Chapter 554

"Then, what is your opinion on those grave robbers?"

Xia De asked curiously.

"What else could I think? Stealing things in a place I manage, I wish I could hang them directly! Moreover, disturbing the dead is a grave sin in itself. Even if it's to make a living, one shouldn't do such things. If you ask me, if you dare to deal with the dead, you should be prepared to be strangled by the dead."

After speaking, the old man spat on the ground, still feeling unsatisfied. The way he held the large shears for pruning tree branches made it look as if he were prepared to prune any grave robbers he encountered to death.

The three stolen graves were connected to each other in the southeast corner of Burial Zone No. 3. Because the Tobesk Public Cemetery gradually expanded toward the more eastern mountainous forests, the natural scenery in this corner was quite good.

The mounds of earth were visible from afar, and upon closer inspection, it was discovered that those mounds were left behind by the grave robbers when they dug the graves.

The police from Ridgewich Field had set up three "No Trespassing" signs here, connected by warning tape. Iluna stepped over directly, her small black leather shoes leaving faint footprints on the grass.

Xia De looked down at the ground; the weeds were messy, but it basically remained in the state of the primary crime scene.

He came to the stolen and dug-up grave:

"The coffin is still here. The gravedigger said there were no carriage tracks. Did the culprit pack the bodies in bags and take them away, or carry them on their backs?"

"That's hard to say. I've read the church's records; some grave robbers even dismember the bodies before taking them away... What is that foul smell?"

Iluna wrinkled her nose and complained, then squatted down to examine the three tombstones embedded in the ground.

"This one is Mrs. Fennel's."

Iluna pointed to the one on the very edge. Xia De leaned over to take a look; there was no important information written on the tombstone:

"Are the times of death for the other two bodies also recent?"

"Yes, both were over half a month ago, and both were female corpses."

Iluna said with certainty.

"I remember the case file said that their ages at death were 34 and 25 respectively. What about the cause of death? Was it also illness?"

Xia De asked again, blinking his eyes, trying to find bloodstains or spirits lingering nearby.

"It's not written in the file, but it's written on the tombstone. Let me see..."

"Let me see it; don't get your hands dirty."

The other two tombstones on the ground were almost buried by mud. Xia De patted Iluna's shoulder to make her move aside. He then put on gloves, squatted down, and scraped away the mud on the ground:

"One is a suicide by hanging because she was abandoned, and the other is... choked to death by eating beans? Oh, that's really unlucky."

Xia De shook his head:

"Except for the time of death and gender, the three bodies have no common characteristics. However, it doesn't exclude the possibility that the other party wasn't just stealing corpses, but had a grudge against one of the three, and was afraid of being found after insulting the corpses, so they stole all three at once to cover their tracks."

"Detective, it's a good thing you aren't a criminal."

Iluna joked, but her expression was very serious as she examined the surroundings:

"How is it? Are there any bloodstains nearby?"

"There are, but they are all bloodstains left by animals or insects. Wait a moment, let me look around."

Iluna continued to check the grave. She also had a miracle for finding things; last time at the Lucky Southern Cross Club, she had easily found bloodstains. Xia De went to the nearby bushes and walked around, hoping to see traces left by the grave robbers' abrasions. But the other party was very lucky and hadn't been injured during the entire crime process.

"Found it."

When Xia De returned, Iluna pointed to the grave pit in the center:

"There seems to be something under the coffin that doesn't belong to the earth."

"The police didn't check it?"

"They probably didn't expect there to be clues in this kind of location."

Seeing that Xia De wanted to jump into the grave pit to lift the coffin, Iluna immediately stopped him:

"No need for such trouble."

She looked around, then raised her hand slightly toward the grave pit, and the solid wood coffin immediately floated up. This was the spell 【Move Object】, but Xia De couldn't produce this effect. Even though he was already a Third-Ring, in his limit state, he could barely lift Mia.

Xia De bent down to look under the floating coffin, and what he saw was actually a rotting human head, with maggots crawling in the eye sockets:

"Oh!"

Because he had no mental preparation, he was indeed frightened.

Iluna thought there was some danger below and raised her hand to throw the coffin onto the grass to the side. After the heavy sound fell, she gripped golden thunder in her hand and wanted to throw it down, but what she saw was a rotting corpse buried shallowly in the grave pit.

To prevent people from discovering traces of digging in the grave pit, this corpse had been dismembered and buried below. Because it was a hurried digging, the corpse wasn't buried deep, which was why Xia De saw that rotting human head at once:

"Oh, this is really..."

Xia De jumped out of the grave pit, not knowing what to say.

"This wouldn't be the stolen corpse, would it?"

Iluna said, covering her nose. The smell wasn't obvious just now, but after the coffin was moved, the stench of the corpse's decay surged up immediately.

"Not sure, let's see if the other two corpses are still there."

So Iluna covered her nose with her left hand, and her right hand directed the remaining two empty coffins to fly out of the grave pit, lying on the increasingly messy lawn.

Xia De stood by the grave pit and bent down to look. In Mrs. Fennel's grave, which they were looking for, there was indeed a corpse buried that had already rotted severely and had been dismembered for easier burial, but there was nothing in the grave of the 29-year-old lady who had committed suicide by hanging.

"It seems it really might be to cover their tracks. The real target was actually only the corpse of Ms. Julian, who committed suicide by hanging."

Iluna looked at this scene with an ugly expression.

"Perhaps the grave robber swapped the positions of the three corpses to confuse the issue."

Xia De once again proposed a possibility. He looked at the buried corpses and really didn't want to dig them out himself:

"Notify the gravedigger. I'll see if there are any clothes on these corpses that haven't rotted away completely; we can determine their identities through the clothes."

"What if the grave robber also swapped the clothes?"

The seventeen-year-old girl had also learned Xia De's line of thinking.

"Impossible, the clothes and the corpses are almost fused together. If I were the grave robber, I would dismember the parts of the corpses and bury them in a jumbled way to confuse the issue; that's simpler than peeling the clothes off bit by bit. Moreover, it can prevent experienced coroners from easily identifying the corpses through the skeletons, buying some time for oneself."

Xia De said with a frown; he also couldn't stand this stench anymore.

They quickly called the old gravedigger over. Seeing the corpses buried at the bottom of the grave pit, the old gravedigger was also startled, not even caring how Xia De and the other had moved the coffins out.

He ran quickly to the chapel to call people, and then everyone worked together to dig out those corpse parts and tried to reconstruct them on the lawn.

Obviously, the criminal didn't have as many ideas as Xia De. Judging by the clothes and the skeletons, the corpse at the bottom of the coffin was the corpse that should have been lying in the coffin originally.

That is to say, the corpse of Mrs. Fennel, whom Iluna was looking for, and the corpse of the poor woman who choked to death on beans, were actually here all along, and the only one truly missing was Ms. Anne Julian, who committed suicide by hanging due to emotional problems.

Taking out 2 shillings for carriage fare, they sent someone into the city to find the detectives from Ridgewich Field. Although the detective in charge of this matter hadn't discovered what was buried at the bottom of the coffin, at least the speed at which he arrived at the scene was very fast.

That bearded Detective Ma Liao, who wore a brown leather jacket and brought an assistant, had originally been curious about who was interfering with the case he was in charge of, but after rushing over and seeing the credentials Iluna handed over, he stopped talking about the identities of Iluna and Xia De, clearly very aware of the relationship between the church and the police department.

"In this way, the next direction of the investigation is to investigate around Ms. Julian's social connections. That damn guy, after I find him, I must give him a punch!"

Detective Ma Liao listened to Xia De explain the investigation process they had just gone through, and after seeing the two corpses that had been pieced together and restored, he said with great indignation. It is understandable for the police of this steam era to hurt the other party when arresting criminals. And for such a heinous grave robber, even if he were beaten to death on the spot by the police, Detective Ma Liao probably wouldn't be punished.

Compared to the somewhat agitated detective, the seventeen-year-old girl appeared very steady when carrying out the mission. She hesitated for a moment:

"Does Ms. Julian have any other relatives?"

"We investigated when we notified the victim's family."

The detective asked his assistant for another notebook. The young man with red freckles on his face peeked at Iluna secretly, but after seeing Xia De beside her, he lowered his head in dismay.

"Ms. Julian's parents died early, and she grew up with her brother. Although she was already 25 years old before she died, she still hadn't married."

In this era, it was very rare for a 25-year-old commoner girl not to be married. Besides her own pressure, neighbors and relatives would also gossip.

"Her brother, Toby Julian, is also in Tobesk. Although the two didn't live together, they had a very good relationship. After discovering that Ms. Julian had hanged herself, her funeral arrangements were all handled by Mr. Toby Julian. This is his address."

Detective Ma Liao, who spoke with a fluent Tobesk accent, tore off the page from the notebook and handed it to Xia De, clearly thinking that Xia De was Iluna's assistant.

Xia De took a look; it was an address in the Lower City of the North District, but not a slum.

"Then what about the man who abandoned Ms. Julian and caused her to commit suicide for love? Who is the other party, and where does he live?"

Iluna asked again. Detective Ma Liao shook his head in embarrassment:

"I know the name, but I don't know the address. When I took over this case, I thought it was just a simple grave robbery case, so I didn't conduct a more detailed investigation into the social connections of these corpses before they died. However, I think the corpse's brother, that Mr. Toby Julian, should know about these."