Chapter 429 The Disappearing Night Watchman
A town with a population of more than 100,000 may not have a church, but it will definitely have a night watchman stationed there.
In a small city like Lars, which has a port and a large population flow, there must be at least four to six night watchmen stationed there: a captain, three or more team members, and at least one affairs officer in charge of administrative work.
Captain Mace got off the boat and entered the city. The first thing he did was to go to the city's Night Watch station to check out the situation - the undead tracking cult had chased them to Tachia, and it was impossible to say that Captain Mace was not curious about the situation here.
When Captain Mace found the local Night Watch station, he didn't see any colleagues, let alone the clerk!
Something is wrong! Something is very wrong!
Compared to Captain Mace's anxiety, Captain Donald's reaction was quite calm. After being taught by Agent Stanford how to use the intercom, he pressed the call button and said, "I heard that the night watchman in the city is investigating a very important case and has not been in the city much in recent years. Captain Gavin's home is at 1-67 Wheel Lane. Perhaps you can go and ask him."
Agent Stanford observed Donald's reaction calmly with a subtle look on his face.
On the other end of the intercom, Captain Mays looked a little strange when he heard the reply.
Captain Donald is from the Harbor Guard, which is not the same system as the Night Watch. It is not surprising that he does not care about the movements of the Night Watch in the city.
But it is outrageous that the night watchmen in the city can "seldom appear in the city for several years" - not to mention Captain Mays, even Agent Stanford, who often works with the night watchmen on cases, finds it outrageous!
After a hasty thank you, Captain Mays on the other end of the intercom hung up the phone and rushed to Wheel Alley with his three subordinates.
The city of Lars itself is not big. There is no obvious separation between the inner and outer cities, and there is no inner city wall. It is only divided by buildings and streets.
Wheel Alley is located in the block where the inner and outer cities meet.
There is a stone-paved alley that can accommodate two carriages running side by side. There are two to three-story single-family buildings with a small courtyard in front of the door, all of which are of highly uniform style. Obviously, the people who can live in this alley must have at least a middle-class income level.
Captain Mays found No. 1-67 according to the house number and knocked on the door twice.
No one answered.
Captain Mace nodded his chin at his subordinate, and a night watchman immediately jumped over the fence that was only as high as an adult man's waist and jumped into Captain Gavin's yard.
After just observing the room from the living room window, the night watchman's expression changed slightly, and he shouted outside: "Captain, no one has lived in there for at least a few months, and there are spider webs on the firewood in the fireplace!"
The climate in Tachia Territory is warm, and the fireplace in the living room needs to be burned for heating only from December to January each year.
There was still some uncollected firewood in the fireplace, with webs forming on it... This at least proved that Captain Gavin's wife hadn't taken care of the living room at home since winter!
"Pry the door open!" Captain Metz made a prompt decision.
The neighbor's wife heard the noise and came out to see that there were several strong men trying to pry open the door of Gavin's house next door. She immediately stood in her yard and shouted, "Hey! What do you want to do? This is the inner city!"
Captain Mace quickly explained his identity and asked the neighbor lady about Gavin and his wife.
"So you are the night watchman from Adler. I'm so sorry for making such a fuss." The neighbor's wife apologized, "I don't know much about Mr. Gavin. I haven't seen him much in the past few years. I only heard from Mrs. Gavin that her husband is carrying out some important mission of the church. In short, it's not something that ordinary people can inquire about. I'm so sorry that I can't help you."
"What about Mrs. Gavin?" Captain Mace asked.
The neighbor's housewife looked strange and hesitated, refusing to give a direct answer.
Captain Mace asked a few more questions, and the lady lowered her voice, trying her best to hide her excitement, and whispered to Captain Mace: "Please don't tell anyone that I told you this, sir. Mrs. Gavin's story is no secret here. During the winter festival two years ago, she got on a strange man's carriage and never came back since then."
Captain Mace's pupils shrank slightly. "Two years ago?! You mean, two years ago? The Winter Celebration of 1031?!"
"Yes, sir." The neighbor's wife said affirmatively.
Captain Mace gasped slightly.
Guard Captain Donald gave Captain Gavin's address and suggested that he come over to inquire about the news. Given the embarrassing situation of this armed force leader who had been abandoned by all his superiors in the city and was the only one left to defend the city, there was no need for him to cover up for anyone, even at the cost of lying.
In other words - Captain Gavin, the captain of the night watch in Lars City, had been missing for two years and Captain Donald knew nothing about it!
"Madam, did you see Mrs. Gavin leave in a strange man's carriage?" Captain Mace calmed himself and continued to ask.
"It's not that I saw it with my own eyes. I was busy with housework at the time and didn't have that much free time to care about other people's affairs." The neighbor's housewife waved her hands quickly .
"Then do you know who saw Mrs. Gavin get into the strange man's carriage?" Captain Mace said.
"I don't know about this. I just heard people outside say that." The neighbor's wife noticed that Captain Mays looked unhappy. She couldn't help but regretted her own words and said nervously, "I'm sorry, sir. If I said something wrong, please don't mind. I'm just telling you what I know."
"Oh, sorry, I was so rude, ma'am." Captain Mace quickly adjusted his mood and bowed with a smile, " Thank you very much for your help. I wish you a good mood all day long."
Captain Mays had such good looks that even the picky players were willing to give him a thumbs up. The neighboring housewife, who had been feeling uneasy, immediately relaxed a lot, smiled and waved her hands with her hands covering her mouth.
After thanking the housewife for her help, Captain Mays turned around and his face fell.
The subordinates pried open the door of Gavin's house, and Captain Mace went into the house and took a look around.
On the clothes rack next to the living room door, there were women's coats and scarves covered with dust.
In the kitchen on the first floor, the jam on the counter had gone bad, and half a bag of bread in the cupboard had been stolen by mice; a big hole had been made in the flour bag by the mice, and the moldy and discolored flour was scattered everywhere.
In Gavin and his wife's bedroom on the second floor , there was a set of women's nightgown with moldy fabric on the bedside table. The closet was full of clothes and there were few empty hangers.
Captain Mace stood silently in front of the closet full of clothes for a while, then took out his intercom and called Agent Stanford, briefly introducing his preliminary findings at 1-67 Wheel Lane.
Agent Stanford was silent for a while on the other end of the intercom, and then replied faintly: "It seems that Mrs. Gavin is in great danger."
"I think so too." Captain Mace said in a sad tone, "Anyway, I will go back to the local Night Watch station to see if I can find more clues. Agent, please inform Mr. Yang about this. Perhaps... we need the help of the undead."
"clear."
At the Lars City Hall, Captain Donald, who had listened to the conversation between the two, was confused: "Mrs. Gavin actually eloped with someone. My God, I have never heard of this. Wait, what did you mean just now? What do you mean that Mrs. Gavin is in danger?"
Agent Stanford put away the walkie-talkie and looked at Captain Donald helplessly: "Based on our experience in handling cases in the Public Security Department, if a woman goes missing and no one other than her husband saw her leave with someone else, but there are rumors that this woman eloped with someone , then there is a high probability that this woman has been murdered."
Captain Donald opened his mouth wide and couldn't close it for a long time.
Agent Stanford added: "If we can find Captain Gavin, then we will prioritize investigating whether he has the potential to harm his wife."
"...Wait, but Captain Gavin was not in town when Mrs. Gavin disappeared." Captain Donald said.
"Yes, as you said, the night watchmen in the city have 'seldom appeared in the city' in the past few years. Captain Gavin can be ruled out as the suspect of murdering his wife for the time being." Agent Stanford said cautiously, "Of course, if there is follow-up evidence that Captain Gavin appeared in the city before and after Mrs. Gavin disappeared, then he will still be an important suspect."
Captain Donald was totally unaccustomed to the flawless way the agent spoke, and his head was a little swollen...
Yang Qiu was in the mayor's office on the top floor of City Hall looking through the letters and documents that the escaped governor had not had time to destroy. Agent Stanford came to his door and relayed Captain Mays's findings to him.
After hearing the situation, Yang Qiu immediately turned his gaze to Captain Donald who came up with Agent Stanford: "The family of the night watchman has been missing for two years. When did this become a trivial matter that even the local garrison would ignore?"
Captain Donald was stunned.
Yang Qiu stared at him for two seconds and frowned slightly: "Your cognition seems to have been interfered with... No, it should not be just you. Captain, when did you start to feel that the Night's Watch was dispensable to Lars City?"
Captain Donald's dull face gradually turned into confusion.
After a moment, the confusion on the face of this elite officer in the National Garrison turned into shock.
"Oh my god...Ms. Gold! How could I-?!"
Captain Donald held onto his chair with a look of horror.
Agent Stanford had been carefully observing the captain's reaction. Seeing this, he said solemnly, "Some force has interfered with the cognition of Lars City, causing the Lars people to intentionally or unintentionally ignore the Night Watch... It can actually affect the entire city. The problem of Tachia seems to be much more serious than we previously imagined."
Among the cases handled by the Public Security Bureau, if there are cases related to mysterious forces, there will occasionally be a situation where a certain person, a certain phenomenon, or a certain thing is ignored or disregarded contrary to common sense, or a certain person or a group of people extremely unreasonably accepts some unreasonable phenomenon.
Agent Stanford once had a similar experience. When investigating a case in Duta City, a family ignored their second son who had turned into a mummy in the living room. They lived and worked in the living room where the mummy was sitting every day without noticing anything unusual.
"For most people, the night watchman who stayed away from the crowd because he was 'carrying out an important church mission' was indeed a very legitimate and justifiable reason. Although it is very difficult to make such a suggestion to a large number of people, it is not impossible."
Yang Qiu put down the letter in his hand and walked around the desk with his hands behind his back: "But Captain Gavin's wife is not an 'ordinary person'. She is not so easily influenced by hints. She will definitely find out the whereabouts of her husband who has not returned home for a long time."
"So, she 'eloped with a strange man' and disappeared from public view." Agent Stanford's heart moved, "Wait, this means--"
"The night watchmen in Lars City must have been tricked out of the city under some pretext and then wiped out." Yang Qiu said, "Mrs. Gavin is different. She must have met with an accident in the city, or more likely in her own home."
"There is only one person who did not appear in the night watchman's statement of 'performing field duties', was ignored by the public like the missing night watchman, and was able to gain Mrs. Gavin's trust and enter Gavin's house without alerting the neighbors even in the middle of the night." Agent Stanford said.
"Not bad." Yang Qiu nodded. "This person can continue to maintain the illusion that the Night's Watch is still on duty, making people think that the Night's Watch just 'rarely' appears in the city, rather than never appearing. He can even regularly contact the Night's Watch headquarters in Tachia County to prevent the headquarters from sending people to investigate the situation--"
"Administrative Affairs Officer." Agent Stanford exhaled lightly, beads of sweat appearing on his forehead.
