“Calm down, tell us slowly what happened.”
“We are members of the Magical Enforcement Team on duty tonight—”
McCarthy and Gobert simultaneously showed him their identification.
“You can trust us. As for Weilan Costa and his two friends, they are well-known student detectives.”
Mr. Gobert introduced Vilan to Thomas, leaving the old man, who had lived alone for a long time, stunned.
Thomas looked at Vilan, finding it hard to accept: “So you, this child, are so capable…”
Mr. Gobert stopped Thomas, giving McCarthy a look, and Mr. McCarthy entered the house before him.
Seeing this, Vilan didn't hesitate:
“Mr. Thomas, please tell Mr. Gobert and my friends what happened first. They will record it truthfully.”
“My other friend, Mr. McCarthy, and I will conduct an initial inspection of the crime scene. Don't worry, we all know you are a good person and will never wrongly accuse you.”
Thomas still seemed to distrust the three children, but Mr. Gobert had already nodded in agreement. So Vilan quickly said to Hermione and Ron:
“The scene inside is a bit bloody and gruesome, but I hope someone can go in with me to make a record. Which of you two has stronger psychological endurance?”
“I can—”
Ron and Hermione raised their hands simultaneously to volunteer.
So Vilan clarified:
“Only one can go.”
“One person also needs to stay outside and listen to what Mr. Thomas has to say.”
“This is his house, and only he has the keys to this house.”
“I'll go in with you.” This time Hermione reacted faster, “Ron, stay outside.”
“Then… alright.” Ron, who was a step slower, accepted his defeat.
Vilan and Hermione left paper and pen for Ron, then followed Mr. McCarthy into the bloody-smelling room.
“Tsk.” Mr. McCarthy peered into the darkness: “It's too dark, aren't there any lights?”
“There should be oil lamps on the wall, and candles on the table,” Vilan reminded him after thinking for a moment.
However, before discovering the body, Vilan needed to use the fireplace to Floo away, which was why he wanted to light the fireplace first.
“This is a major case. We need to treat our shoes and hands before entering the crime scene. Don't leave extra footprints or handprints and damage the scene.”
McCarthy cast a spell on his hands and shoes with his wand, then entered the room and fumbled along the wall.
Soon, the room was brightly lit.
The three of them finally saw the full scope of the crime scene.
It was the body of a child, whose head had been chopped off and thrown down the chimney above the fireplace.
Both the body and the head were covered in dust. The blood flowing from the severed neck had first filled half the room, then dried as time passed.
The spherical object Thomas had mentioned earlier was precisely the child's head, now resting in the corner, the expression of terror frozen on his face at the moment before his death.
“A murder of an extremely heinous nature! We need to contact the Aurors immediately!”
Even the calm Mr. McCarthy's voice couldn't help but tremble slightly as he spoke.
“Seven!” He walked to the window and shouted his companion's name, “We need to report this to the Aurors, now!”
“Understood—”
Upon receiving the message, Mr. Gobert briefly explained to Ron and Mr. Thomas, essentially telling Ron to record what Mr. Thomas said.
He then led the two to a slightly further but less cold, wind-sheltered tree.
After doing these things, Mr. Gobert disappeared with a “pop—” sound on the spot.
He had Apparated away.
“The Aurors will arrive soon,” McCarthy said, as if comforting Vilan and Hermione, and even more so, himself.
“Mr. McCarthy, could you cast a spell on Hermione and me? We can help you find more clues here.”
McCarthy had heard about Vilan's actions at the Quidditch World Cup and had a very pleasant cooperative experience with him during the Goblin ruins incident.
McCarthy agreed to Vilan's request, casting spells on him and Hermione so they could also enter the crime scene.
Vilan stepped into the room and immediately activated 【Subtle Observation】 to examine the crime scene.
“This child…”
Vilan immediately noticed the child's expensive custom fine-velvet cloak—even though the cloak was already dirty and torn.
Connecting this to the disappearance of Mr. Crouch's youngest son, an ominous premonition surfaced in his mind.
“Mr. McCarthy, are you aware that Bader, the youngest son of Barty Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, recently went missing?”
“Mr. Crouch has already reported it,” Mr. McCarthy said. “We collected the boy's information and photos, but so far…”
Mr. McCarthy suddenly fell silent, as he recognized the appearance of the boy's head.
“Bader Crouch?!”
He slowly uttered the name.
“Are you sure?”
Hermione could hardly believe it; the child's mother had been adamantly asserting just an hour ago that Bader must have been kidnapped by Mr. Crouch's mistress.
She had even asked them to track Mr. Crouch!
“One hundred percent sure.”
Mr. McCarthy replied to her:
“Mr. Crouch provided us with many photos of him. We've been searching for this child for the past few days.”
Hermione carefully recorded the victim's identity.
Meanwhile, Vilan discovered more unusual signs:
“This isn't the primary crime scene, this is where the body was dumped!”
Under the enhancement of 【Subtle Observation】, Vilan saw that this poor boy, along with his head, had been thrown down from the chimney on the roof, falling out of the indoor fireplace.
At that moment, he had just been decapitated, and after falling out of the fireplace, his small body was still bleeding.
The bloodstains covering half of the living room floor came from this.
“He was thrown down from the chimney on the roof,” Vilan told them. “We need a ladder to climb onto the roof and check the chimney.”
Vilan was about to ask Thomas outside the house for a ladder to get onto the roof when Hermione suddenly pulled him.
“Vilan, look, there's something pressed under the body!”
Vilan had, of course, noticed the object pressed under the body.
However, he found it inconvenient to move the body and retrieve the object before the Aurors arrived.
But Hermione's next words stopped Vilan and made McCarthy turn his head in horror:
“That thing is a diary!”
A diary?
A diary!
They simultaneously thought of the serial murders that had caused a stir in the Wizarding World recently.
In those murders, the victims were all pure-blood nobles, their deaths involved decapitation, and one of the five items that appeared the year Lord Voldemort died was always left at the scene.
Now, the Bader murder perfectly met the first two conditions. If a diary appeared at the scene again…
McCarthy, holding his glowing wand, carefully crouched down to illuminate the object covered by the body.
“A diary! It really is a diary!”
McCarthy quickly stood up and wrote down this crucial item in his notebook.
“What's going on? Didn't The Daily Prophet say that serial murder case was already closed?”
“And, I remember, a diary already appeared once before!”
“That serial murder case could never have ended so hastily with a mistress confessing!” Vilan firmly told McCarthy, “Clearly, that mistress was taking the fall; the true culprit is still at large.”
“The true culprit's objective has not yet been achieved; it will not give up, and the list of victims will continue to grow.”
