned slightly away from the face, pointed to the time. The hands were stopped at around 3:20, but considering the inspector’s words from earlier, the time the clock stopped didn’t seem very important.
I moved the clock around this way and that.
‘Let’s see. Where is the shadow of the clock hands…?’
A shadow did form on the white clock face. A shadow created by the cracks in the broken glass, that is. Because the clock hands were originally very close to the face, their shadows were hardly visible. I had to look closely just to barely see them.
‘What exactly is so important about this?’
About ten minutes after examining the clock closely, I cleanly gave up on analyzing it.
‘I can’t find anything like this.’
I needed to know my limits. This wasn’t my specialty. It would be better to leave it to Walter when he arrived later. He might notice an abnormality at a glance.
‘Instead of looking at the clock, it’s better to prioritize gathering comprehensive information.’
Having made that decision, I put the clock down and looked around. Before I knew it, I was alone in the room. Claire seemed to have moved somewhere else while I was focused on the clock.
‘I should head out too.’
Just as I was about to go check other parts of the house…
*Thud!*
I heard a sound. A sound from beyond the wall where the clock had been hanging. It was a very dull and faint sound.