The early morning wet mist rose all around Nehlet Manor, and everywhere there was a faint lead gray and cold blue.

Batman, who was standing in front of his bedroom window, saw Schiller in the garden, and he remembered a conversation that had taken place the night before he went to Schiller's bedroom.

It was late at night, and when Batman, who had not yet dissipated the cold on his body, came to the door of Schiller's bedroom, he found that Schiller, who had opened the door, had changed into pajamas, which meant that he had not gone out just now.

Batman took off his coat and followed Schiller into the bedroom and into the couch area, where Schiller brought a cup of coffee heated by the fireplace, and Batman asked, "Do you know I'm coming?" ”

"Of course, and you're not the only one coming, do you want to talk about murderers?"

"Mr. Nehlet is to blame." Batman's tone was as low as ever, and he wasn't unfocused, he took a sip of his coffee and explained, "There's too much suspicious about him." ”

"First of all, as the owner of a noble manor, even if he and his wife have conflicts, they must maintain due decency on the surface, husband and wife are one, at least among the aristocratic class, no matter how big the contradictions are in private, they must still maintain respect for each other when they appear in public."

"But Mr. Nehlet seems to prefer to be with his cousin Hancock than Mrs. Nehlet, and it would be nice to say that the two have a good relationship in private, but in front of so many people, it is obviously quite rude for Mr. Nehlet to leave his wife and become inseparable from his brother."

Batman gently put a hand on the arm of the sofa and said, "They are obviously the kind of family that values the rules more than the sky, received the most old-fashioned aristocratic education since childhood, and must consider the family reputation in everything they say and do, such a faux pact is contradictory to their family style." ”

"And most importantly." Batman frowned slightly and said, "The reason he left the manor to live outside was because he was busy with business, but I chatted with him in the banquet hall before and found that he is not proficient in business. ”

"It's not the Victorian era, and what real businessman doesn't know anything about stocks and investing, but every time I mention the latest stock market and industry information, he thinks about him or simply diverts the topic, which is suspicious."

"So what did you do?"

"The best way to investigate the owner of a manor is to investigate his steward." Batman propped his elbows on the armrests, gently groped his chin and said, "In this kind of aristocratic manor, no one can know more secrets than the butler. ”

"After the dinner, I exchanged a few words with the old butler, and from his mouth I learned that the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Nehlet was originally quite good, although it was still an arranged marriage, but there was no great contradiction between the two."

"But since Mr. Nehlet's cousin Hancock came to join them, there have been many crises in their relationship, and Mrs. Nehlet, who was originally a woman of a very strong personality, made a lot of fuss several times, but in recent years she has become quieter."

"And the most suspicious point is that Mrs. Nehlet's mother's family, the Prochs, was originally very prosperous, but one night and overnight, they collectively set themselves on fire, and even the Ploch family's manor was burned down, and from then on, Mrs. Nehlet had no support, only Mr. Proch, who went out to sketch, survived, and at this time he was also sent to the fence."

Schiller sat across from Batman, listening to him quietly, and when he turned his head, he saw that the dead branches of the garden looked like a raging fire.

"Mrs. Nehlet told me about it." The man across from Schiller had turned into a bat, and there was also a cup of hot coffee in front of him, but there was still the last cup left in front of the fireplace.

"She didn't have a sad expression when she mentioned the fire, only deep fear, but when I asked for details, she kept silent, and I don't think she wanted to mention it because she was too sad, but just because the occasion was wrong."

"So I went to her alone after the dinner, and she was shocked and panicked when she saw me, but when I told her that I had avoided anyone, she seemed to suddenly see some hope."

"What did she tell you?" Schiller asked, leaning back in his chair relaxedly.

"Some secretive old things, she said that the fire was not set by the Plouch family, and they did not want to commit suicide en masse, but after the police investigated, they did not find the murderer, and the matter was closed."

"Mr. Ploch, who lives in the manor, suspects that it may be the work of the Nehlet family, so he has stayed here all this time, and he wants to catch the murderer with his own hands and avenge his relatives."

Bat opened her eyes and sighed softly, "Madame Nehlet is controlled by something, and she is deeply afraid of something that does not exist in the context of our conversation, and it is like holding her a thread. ”

"But what we have to consider is who the real killer is, and I think Madame Nehlet is not a small suspect, even if she is manipulated to kill, as the mistress of the manor, she can do a lot, so the threat is great."

"Do you think she's innocent?"

Bei Bat shook his head and said, "I don't think she's the kind of person who can stick to her bottom line, so she can't be completely innocent." ”

"What's harder about this game than we thought is that there may be only one real killer, but he has many accomplices, or the killer is just the one who really does it, and there are manipulators behind him, and if we misjudge, we are likely to fall into the trap."

"There is another important clue," said Lady Nehlet, who said that she had found a mysterious pentagram at the scene of the murder of the Prochy family, but she was not sure if it was a coincidence of scorch marks, or if she had mistaken it. ”

"Cult?"

"Maybe."

Late at night, the wind grew colder, and an empty land was dotted with lonely graves, and the crosses looked like ghosts in the moonlight.

A slightly rickety figure waved a hoe high, and the sand was constantly raised, and the sweat dripped on the soil, and soon disappeared in the cracks of the sand and stones.

Opposite him, two and a half children were holding a quilt roll, and at the end of the quilt roll fell a black mass, and when you looked closely, it turned out to be human hair.

"Come on, boys, throw it in." The figure who was digging the pit turned around, and finally revealed his face in the moonlight, and it was the old priest who had appeared at Nehlet Manor before.

With some difficulty, the two children threw the rolls of cotton cloth containing the corpses into the pit dug by the old priest, but there was not a trace of fear on the faces of the children who were doing such a terrible thing as throwing the corpses.

One of the older boys looked at the old priest and asked worriedly, "Are you alright?" What exactly do you see in the Nehlet family? ”

The old priest threw down his hoe, looked up in the moonlight, closed his eyes in agony, and his mind was full of the cold look in Schiller's eyes when he said that to him, but he saw not Schiller's hatred, but his own.

"Devil, child, I see the devil in my heart."

The younger boy tilted his head, as if he could not understand what the priest was saying, and the priest lowered his head again, drew a cross, touched his head and said, "Remember, there will be a person in this world who will be your mirror, and when you see yourself in his eyes, you will understand that you have seen the devil, but it is not him, but you." ”

He bent down again, picked up the hoe, and began to fill the sand back into the pit, muttering to himself, "Don't be afraid, children, don't be afraid anymore, your dean is already lying with you, and he will never have a chance to hurt you again." ”

The two children ran back and forth to help the priest fill the grave together, and the priest threw the hoe aside, sighed softly and said, "I may have to leave for a while, you take care of the other children, and if the police come, you say you don't know anything." ”

"Where are you going?" The two children immediately gathered around worriedly and said, "We won't say anything, we all slept well in the attic tonight, and we never saw anyone." ”

"You're smart." The priest crouched down and took the two of them into his arms, touched their heads and said, "But you are still young, and when you grow up, you will understand that there are many more demons like your dean, and I have to deal with one of them now." ”

With that, he stood up, turned to look at the bell tower of the church in the distance, and walked away from the cemetery without hesitation.

When Natasha knocked on Schiller's door, Schiller had just made three cups of coffee and kept them warm near the fireplace, when he opened the door and welcomed Natasha, who was also wearing pajamas.

"Looks like you've made a lot of progress." Schiller said with a smile.

"I'm amazed that you didn't do anything." Natasha swung her arms and sat down on the side of the single sofa, took the coffee that Schiller brought over, looked at the two glasses by the fireplace, smiled and said, "Don't get me wrong, I'm kidding, a three-year-old won't believe you didn't do anything." ”

"Who do you think is a murderer? Lady. ”

"Hancock is the most suspicious." Natasha bit her nails lightly and thought, "I talked to him after dinner, you know, he's a very typical hypocrite. ”

"You look like a stilted Mr. Daoist, right? He's also deliberately dressing himself up in this direction, but I dare say he's definitely a veteran of the love scene, and what do you say about that term? Psychopath? ”

Natasha put two fingers on her cheek and said, "I'm an agent and a killer myself, so of course I'm not in a position to say that others are evil, but from a woman's point of view, this Hancock is the worst kind of man." ”

Natasha rolled her eyes after a little recollection and said, "Obviously, he covets my beauty more than anyone else, but he just acts like he doesn't care, but his purpose is not to resist temptation, but to hope that I can take the initiative to find him." ”

"It is not difficult to see that he has met many weak women." Natasha sneered and said, "I think he is a good person worthy of being entrusted for life, so I took the initiative to post it, but as everyone knows, all this is the result of some manipulation and hints." ”

Natasha glanced at Schiller and said, "But the most unbearable thing about me is that he didn't do it for any real purpose, he played with other people's feelings, just to satisfy his carnal desires and his psychopathic abusive instincts." ”

"You can see so much after just a few words?"

Natasha sighed and said, "I've met a lot of people like that, and the reason why I'm still fooling you is because the biggest difference between you and them is that I don't see any desire in you. ”

"You sparked my curiosity and tried to manipulate me, neither for carnal desires nor for the satisfaction of spiritual needs."

"All your emotions are very natural, not disguised for some purpose, and if it's just a human skin that you've drawn, it's a natural work of art."

"To put it simply, whether it's talking to me about art or telling me your story, the purpose is really just what it seems, and most of the men I've met are not."

"When they covet a woman's beauty, their every move, word and deed is all to attract the attention of the opposite sex, which can be said to be the natural instinct of the male, and when they do not hide or behave very clumsily, there is a childish cuteness."

"But Hancock ......," said Natasha, with a grim smile, "he made them smitten at him with what he thought was a clever cover-up, but there was no art under that human skin, only the filthy stench of desire." ”