I followed up on the address given to me by the man, who I believed to be the 'Gentleman'. Perhaps it's too strong a coincidence that the Gentleman was to attack his home, likely as I was arresting the man under this suspicion, or within the hour prior, or following. This makes it impossible to convict the man I've taken in, based upon the unlikelihood of him being the man in question.. But I will still keep an eye out for him in the future.
I approached the house late in the afternoon, just before the sun set. I tied down my horse onto the mailbox out front, and took a look at the household.
Something felt off, right from the start. Though it looked like just a homely, lower middle class home, it was quiet. Eerie. A yard that had a few child's play things strewn about, but no child in sight to play with them. "Perhaps they just aren't home?" I thought. I knocked thrice upon the solid oaken door. The house was small enough, where any occupants should have heard me easily. The response was silence.
The door remained unlocked, so I cautiously let myself inside. It was dark. The whole house was shrouded in a cloud of ebony, and I could hardly make out the shape of a chair, a desk, a dining table. It had the dull odor of metal wafting about the dry air, yet there still was not a sound to be heard, only those I created myself. After a moment of stumbling blindly through the blackness, I found and lit one of the candles left loosely in it's holster against the wall. Upon removing the candle to get a better look around. What I saw was not comforting.
Blood. The source of the metallic odor was clear, and it was abundant. First smeared downwards across the wall, and filling a reflecting pool in the center of the room with chartreuse essence. It was everywhere, with little rhyme or reason to it. But no source of the blood was readily present.
I hesitantly tiptoed into the adjacent room, following the more prominent scent of blood. I came upon a bouquet of flowers, red roses, still vibrant as the fresh blood that coated it's surroundings. Aside it, laid an unsealed letter, which read:
To Whom this may concern
I apologize for the nature of this scene, but I was growing bored, and the door was open. Best lock up next time!
Best Regards,
The Gentleman
Beneath the roses, and the letter, were a trap door. Against my better judgment, I went down into the Basement.
Death was here.
The room was a disorderly mess of blood caked horror, and the stench of metallic blood became more potent. Most would have fled by this point. I lit the brazier along the wall, and continued forward, and heard a faint whisper.
"Hello?"
A groaning, sickly voice whispered from the other room. I turned into the room to see on the left a little girl in her day dress, hung by the throat and white as a sheet. She could have been no older then eight or nine. To the right, in the corner, slouched against a long extinguished fireplace, sat a woman. She had been there for at least a day, the blood on her clothes were fresh, but in the process of drying out;
"Save Myra, first.."
The woman was delirious. She didn't even know the girl who'd gone white as a sheet, was long dead. I could tell there was no saving the woman. It was remarkable she'd been alive this long.
I tried to get something out of her before she passed, but she ust kept insisting I save her dead daughter.. When I knew it was fruitless, I made an empty promise to keep her daughter safe, even though all I can do is pray for some sort of afterlife, to comfort them both.. But who knows what happens after death?
All I managed to get out of her after that, was a description of a very old man, with a long beard. The Gentleman. The face I, and Sarriya would recognize. A face that did not even remotely match that of the man I had imprisoned. If I had acted just a moment fast, I might have been able to spare their lives.
In a fit of rage I couldn't stop myself from kicking over the first thing that my boot could come into contact with. I left the house, and calmed myself down best I could.
I sent back a small group of guards to clean up the mess, contact the families, and find whatever else they could, but there was little else.. Just a note, and two innocent dead.
