His eyes fell on the brown paper bag that began to glow in the corner, and Hoden's attention wandered slightly, but he didn't know what he was thinking, and then the focus refocused, and the focus fell on the brown paper bag accurately, and without further hesitation, he opened the brown paper bag directly.

A thick stack of materials, all of which are investigative files, but not much information.

Each piece of information is the disappearance file of a homeless man, and a rough look at it shows at least sixty copies, which also means that Issa has investigated at least sixty homeless people, but unfortunately, Issa has not gained much, and each information has a lot of blanks to fill in.

"Carlso-Donn.

Date of birth, blank.

Wandering area, 8th arrondissement.

Address appears last, blank.

Presumed disappearance, three months or more. ”

"Cézanne.

Date of birth, August 18, 1000.

Wandering area, 6th arrondissement.

The last address appears, at the junction of Howard Street and Charles Street.

Presumed period of disappearance, four months or more.

Family, ex-wife, son, younger brother.

Note, I once looked for my ex-wife in May, saying that I had found a job and might be able to get back on track in my life, but the details were not elaborated. ”

There are more than 50 blanks to fill in the investigation before and after similar data files, but most of the areas are blank, even if a few survey subjects who have found family and friends, but because they have been wandering for a long time, the news update cannot keep up with the progress, and the final disappearance time cannot be determined.

Moreover, if the body cannot be found, the state can only be "missing", and it cannot be determined to be "dead" for the time being.

To make matters worse, a large proportion of homeless people live by word of mouth, with no name, no appearance, no whereabouts, only a nickname, nickname, or code name similar to "the flat-headed man who lives under the overpass", and it is impossible to determine whether they are missing, disappearing, or migrating to another area to live in peace.

All of this creates obstacles to Issa's investigation.

Originally, Holden hoped to use the power of the security team to promote the investigation, but judging from the results, Captain Casca thought that this was a waste of resources and power, and even the Iwabuchi City Hall did not take care of these homeless people, so why did they take this job thanklessly?

Because of this, Casca directly handed over the investigation file to Hodden, rejecting Pasia's request to continue the investigation, and terminating the investigation.

Hoden can't blame Casca's decision.

But Horden still carefully went through all the files that Issa had investigated and organized, trying to find clues in the vast blank space.

Then Hodden saw one of the "unsociable" files.

A very different file, different from paper to template—not that it's old, it's just completely different from other uniform bumbo files, it's obviously another investigative material, could it be that Issa misplaced the file?

The file was filed in February 1031, at the beginning of this year, eight months ago, and the file contains a case of mass death.

"Mass death?"

Hoden's gaze narrowed slightly, and then he began to read carefully, engrossed, even more serious than he had just flipped through the homeless man's files.

Something's not quite right. This is an unsolved case, but the file is sealed with an accident as the conclusion, so why is it here?

According to the archives, in February, a baron named Valéry, who and his wife held a small private banquet at their home, invited two other couples to come and guests, a total of six people constituted this small family banquet, but one morning, the six men, plus a butler and two maids of Baron Valéry, a total of nine people, all died.

The person in charge of investigating the case is Squadron Leader Bullock of the Eighth Precinct Security Team.

According to Bullock's investigative notes, there was some chaos in Baron Valery's home, but there was no sign of outsiders forcibly breaking in or fighting fiercely, which is more in line with the scene of a drunken private ball, getting carried away and stumbling, kicking down some furniture and breaking some glass, but that's all.

There were no signs of rummaging through the property, let alone the search for treasure, and there were no visible signs of outsiders entering or leaving.

The most perplexing thing is that none of the nine people had direct death injuries - the security team was not able to find the physical wounds, and at the same time investigated the possibility of poisoning, but because no autopsy was performed, the security team was not able to determine the real cause of death until the end of the investigation.

In the section on the cause of death, Bullock makes a suggestion of "sheriff's personal judgment", but the conclusion of "suspected of being scared to death" is more like a joke when you look at it, and you can even imagine Bullock's smug smile after writing this advice.

In the end, the case was hastily closed.

"Accident", this is Bullock's conclusion of the case, and in the signature column of the case at the bottom, you can also see another unexpected name:

Casca.

Actually, it's not surprising.

If this was Issa's case, she would have enlisted Holden's help a long time ago, and many of the details of the case have many similarities with Nightingale's death, except that the crime scene was not a bloody mess, but the common denominator was that the cause of death could not be explained.

Of course, Holden's current calculation is not stable, it is more of a reverse extrapolation from the conclusion -

He had not personally arrived at the crime scene to observe, and the information clues he had were even more limited, and the only thing he could do was to work backwards according to the reason why "this file appeared in his hands at this moment", and naturally thought of the Nightingale matter, as well as the causes of Issa and Alber's deaths.

As for whether there is a real connection between the two, Holden has no clues or evidence to prove it.

If you look further, you can see that the case of Baron Valéry has actually been sealed, and the Eighth Precinct Security Team has not continued its investigation, and the matter is closed, as if there were countless unsolved cases before, but now it has appeared in a brown paper bag.

Hoden doesn't think it's a coincidence, the only explanation is that Casca deliberately stuffed it in and secretly gave it to Hoden in the name of Issa's investigative materials, but, why?

First of all, why didn't the investigation of Baron Valéry's case continue?

This is a baron, and the two couples invited are definitely not ordinary people, which makes Horden think of the case of Viscount Philo.

A baron and a viscount, both nobles, but neither of them are high-class nobles, does such status mean anything?

Secondly, what is the reason why Casca transferred this information to Holden?