THIEF OF BREAN (VOL-1)|✓

SCARLET SCREAMS- XXXV

Carl closed the big book he was reading when he heard Giles by the door of the dreary chamber the General had allotted to him.

"Uncle Grey seems to have made some time out of his business trips at last." Giles held a letter up at him. The mail was from the army officer at Simone who had enquired Balin Grey's paternal uncle, Javior Grey, who had taken over the business left behind by Balin's father, late Mathew Grey.

"What does it say?" Carl took the letter from him and Giles reached for the water bag on the desk.

"That Balin had always been a shy kid. And he was particularly eager to join the family business. He had buttoned up more after the deaths, more so after his sister's death which was during labour, three months after his parents' passing."

Giles pursed his lips in pity. He looked deeply concerned.

"When he told the uncle and the rest of the family about moving away from Simone for some time, they had agreed to it thinking that it would help him to move on. Javior has claimed that he had since not seen his nephew or spoken him. The Grey's had consulted the constabulary to find him when he did not return for a long time. The last piece of information the officers had discovered about Balin was boarding a train to Soh-Sone and taking a boat to Aurucari isle from there."

It took some time for Carl to process the information. Giles sipped the water. "That is not a place to go when you are sad, Detective," he said as he took his seat beside Carl.

"No that is a place you go when you are utterly and entirely depressed."

Carl glimpsed through the mail and wrapped his fingers around as he felt an abrupt twinge of guilt. Not for making too much of Balin being a serial killer, but he took a pity on the young man's loss. Accepting your parents' death when you never knew their faces was hard enough. He did not try to fathom the pain of having to witness their deaths in front of one's eyes. Well, the ways of coping with misery were different for different people. Each brain reacted in its own unique way. And was yet to be sure that Balin's didn't mess up when he was all alone wandering about one place in the country people travelled when they were done with their lives and ready to give up.

Nine out of ten crestfallen minds that sailed to Aurucari isle never returned. It was said that the forlorn forests of the Aurucari isle turned a person from miserable to suicidal.

"So, Mr Javier thought his nephew killed himself in Aurucari?"

"It seems so."

Carl dropped the letter onto the desk and fished out another from his coat. "This one is from Isaac."

It was about the test conducted on the samples of cidar and ash he had retrieved from Osanne's cabin. The cidar was bactericidal, while the ash had potash carbonates and some unsuspicious plant compounds.

Giles had a hint of smile on his lips as he read through it. "If I remember correctly that is what the woman had told about the cidar? The Vermits are not allowed into the hospitals. So it is pretty common for them to have these herbal stuffs to heal themselves."

Carl grimaced.

"Let's face it, Detective-Balin Grey was a wrong conception."

Carl sighed. He did not know what to think. "Do you think the same for Velibhor as well?" he asked Giles after a while.

Giles chuckled. "Rhett can be strange at times. It is good to take his ideas with a grain of salt. What is this?" he asked about the big book on the desk.

"Thought I could see if the myth was really a folklore, or there was any rationality before we crossed out something worthwhile. What about his beagles? Do you think they could lie about something like this?"

Giles gave a half-shrug. "I don't know... Rhett works for state security. I've heard that they come as a lot of help." He said, running his eyes through the plain black hardback cover of the book.

"It's a book about Neevan history," Carl said coming to his help when he craned his neck awkwardly for a closer peek.

Giles straightened on his chair. There was dissent in his eyes. "You really think it could be true?"

"I don't have any reason to think otherwise. We have an eye-witness. Most importantly, I just remembered the thing from John Scott's report. The bloodhounds had roamed the valleys for two days, trailing for the murderer. They did not go the villages in the vicinity, or the road that leads to the town."

"Very well, so let's say we have this city in the crest of this mount. What next?"

Carl ran a finger through his lower lip indecisively.

"It is a vast mount, Detective, almost as big as a village." Giles added.

Carl reached for the book and opened to the page where he had paused reading. "We'll cross the bridge when we come to it, Major."