She fell silent.
The last time she was taken down so easily was at sixteen.
She was the daughter of a cavalryman. She couldn't go soft.
But the man before her knew her combat pattern well, while his physical fitness and reaction speed far surpassed hers.
He was simply invincible.
Though unbound, she no longer had any desire to fight again.
After a prolonged silence, she asked,
"May I leave behind a will?"
Having been dragged into an abandoned warehouse, her fate seemed to have spoken for itself.
As an experienced constable, she had seen her fair share of body dumping cases and had also fantasized a lot about her own death.
Her pragmatism deeply gratified Clayton, but here was an obstacle. "I haven't recovered your fountain pen. I'm afraid you can't do that."
"I see."
Mary sank into silence, sat down, then sprawled on the floor.
Seemingly having decided that all her efforts would be futile, she allowed herself the most comfortable position.
"You should learn to listen to others." Clayton put his overcoat back on. "Actually, there are really just a couple of questions. You can be on your way once they are answered. Don't be so despairing. Also, you needn't write a will."
"Em? But I don't believe what you are saying."
Mary had already given up hope, so Clayton could only persuade, "To tell you the truth, just considering your eyes, I don't have to bother to kill you."
The female constable immediately sat up. "You know me?"
"Certainly."
Her eyes riveted on Clayton's face, Mary was trying to figure out whether she had once met him.
Clayton let her study him as she pleased. He had already decided to mothball the current set of clothes, so he was unworried that he could be identified.
"The first question: why did you go to the Broken Winged Angel club?"
"For work."
This was nothing she needed to conceal.
Mary believed that Clayton could find out about this as long as he made an effort to.
"You're working there?"
"No, my work is writing letters for illiterate people."
Mary's tone of voice was unchanged, giving away nothing about her attitude toward strippers.
Clayton called attention to a bit of inconsistency. "It is unheard of for a letter writer to 'go on a business trip'. Your position is supposed to be a back-office one."
"Some people are willing to pay for their privacy."
Clayton picked up her bag off the floor, discovering a total of seven new letters within.
"Who has enlisted your service?"
"Those dancing girls. Don't open them, they are private letters."
Clayton tuned her out.
He scanned through a letter, one addressed to the sender's mother.
The 'I' in the letter referred to herself as a restaurant's waitress. She complained to her mother about the recent hardships at work and the meager salary, but fortunately, her life was changing for the better as she had seized an opportunity and joined a theater, which would elevate her earnings by a lot.
A one-pound note was enclosed in the letter.
"A dancing girl?" Clayton waved the letter at Mary.
Mary, without a glance at the letter, replied with a question, "Who do you think will talk about a job like this to their family?"
At a strip club, a patron was certain to be allowed to select a stripper for themselves.
Whatever the occasion, this was something too shameful for the service providers to relate.
This was an indisputable truth. Under Mary's denouncing gaze, Clayton tore open a second letter.
It was bound for the sender's older sister. The feeble sender had been taking medicines to improve her condition and thanked her sister for her kindness, but declined an offer to visit her in town.
The third letter was destined for the sender's lover, who was urged to hone his craftsmanship in the home village. She promised to marry him two years later, by which point she would have saved up enough for her dowry.
The fourth was also for a mother... the fifth, the sixth....
Clayton stuffed all these letters back in the bag, speechless for a moment.
His knowledge about the Holy Grail Society had not grown at all, but he had received information from other fields that was of little, if any, use to him.
"Why did none of them write to their fathers?"
He gleaned from these letters that these senders---the dancers---provided for their families.
This was way too illogical.
It was common knowledge that men supported their families.
"Why would they write to their fathers if they don't have one?" Mary asked in return.
Actually, Mary had lied to Clayton. She knew these senders as her childhood friends.
Their fathers had once belonged to the same military unit.
They had died in a war-torn age, but not all those who sacrificed themselves had succumbed to the foes.
Venomous insects and ferocious beasts, abnormal climates, and sudden illnesses... a host of factors, though harboring no ill intentions themselves, had been imperiling the colonial garrisons.
Failing to die an honorable martyr meant no compensation.
Such a rule had driven to the wall many a family, including these dancing girls'. Mary's was not one of them, though.
That they allowed Mary, who was well-off, to reemerge in their lives and even enlisted her service to pen letters spoke for their enduring friendship.
Clayton smelled something fishy.
People liked huddling together with their own kind.
He didn't have to be told what sort of job would kill fathers.
He changed the subject.
"Do you know who the club's owner is?"
"I don't know, neither do they."
"Don't answer on their behalf." Clayton gave her a cold gaze.
Stricken by the amber-green eyes, Mary came to realize that she had talked too much, pursing her lips.
"A place like this usually involves dodging tax. There is a manager in charge, but its ownership changes hands frequently. Its current owner is anyone's guess."
"Is Rosa still performing at the club? "
"For sure, all the time."
This answer was unexpected to Clayton.
"How do you get along with her? Is there any letter from her?"
This question wasn't unwarranted. Girls in such a place tended to avoid using their real names. What people addressed them as might well differ from the signature on a home letter. Simply reading all of them helped little in identifying the senders.
"Usually, there isn't." Mary gave a concise answer while pondering Clayton's intent in asking this.
"When did she start working there?"
"She has been working there for several years."
This piece of information indicated that the Arachnid Cleric had taken Rosa's place instead of forging an impromptu identity.
The nuance meant that, to fulfill whatever purpose, she had to operate secretly enough; otherwise, her new identity was prone to exposure.
However, Clayton felt decidedly weirded out when sitting in the audience at the club. Any performer with years of experience was surmised to have detected the audience's abnormalities then and there.
"Where does she live?"
"I have no idea."
"Any strange things inside the club recently?"
Mary opened up wider and wider as she answered. "No, I haven't heard of any."
"Any complaints from the girls?"
"I'm just a letter writer."
"....."
Disappointed, Clayton concluded that he could glean no useful information from Mary, so he tossed the bag back to her.
"Whatever, you're a constable, right? So take care to watch over them and don't let them get hurt."
He slung the shotgun over his back and, pushing open the green-painted doors, swaggered off.
Staring hard at his back, Mary remained perplexed as to what he was after.
But she was now sure of one thing: apart from Clayton Bello, there was another man requiring her investigation.
....
Sanders was an artillerist.
Or more precisely, he had been one.
While transporting a mortar, after a lock nut came loose, its tube fell from the wagon and landed on his right hand, crushing two fingers.
Though he remained confident he could lug around cannon balls and maneuver a cannon, his officer believed the opposite and sent him packing on a random excuse.
But, in any case, the culprit for his injury was part of the army property, so Sanders did receive a small sum as his medical compensation.
But literally, a small sum.
It paid for a mere three-day drinking binge following his discharge.
But right because of this, Sanders muddled his way to Bruno's agency and got a job. He didn't even remember how he had gotten to know Bruno.
With Bruno's persuasion, he began putting his diminutive stature to use and following people.
This job was compensated sufficiently.
'Sufficiently' meant that at the end of every month, his money would run dry punctually.
In the past, this was nothing worth mentioning, but now, goddamn it, Bruno's client had paid his fine, getting him out. Now he owed a favor!
After parting ways with Clayton, Sanders felt more and more bothered.
The agreement that he was to someday pay Clayton's fine meant that he had to keep five pounds available at any time, lest he couldn't come up with it when Clayton was sent to jail.
In other words, he had to start saving money.
How could he manage that?
Sanders was lost in painful thoughts along the way, as his legs carried him toward home.
Not until he was inside the door and settled into his soothing, small sofa did he care to survey the surroundings, realizing that they contradicted his memory.
A worn-out dressing table, cracked floor tiles, and a flickering wall-mounted electric lamp...
This was not his room, let alone his home.
He hadn't even sat on the sofa, but on a high stool before the dressing table.
This was a totally strange place, but he instinctively felt at ease; his reason, on the contrary, protested with an abrupt, spooky sensation.
In command of the idea of 'returning to a cozy place', his legs had shuffled here.
Amid his terror, a quick pair of hands clamped his head on both sides.
He saw, in the mirror overlooking the dressing table, a woman's upper torso behind him.
Familiarity and unfamiliarity intertwined deep in his heart. He seemed to have forgotten something. No sooner had he tried to recall than a flight of sickness rippled inside him.
A female whisper rang in his ears."My dear, please tell me what you have experienced?"
The dwarf felt like resisting, but even this idea seemed familiar to him.
Spellbound by the voice, he lost consciousness before long.