Not far from the street, a man in a suit with a mustache was looking at Duanmu Huai in surprise. This person is none other than Charlie, the "distant relative" of Duanmu Huai's painting dealer. Simon.

He had almost been sacrificed by a ghoul, and after that incident, Charlie's spirit was greatly stimulated. He once thanked Duanmu Huai at the door, and then sold all his collection of paintings and the villa in one go. According to Charlie, he doesn't plan to go home again, he wants to go to other places and find a place to retire with peace of mind.

When Mu Huai saw him a month ago, he was haggard and had thick dark circles under his eyes. But now he looks wide and fat, and he looks like he is smiling...............

"I didn't expect to see you here."

Duanmu Huai looked at the distant relative he had set up and asked curiously, while Charlie laughed.

"Haha, I didn't expect that, to be honest, I was just invited by a friend to come here to take a break and see the exhibition or something......... Hey, I didn't expect that to happen. ”

"Kind of?"

"yes, that's right!"

Charlie nodded, and when he saw Duanmu Huai, his eyes lit up.

"It just so happens that I was thinking about whether to look for you or not!"

“？？？？”

Although he was confused, Duanmu Huai still nodded, so Charlie excitedly pulled him aside and told him about his troubles.

To put it simply, after the previous ghoul incident, Charlie was restless in Arkham and couldn't stay any longer, so he sold his company and villa, and then planned to use this large amount of money to travel around the world. Anyway, this money is enough for his life for the rest of his life.

It's just that this also makes Charlie feel a deep emptiness, he does love art, otherwise he would not be a dealer. Now he was forced to abandon his wailing, much to Charlie's sorrow. At the same time, one of his friends learns of Charlie's plight and invites him out for a walk. It happened that there was a modern art exhibition in the museum in Newburyport, so Charlie was invited to come here with his friends.

Then his friend disappeared.

……………………… Well???

"I've called the police, and I've looked for someone from the museum, but I don't have a clue, I'm in a hurry, I didn't expect to see you........."

“………………………”

Looking at Charlie in front of him, Duanmu Huai was speechless.

Wouldn't she be a walking grim reaper like Conan, would she be a dead man wherever she went?

But in any case, it was a surprise for Duanmu Huai to be able to meet the witnesses of this case, so he also asked Charlie about the whole thing.

Basically, the course of the matter itself is not complicated, according to Charlie, his friends invited him to come here to see the latest exhibition. An exhibition about the exchange of modern civilization and art, of course, don't look at the lofty name, but in fact, to put it bluntly, it is a group of art students entertaining themselves. Although there have been questions of one kind or another before, Charlie is still happy to see how young people think and express themselves about art.

In Room 1, Charlie was fascinated by the sculpture in front of him, and his mind as an artist and businessman began to come alive again. His friend, after viewing the artworks on display in the exhibition hall, told Charlie that he would go to the next exhibition hall first, so Charlie didn't say much. He just nodded, and after a few minutes, he withdrew his gaze and moved on to the next room.

But his friend was gone.

"To be honest, I thought he had just gone to another showroom, so I rushed to find him. But when I walked around the museum and didn't see him, I realized that something was wrong, and I called him, but I couldn't get ...............through."

Charlie first asked the museum's security guards about the situation, and he found that the security guards were agitated when he said that his companion was missing, but they accompanied Charlie through the exhibition hall again, and even took him to the museum's office area......... However, his companion was nowhere to be found.

In desperation, Charlie had no choice but to call the police.

The police also called up the museum's surveillance, and through the surveillance, it can be seen that while Charlie was admiring the sculpture, his friend did walk up to him, said a few words to Charlie, and then turned around and went to another exhibition hall. Then the camera pans to another exhibition hall, where Charlie's friend can be seen and then walking along the exhibition hall.

And then it was gone.

That's right, it's that weird.

To illustrate how strange this is, Charlie also drew a simple schematic diagram of Duanmu Huai on paper, he was in exhibition hall A, his friend was going to exhibition hall B, and between exhibition halls A and B, there was a corridor. There are cameras in the exhibition hall and in the corridor, and now according to the situation captured by the surveillance camera, you can clearly see the friend walking out of exhibition hall A, coming to the corridor, and then passing through the corridor into the door of exhibition hall B.

But there was no photo of my friend in Gallery B.

In other words, his friend inexplicably disappeared from the world when he entered exhibition hall B.

After that, the police conducted a carpet search of exhibition hall B, but found nothing, and according to the surveillance, the friend did not come out of exhibition hall B.

That's weird.

So...............

"I'd like you to help me find out what the hell is going on, I know you're very good at it, and of course, I'll pay you for the commission."

"No problem."

Duanmu Huai naturally will not refuse this kind of good thing, wouldn't it be beautiful to earn two copies of money with one commission?

One fish and two eats is king.

Duanmu Huai originally planned to invite Charlie to go with him, but this one really left a psychological shadow, saying that he would wait for his good news at the hotel, and then ran away with a wipe of his butt.

So Duanmu Huai had no choice but to contact Anthony again and invite him to come to his RV again to discuss the situation.

This can't be helped, usually at this time to chat and talk about things have to find a café or bar or something, but the problem is that Duanmu Huai has no place to sit when he goes in.

Let's go to the car and talk, after all, there is air conditioning in the car.

Anthony also quickly reunited with Duanmu Huai, and the two sides also exchanged news, when he learned that the informant was actually the victim of Duanmu Huai's last case, Anthony was also quite surprised, but fortunately, Duanmu Huai had heard the incident from Charlie's mouth, and Anthony also learned about the incident from the museum's security guards and other staff as a police officer, and the two sides verified each other, and there was basically no problem.

"So, where are you going to start investigating?"

After checking the information, Anthony looked at Duanmu Huai curiously, although the police would not interfere with the investigator's actions normally, but Anthony was really curious about what Duanmu Huai planned to do.

After all, with his appearance, if he wants to do this kind of work, it is difficult to control the disk.

On the contrary, the answer given by Duanmu Huai was very straightforward.

"I'm afraid of a dick, I'm going to go straight to the museum tonight for a night to see what the hell is going on, and then catch it out and kill it!"

“……………………………”

Very straightforward indeed.

"Then I can go and ask the curator to do a closed search in the evening, no problem."

"Yes, it would be better if you could come forward."

Duanmu Huai didn't care, after all, he had the genes of the dark crow guard, even if the museum didn't agree, he could sneak in, but since Anthony wanted to act with him, that Duanmu Huai didn't have an opinion. The advantage of having a police officer is that many times you don't need to explain yourself, you just throw the pot at the other party.

The federal police proved to be quite deterrent, and after Anthony approached the curator to explain the situation briefly, the latter agreed to allow the two to stay in the museum after the closure. Of course, the reason why the museum is so generous is also because there are really no particularly valuable treasures in the museum, after all, it is a local museum, and a hoe that has been circulated in the local area for two or three hundred years is considered a treasure of the town, what else do you expect.

Soon, as night fell, the staff of the museum also left the museum one after another, and then Duanmu Huai and Anthony strode into it.

"Click."

The sound of crisp footsteps echoed in the empty, silent space, and Anthony looked around and gasped. Duanmu Huai, on the other hand, squinted his eyes and stared coldly at everything around him. It was a moment before he spoke.

"So, let's start investigating."

First of all, the two of them went to the exhibition hall B where the disappeared person was before, which was just an ordinary exhibition hall, with all kinds of oil paintings hanging on the walls, and some very ordinary, daily necessities from one or two hundred years ago next to them......... Well, I can see that this museum really has nothing to offer.

This is not surprising, after all, the history is shallow.

Compared to the disgusting things painted by the ghouls before, the oil paintings hanging here are much more normal, Duanmu Huai glanced at it and withdrew his gaze, and began to stare around. Anthony, on the other hand, was holding a flashlight in one hand and flipping through his notebook in the other.

"Well, according to the surveillance, the missing person walked through the gate and then leaned against the wall along this side......... It is likely that he was admiring the paintings, just like we are........."

As he spoke, Anthony held up his flashlight and shook it towards the painting hanging on the wall. It's like mimicking the missing man's gaze, trying to see what he's seeing.

However, at this moment, he suddenly saw the content of one of the paintings, and at this moment, Anthony almost screamed!

(End of chapter)