Ke-style law enforcement officers

Chapter 393 The Secret in the Study
Enid's plan was simple and straightforward.

She found two surnames in the documents left by old Theon—York and Dürer.

As a member of the same noble class in Nanwei City, Enid was quite familiar with both families.

The York family disappeared suddenly a year ago, a topic that is quite intriguing. Even today, a year later, few people are willing to mention this family.

It's a taboo topic.

Within aristocratic circles, rumors surrounding the disappearance of the House of York tended to relate to the change of leadership in the county government.

Of course, the nobles' imaginations were limited to this.

Who would have thought that the destruction of the York family was actually the work of a hunter organization from the colony?

However, after the new county leader took office, the York family's nobleman representative in the county council was quickly sidelined, and how the case file regarding the York family's deaths was written was entirely up to the new county government.

That's getting off-topic; none of this is important.

Importantly, of the two families that Theon mentioned, the Dougher family, which has always been relatively low-key and discreet, is still safe and sound.

Enid's target was the Dürer family.

She clearly remembered that when old Kent was still single-mindedly studying how to reclaim the family title that had been stripped from him, the York family was not the only family eyeing the Kent family's trading business and proposing marriage alliances. The Dulle family also seemed to have made a fuss about it for a while. However, ever since Milo's outrageous behavior at the Sherman family manor banquet, all those messy things like marriage alliances and proposals suddenly disappeared.

After that, Enid's days were much quieter. She no longer had to deal with the trivial matters of family social interactions and could concentrate on studying and sleeping.

But now, in order to investigate the connection between the Dürer family and those missing persons cases, she reluctantly relived the life she once loathed, donned glamorous and dazzling clothes, appeared at aristocratic social banquets, and exchanged ferocious smiles with familiar and unfamiliar people.

Today's banquet is being held at the Dürer family's estate; it's a small dinner party.

Enid finally made it to night, downed two glasses of red wine to give her face a rosy glow, then pretended to be drunk and left the group of smoking noble ladies. With the help of a maid, she went to the Dulle family's guest room to rest for the time being.

Of course, the so-called "staying overnight" was definitely a lie.

As soon as the door closed, Enid began to tear off her messy accessories, including her bulky and cumbersome skirt and high heels.

Just a few minutes later, she changed into a dark-colored bodysuit. The form-fitting clothing and the weapon belt around her waist accentuated her slender yet powerful curves. This outfit was almost identical to the cat costume she wore during Enid's Day of the Dead parade last year, except for a tail...

……

Enid stuffed all the odds and ends she had taken off her body under the bed.

Before this operation began, she had obtained the structural blueprints of the Dulles family manor in advance, and her clever mind had memorized all the contents of the blueprints several hours earlier. Moreover, she had already figured out the exact location of her room.

She glanced down at the time markings on her watch and roughly determined the direction.

Then, Enid quietly approached the door.

The sound of music could still be faintly heard from the banquet hall at this time, and those guys would probably keep making a ruckus until the early hours of the morning, which was actually good news for Enid.

But just as she tiptoed to unlock the door to see if the maid had left, there was a knock on the other side of the door.

"Knock knock knock..."

Then a very magnetic (in his own opinion) male voice came in:
“Dear Miss Kent, are you alright? I am…”

Enid knew exactly what the person outside the door was up to. Usually at banquets, these guys who acted respectable in public would start to show their true colors after consuming some alcohol.

"It's okay!"

Inidra opened the door and pulled the young man standing outside inside.

"Miss Kent, you..."

This unfortunate guy was immersed in excitement one second, and the next second he experienced the wickedness of society.

bang...

Enid delivered a smooth knee strike followed by an elbow strike, completely knocking the guy unconscious.

It's a state of complete unconsciousness, like turning into a limp, muddy mess.

Then she dragged the person to the foot of the bed and tied them up tightly. Finally, she clapped her hands casually and muttered:

"Why did you have to come along and cause trouble at this time?"

Then he slipped out of the room.

……

Following the pre-arranged route, she climbed the outer wall of the corridor of the classical-style building and easily sneaked into the manor's inner building, scaling the private floor of the Dulle family head.

Finally, we arrived at a room that resembled a study.

The lamps here are always on, and no one is inside.

After silently slipping in, Enid quickly began searching through the documents on the huge solid wood desk.

However, these things on the table could not possibly contain any secrets; they were just some business documents and correspondence of the Dürer family.

Enid put aside the documents and leaned against the desk, carefully examining the interior of the study.

"You wouldn't guess that the pot-bellied old man, the head of the Dulle family, used to be a hunting enthusiast."

The walls of this study are covered with various animal specimens, such as elk and coyotes.

The date of the hunt was also noted on the label below the specimen.

Perhaps staying in a study filled with his past hunting spoils would satisfy the Dulles's desire for conquest and sense of accomplishment, but for Enid, facing dozens of lifelike animal heads only made her feel a little shudder. Although the dozen or so lamps in the study provided good lighting, the gloomy atmosphere that permeated the air was clearly not something that light could dispel.

It is clear that the head of the Dulle family was past the age of hunting. Most of these game specimens can be traced back to ten or twenty years ago, before cameras were invented. So this was the only way to commemorate his hunting experiences.

In today's terms, the aristocratic men who are passionate about hunting would travel long distances by carriage or even car to haul their prey from the mountains back to the city, then hire a photographer to set up his heavy camera set on his estate, posing elegantly with the carcasses of the animals that died at his hands, for future boasting. Enid frowned.

She wasn't the kind of person to be pretentious, but when she was in an overly spacious room, facing dozens of animal specimens, she always felt that something was staring at her from the dark eye sockets on the specimens' heads.

"Never mind, let's get to work."

She shook her head to clear her mind of those incomprehensible thoughts and shifted her attention to the most conspicuous spot in the study.

That's a spot where the safe is placed.

Don't ask her how she knew.

The location where the head of the Dulle family placed the safe was exactly the same as where Enid's father hid it, tucked behind the movable bookshelf. This was already considered an unspoken understanding among the older generation of aristocratic men.

"There's nothing new about it."

Inid pulled open the heavy solid wood bookshelf, pressed her ear against the metal safe door, and grasped the combination lock to try and unlock it.

……

Neither the sounds of banquet music and dance coming from the corridor nor the deep, gloomy atmosphere unique to this room had much of an effect on Enid.

She quickly cracked the combination lock on the safe.

After opening the heavy safe, Enid discovered that the huge safe, which could almost fit a living person inside, only contained a few file folders, and not even a trace of precious metals or gems.

"This is……"

She opened one of the rough document bags.

They discovered that the contents were not qualification documents, but a thick stack of photos.

"..."

Enid's breathing quickened slightly as her gaze fell upon the blurry images in the black and white photograph.

She reached out and pushed aside the bookshelf that was blocking the light from behind.

The light shone on the photograph in her hand.

However, upon clearly seeing the contents of the photograph, Enid was filled with immense regret...

She shouldn't have let the light fall on the photo.

Even if she only looked at it for a second, she felt that her eyes had been defiled. In an instant, she felt that the deep, lingering coldness in the study had suddenly magnified dozens of times, making her hands and feet stiff with cold.

The things in the photo were completely incomprehensible to her.

And this was only the first photo in that stack.

She swallowed hard, her fingers trembling slightly as she flipped through the remaining photos. As one bizarre scene after another came into view, her breathing and the movements of her hands gradually quickened.

……

She saw a line of people standing in the field.

I saw some kind of huge drum engraved with runes.

I saw some kind of... altar surrounded by people.

On the altar rested a "person" bound in shackles, its head secured by a birdcage-like device, obscuring its face...

But in some photos, you can see the faces of the people surrounding the altar, their faces beaming with a strange smile, and every single one of them has the same smile...

Among these faces, Enid saw the head of the Dulle family, as well as some familiar faces she had seen in the banquet hall not long ago.

They held hands, and everyone was smiling happily...

In subsequent photos, the body of the person on the altar with their head locked was in some kind of contortion...

In one of the photographs, Enid saw the spine protruding through the skin on the person's back.

Furthermore, in multiple consecutive photos, the figure is in a state of visual blur, as if it is struggling frantically, so that the camera can only capture a blurry outline at the moment of image capture.

Enid trembled as she pulled out the other photos from the safe.

However, it seems that the two albums were not taken at the same time. This time, the altar in the photo no longer features a distorted human figure, but a wild beast...

However, what gave Enid goosebumps was that in this album, which she thought had been taken at different times, she saw the smiling faces of the Dulle family head and his group once again.

……

These people appear to be performing some kind of ritual.

Even today, nobles wouldn't go to the trouble of carrying heavy cameras into the wild for hunting trips.

The environment in the photo is clearly located deep in the mountains.

They even hired a special photographer to document all of this.

...

……

Suddenly, Enid heard a strange voice.

The voice seemed to be speaking right next to her ear—

"We've found one that slipped through the net..."

(End of this chapter)