After inspecting up and down, Klein confirmed that the White family home held nothing peculiar, and the couple had not left a single strand of hair behind, clearly guarding against someone using divination to track them.
He returned to that bedroom filled with puppets, took four steps backward, and entered the gray fog, intending to use divination for a final confirmation.
But before getting down to business, he conjured with interest the life-sized puppet of a young girl, and just as he had done when divining the phantom of the "Mutated Sun Sacred Emblem" in Tingen, he picked up the dark red round-bellied pen and wrote on the yellowish parchment a sentence:
"Its origin."
Putting down the pen, holding the paper, Klein leaned back in his chair, and while silently reciting, slowly adjusted his mind into a meditative state.
After a full seven repetitions, his eyes deepened, his eyelids lowered, and he fell into slumber.
In that fragmented gray world, he saw the puppet craftsman working with exceptional focus, saw this red-eyed "girl" placed into the puppet house, saw Emlyn White unable to take his eyes off and pulling out his wallet.
Finally, the image froze in the bedroom where Klein was currently—the handsome but slightly effeminate arrogant vampire Emlyn White, his hair combed diagonally back, sitting on the edge of the bed, gazing affectionately at this puppet and at all the other puppets of varying sizes.
Truly a fervent enthusiast of puppets... Klein opened his eyes and raised a hand to cover his face.
Then, he waved his hand, causing the conjured life-sized puppet to vanish above the gray fog.
After doing all this, he picked up the round-bellied pen again and wrote a new divination statement:
"Scenes of death in the past ten years at 48 Riverview Avenue."
——According to the statements of nearby residents, the White family had moved here less than ten years ago, so Klein could narrow down a specific range. Moreover, he believed that if the Whites only seemed like good monsters on the surface but were actually manufacturing disappearances to suck warm, delicious blood, then they could not possibly keep such events from happening at home.
In the span of a long decade, there were bound to be a few accidents, as long as they hadn't stopped!
After carefully examining the divination statement, Klein repeated his silent recitation and meditation, quickly sinking into a dream.
In the gray and misty world, his vision sometimes turned pitch black, sometimes became snowy dots, sometimes fragmented and shattered, but no image ever appeared.
This was the divination result:
Nothing!
No one had died at 48 Riverview Avenue in the past ten years!
Taking all aspects together, he could preliminarily conclude that the White family were law-abiding vampires who at most engaged in petty theft... Klein gazed at the mottled bronze long table ahead, wrapped himself with spirituality, and fell into the gray fog.
After returning to the real world, he carefully erased all traces of himself and left 48 Riverview Avenue the same way.
He did not make a final decision just yet. Instead, he detoured to the Riverview Police Station. Under the backdrop of thieves and drunks being brought in and handcuffed to pipes, he easily slipped into the archives and boldly lit the gas lamp inside.
Then, Klein found the missing persons records of the last ten years and flipped through them noisily.
From time to time, police officers on duty passed by the door, but in their eyes, the archive room showed no light leaking out.
"Nothing suspicious..." After an unknown amount of time, Klein, wearing black gloves, put the files back in their place.
Then, he turned off the gas lamp, and in the deep darkness, he removed his hat, pressed his hand to his chest, and bowed toward the station hall.
When he finally returned to Minsk Street, Klein took a bath, changed clothes, sat at his desk, and spread out the map of Backlund he had first bought on the steam train.
He first found Rose Street in the Bridge South District, where the Harvest Church was located. Father Utravsky was the bishop of this church and had imprisoned Emlyn White in the basement.
Next, Klein shifted his gaze, figuring out the names and layout of several surrounding streets.
The performance cannot be too hasty, too eager for quick success; you have to let the audience invest bit by bit... Klein murmured to himself, then spread out a sheet of letter paper and set down his pen:
"Dear Detective Stuart:
"I wonder if you have found that Emlyn White yet? I've been keeping an eye out for you recently, and one of my informants told me today that he once saw this person on Toutsway Street in the Bridge South District. Of course, he only said that he looked very similar to the person in the portrait."
...
Putting down the pen, Klein neatly folded the letter paper, placed it into an envelope, and affixed a black stamp with a face value of 1 penny.
......
On the rolling, boundless Sonia Sea.
The "Blue Avenger" sailed steadily forward without the slightest rocking.
Alger Wilson, the "Hanged Man," sat inside the captain's cabin, holding a brass sextant, but his eyes were closed.