New Gods of North America.

Chapter 425 Testing
After leaving the cathedral, Wayne sat in the galloping carriage, pondering Bishop Corleone's words, and returned to Georgeburg along the same route.

Bishop Corleone set a high tone, calling it a "war," and Tom Hagen rarely helped Wayne interpret it.

No matter how slow Wayne was, he finally reacted and felt that this might be a "test" of him by the cathedral.

But what is the test question?

He was not a member of the church, and the authority of the bishop and the cathedral was not challenged.

——Tom Hagen came with a piece of paper and said a few words, which in fact temporarily suspended all the local high-ranking clergy, and even their manpower was disrupted and they were busy with their commands.

This is more efficient than "releasing military power over a cup of wine". Bishop Corleone doesn't even have to show his face, and it doesn't look like "power is falling into someone else's hands" at all.

Wayne thought about what he had learned recently and felt that the more likely possibility was that the Cathedral wanted to prove through its own investigation that the detective agency had nothing to do with the Church of Light.

By the way, they also have to assist the cathedral in identifying the priests - Bishop Corleone's meaning implies "it is better to kill the innocent than to let the guilty go". As an outsourced team and temporary workers, the detective agency may need to "play the good guy" and do some offensive work at this moment.

Wayne is more of a "take money from others, and help them get rid of their troubles" person in this regard.

Since the client has requested work, just do it.

However, work also requires methods and approaches. Wayne first returned to George Berg's church and politely gave each pastor a shot of prevention.

The high-ranking clergymen all seem to be very smart.
Wayne had just finished giving preventive measures to Pastor Tyrell and Pastor Bazzini, who were with him, when he saw a mysterious smile on Pastor Bazzini's face. The other high-ranking clergymen also had different expressions, but on the surface they all expressed support and cooperation.

Anyway, those who can understand will understand, and if they cannot understand, Wayne can only guarantee that "it is acceptable in terms of face", at least he did not "act first and report later".

Then the troops were divided into several groups.

Inissa went to investigate the exorcist team's sacrifice. Theoretically, there were checkpoints at the main traffic arteries in Georgeberg, but the water system was well developed in this place, and if a single murderer really wanted to escape, I felt that there were always more solutions than problems.
Wayne specially brought Lina back to the detective agency and asked her to take people to check the priests' residences again. This time, they might have to look through hidden safes and the like. Although in principle they would still not look closely at documents and letters, if they found objects that were obviously "heretic", they would not be able to escape.

As for Wayne himself, he went to find Mr. Weisman who had been attacked. A whole team of exorcists were killed, but he was the only one who was knocked unconscious. Who would believe that he was completely innocent?

I plan to go through these three lines first, and then talk to those priests to play "script killing".
Try to find out if there are any other clues from the confession.

The detective agency has no partners or a large team to guard the house at this moment, but it doesn't matter.
Only Doug and Damon MacCready, whose image affects the city's appearance, could stay behind. If anything happened, they would release birds to give a heads-up and then quickly evacuate with their people.

Fortunately, at present, in Georgeberg's territory, the three largest church personnel teams, the cathedral staff, the Exorcist Association under the Tyrell priest, and the local exorcism department, are temporarily under the control of Tom Hagen.

If there are still some blind guys coming to the door now, don't blame Wayne for diverting trouble and instigating the army to seek revenge.

……

Mr. Weissman, who was attacked, has been moved to another place.
If the murderer wanted to come and silence us now, it would be much easier than before. However, it would be more difficult for the murderer to escape quietly after the incident.

To use Wayne's words, Tom Hagen was using this guy to "fish", like "luring someone into a trap".

It doesn’t matter whether Mr. Weisman is dead or alive, but the murderer wiped out a team of exorcists, which means he has officially established a feud with the church.

It is because of this premise that Tom Hagen allowed Wayne to try some "local methods".
As long as he could catch the murderer or advance the investigation, he could temporarily pretend to be "invisible". If something went wrong, he would let Wayne explain it to the bishop himself. "Mr. Wayne, what are you doing?"

In the room, the statue that was confirmed to be the "Light of Dawn" was brought out under the supervision of the exorcists.

Wayne handed Mr. Weisman a revolver loaded with only one bullet.

Wayne did not hide his thoughts:
“According to my guess, since the murderer who helped Reverend Pycelle clean up the manor came here and tried to attack you before, it means that you are related to Reverend Pycelle or the Church of Light.

"Mr. Weissman, I need you to blow up this statue with one shot to eliminate a wrong answer for us. The gentleman next to you is a professional painter. Later, we will paint a portrait of your heroic image at this moment, Mr. Weissman, and publish it in the newspaper to see if the people of the Church of Light will have any reaction."

Mr. Weissman was shocked: "Is this even possible?!"

Wayne nodded. "Don't worry. I've asked around. The church would have destroyed the statue anyway. What we're doing now is probably not a compliance issue, but there's no major problem of principle. At most we'll just get scolded and that's it."

Mr. Weissman almost wanted to throw the revolver back: "No, that's not what I'm asking..."

"Mr. Weissman, I must remind you. Whether you fired the gun or not, your heroic act of destroying the statue of the evil god will be reported in the newspaper tomorrow."

Wayne continued, "But if you refuse to do it, it will greatly increase your suspicion of being a follower of the evil god."

As Wayne spoke, he quietly retreated to the door and quietly protected the exorcists in front of him.

He had suffered a great loss from this statue. Although the people in the church said that this thing no longer had extraordinary reactions, it was still better to be safe than sorry - the exorcists still used special wooden boxes to transport the statue.

Wayne's words were actually half to scare Mr. Weissman. At present, the only person who could be confirmed to be related to the Church of Light was the old man Reverend Pycelle, who was unknown whether he was dead or not.

Now Wayne wants to destroy the statue, mainly because he wants to see the murderer's position, which has nothing to do with Mr. Weisman.

The second idea is to show that they are irreconcilable with the "Church of Light", which is also a way to show their loyalty.

This was the idea that Lina gave Wayne. As the "God's Blessed One" of the wise sage, Lina had quite a lot of experience in certain areas.
Most devout believers of evil gods cannot accept the act of destroying the "holy statue". Based on the murderer's reaction, we can roughly judge his "relationship" and "purity" with the belief in light.

If the murderer is a "very pure" follower of the evil god, then his subsequent actions can be estimated according to the standard of "fanaticism", and it is estimated that "he will not be a gentleman if he does not take revenge".
But if the murderer is "not so pure", the subsequent analysis of his behavior can be mainly based on the "pros and cons". Maybe the Church of Light is just a cover in this case, otherwise the murderer would not have thrown the statue in the manor before.

But according to Wayne's stereotype, destroying such mysterious statues usually ends badly in horror movies.
Wayne himself doesn't want to be involved in this kind of cause and effect, and the exorcists of the church shouldn't suffer such an unexpected disaster, so Mr. Weisman can only suffer.

If Mr. Weissman knew the murderer well enough, he would know how risky it would be to do this and whether it would lead to a real falling out between him and the murderer.

By comparing the actions on both sides later, we can get a preliminary answer.

Mr. Weissman in the room held a gun in his hand. He looked at the statue and then at Wayne who was encouraging him, his eyes wandering.
Unexpectedly, in the end, he actually raised his hand and pointed the gun at Wayne.

"boom!"

(End of this chapter)