The blood on the ground had already congealed into a dark, viscous crust, making the pale corpse appear jarringly bright against the filth of the alley.
Even in the dim, flickering light, it was clear that the deceased lady had possessed skin of intoxicating whiteness, hair of unblemished gold, and a refinement of feature that made the street-walkers of the Lower District look like crude caricatures.
Yet, this exquisite vessel had been split open from chest to pelvis. The jagged flaps of skin and muscle were pinned back, revealing an entirely hollowed-out thoracic cavity. Her limbs, too, were marred by massive, rhythmic lacerations.
Sherlock simply stood there, staring.
He didn't lean in to inspect. He didn't speak.
Twenty seconds passed in absolute silence.
Executive Officer Baidel's heavy brow twitched. The nearby security guard began to wonder if this "specialist" had been paralyzed by the sheer obscenity of the scene.
Then, Sherlock moved. With a complete lack of decorum, he flicked his finished cigarette butt into a joint-gap in the guard's steam-armor.
"Where are the clothes?" he asked, his voice clipped and sudden.
"Wh—what?"
"The victim's clothes." Sherlock scanned the perimeter again. "I don't see any clothing."
"This..." The guard hesitated.
"The scene hasn't been touched by anyone," Catherine said, stepping into the light. Her eyes met Sherlock's in a cold, expressionless stare. "There were no clothes from the beginning. We assume the killer took them." She paused. "These guards are only here to preserve the perimeter; they don't know the finer details. If you want to know something, ask me."
Sherlock offered a rare, mock-chivalrous nod. "Grateful, beautiful lady."
"Don't thank me. I find you detestable," she replied, her voice flat. "I simply hope you can find the killer quickly. I only pray your talent isn't as bottom-of-the-barrel as your character."
Perhaps the class divide was simply too vast for Catherine to bother hiding her loathing. Yet, because that gap was so wide, she didn't feel the need to actively sabotage him either. A commoner simply didn't possess the status required to be a "nuisance" to an Inquisitor Sister.
She treated him with the disdain of a goddess but the professional accuracy of a clerk, relaying every scrap of evidence they had gathered.
Sherlock, for his part, felt no friction. He wasn't stupid; he didn't harbor any delusions of grandeur or cross-class romance like the guard behind him. He knew why he was here: to see if this Church-sanctioned mess could provide his mind with a new spark of novelty. Besides, once the Holy See selected you, "willingness" was a moot point.
So, he listened with placid calm as Catherine spoke. One explained, the other absorbed. For a brief moment, the high-born nun and the gutter-detective displayed a strange, synchronized rhythm.
After several minutes, Sherlock frowned. "You've discovered... virtually nothing, then."
Catherine remained stoic. "I told you, the fewer people who know of this, the better. If we wanted to involve the pack of hounds at the Tribunal, why would we have bothered seeking out a private detective?"
"Fair point." Sherlock didn't look discouraged. Instead, he flashed a brilliant, unnerving smile and stepped into the alley alone.
Catherine and Baidel exchanged a glance before following him. As for the elderly Priest, he hadn't moved an inch since stepping off the carriage. He stood like a weathered statue; if one leaned in close enough, a faint, rhythmic snoring could be heard over the hiss of the steam pipes.
Inside the alley, their shadows fragmented the gaslight into jagged patches.
Sherlock stepped over the congealed gore, crouched down, and picked up a scrap of flesh. He held it up to the dim light.
"A severed section of liver. To cut through tissue this friable with such precision... our killer has a steady hand."
He wasn't talking to anyone in particular; it was the habitual monologue of a mind working too fast for silence.
"A piece of the manubrium, still attached to two ribs. The cross-section is equally clean." He picked up another bone. "An anatomical dissection of this scale isn't a quick job. Based on the coagulation, time of death was roughly 5:00 AM today. The question is... why is the killer suddenly obsessed with the number 'four'?"
"Four?" Catherine asked, her brow furrowing.
"Yes. The fellow has sliced almost everything that can be sliced into four distinct pieces."
As he spoke, he began picking up more scraps of viscera. With terrifying familiarity, he began to assemble them—reconstructing a whole lung and placing it back into the victim's open chest.
"What... are you doing?"
Officer Baidel finally spoke. His voice was low, devoid of obvious malice, yet the blood-red decree-cloth on his robes seemed to pulse with a crushing, Abyssal pressure.
Most Executive Officers were Second-Stage Contractors. Only those with such overwhelming power could handle the Empire's most dangerous internal purges.
Sherlock didn't flinch. His hands didn't even tremble as he continued his macabre puzzle.
"My apologies, Mr. Baidel. I know this seems disrespectful to your wife, but the killer left us a lead. Look here..."
He pointed with a blood-stained finger at a section of reassembled intestine. "A very shallow incision, traversing top to bottom. After opening the chest and abdomen, the killer didn't rush to mince the remains. He used the blade to trace markings across the organs first."
In the span of a few sentences, Sherlock had re-organized the scattered viscera into a semi-coherent anatomical map.
The security guard watched from the alley entrance, several times opening his mouth to protest but finding no words. A chilling thought struck him: Even a doctor shouldn't be this practiced at fitting minced organs back together.
Was this Lower District detective a frequent practitioner of such arts? Did his "skill" come from repetition?
"There."
Two minutes later, Sherlock had finished his grisly arrangement.
Within the messy, mismatched tapestry of organs, a series of blade-scars began to align.
Baidel's vision, enhanced by his Contract, allowed him to see in the darkness what no mundane human could. He traced the lines across the glistening tissue with a single, focused stare.
It was a word, carved in blood into the woman's very core.
"YES."