Lorenzo Holmes, who arrived in the old Turin six years ago, now mixes with the city of steel and steam as a private detective.
Another man had died.
That was the topic of conversation this morning.
According to the Queen's Journal, a man was shot and killed at the junction of Elings and the inner city in the DC district, and because of the proximity to the inner city where the wealthy reside, the patrolmen were out in force quickly, but as they had been so many times before, they came up empty-handed.
According to the autopsy performed by Suarland Hall, the man was hit head-on at close range with a shotgun, the scattered pellets had bloodied the front of his body, making it difficult to tell what he looked like, but based on the tanned skin and the faint smell of fish, Suarland Hall surmised him to be a sailor, but they weren't sure why this sailor was there that day, it was clear that it was very far from the harbor, and there was no incentive for him to be there.
Another unsolved case, at least that's what the public thought.
No one was surprised, or even panicked, at the result; after all, they had been used to it for a long time.
This was Old Turin, the heart of all of Invergar, the heart of the entire world, where the first steam engine in the history of mankind came from.
Therefore countless strangers came here every day, some for wealth, some for knowledge, some for power.
The overcrowding has brought about a deterioration in law and order, and to maintain order the old Turin has been divided into four districts, one after the other.
In the center is the power center of the entire Inerwig, Queen Victoria resides in the Platinum Palace is there, at the same time there is also stationed in the third mobile force of Wang Li, outside of this is the inner city, the old Turin's rich and powerful people basically live here, enjoying the patrol police's round-the-clock protection, outside of this is the outer city is divided into four small areas, the majority of the residents live here, is the largest part of the entire old Turin! The last is the Lower Town.
According to the documents of the visitors, the old Turin's sub-districts are open to them one by one, and if you wear rags you can't get into the outer districts at all, and at most you can only hang out in the lower districts, which in a sense don't count as districts at all.
It started out as a slum, but as more and more people came here, the Lower District grew and grew, and in the end it became so large that even the Regents had to look at it.
As a result, a chaotic and unorganized district emerged, where the largest black market transactions in all of Old Turin took place, the final burning furnace for all hidden information, and a world away from the one everyone seeks.
The dead sailor was one of the people of the Lower City, and in the eyes of the inhabitants of Invergar the people of the Lower City aren't even people, they're just a bunch of dirt that defiles this fine city.
The death of the sailor became the talk of everyone, no one cared at all, except for one person, the one who killed him.
Lorenzo walked on the edge of the lower city, the infrastructure here was nothing like it had been, his boots were a foot deep in the mud, if it wasn't for his livelihood Lorenzo wouldn't be here if he didn't have to die.
Wearing a dyed black deerstalker hat that pushed down that short light blonde hair, a dark red tie on his chest, a wide gray and black trench coat that perfectly blocked the guns underneath it, he gripped his cane looking at the pocket watch in his hand every now and then, looking like a businessman in a hurry.
Lorenzo was dressed appropriately, no different from the usual pedestrian, but now that he was in the lower city, he looked to the people of the lower city like a fat sheep who had wandered into the area by mistake.
Men from different parts of the country ringed the fat goat in the corners, it was out of the jurisdiction of the rangers, and even if a person died there was little recourse, after all, there was a huge amount of traffic here, and untold numbers of people arrived in the city every day along with the ships.
There were all kinds of people among them, and they knew exactly who to go after and who not to.
A few of the newer strangers took an interest in Lorenzo, whispering and dividing up Lorenzo's possessions, some wanted his trench coat, others his pocket watch.
The rest of them were just indifferent to this, after the lower city became the black market of the old Turin, a new black industry chain was formed here, most of the people who dared to make a move to rob people were gangsters, and they would only get themselves into trouble by helping.
On the dirty streets, the group just surrounded Lorenzo with menacing eyes.
"Well dressed friend."
The leader of the group looked at Lorenzo with a smirk on his face, it wasn't a kindness, he just noticed that Lorenzo's pocket watch was worth quite a bit more than it looked.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you guys."
Sounding somewhat helpless, as if he was used to it, Lorenzo was full of disinterest in what was happening to him.
This was how it was in the Lower City, he'd killed a few unwanted ones before with dozens of people surrounding him, thinking he'd establish some prestige, and it still happened every time he came, Lorenzo thought that someone was targeting him, but then he realized it was just that the group wasn't there anymore.
This was the Lower Town, the temporary home of the strangers, legally not under the protection of the realm by the laws of Invergar, and the people here were not considered citizens. Beyond it was the mouth of the Thames, the largest harbor in Invergar, where those who hung out in the Lower City might be here one day, and the next day might be out on the other seas with the fishing boats.
There were also gang reasons for this, the black market had only these interests, for these industries gangs of men would break out into conflict in the lower city every day, people died every day, their bodies would be thrown straight into the Thames and after being filtered through the steam hubs, the bodies would be incinerated in a centralized location along with the detritus.
It wasn't that no one remembered Lorenzo, it was just that they died so quickly.
Brightly shining knives rattled in front of Lorenzo's eyes, just as he was thinking about how to deal with these few desperate thugs the sound of rapid hoofbeats rang out, a dark carriage stopped by the side of the street, and the coachman was not polite at the sight of the scene, and took out his pistol directly to shoot at these few thugs.
He was really nonchalant, after a few shots, the bodies of those thugs were lying in front of Lorenzo, the people in the street fled due to the sound of the gunfire, and for a while he and the coachman were the only ones left in the empty street.
"Mr. Holmes?"
It seemed that he could see Lorenzo a little too well because of his old age, but the shot he had just fired was so precise that it made it a little difficult to judge the coachman.
"It's me.
Scanning the crest on the wagon, Lorenzo didn't hesitate to get right in, except that instead of sitting in the wagon, he sat at the front of the wagon with the coachman.
"What happened to those people?"
Looking at the bodies on the ground, Lorenzo looked disgusted.
"Stowaways. There's been an increase in stowaways lately, most of them criminals who think they can usher in a new life in Old Dunlin, but don't realize that starting a new life involves saying goodbye to their past . . . they still retain a mob mentality, and as such have been causing a lot of trouble lately."
The coachman swung his whip, and the carriage started slowly down the muddy road.
"Burrow doesn't care about auxiliary care for these?"
"My lord has been very busy lately, there are two gangs that are about to go to war because of territorial issues, my lord has important industries on those two gangs that he has been mediating lately, my lord doesn't care if they lose or win, but because of their conflict those industries are bound to be affected, and their lives aren't worth that much yet."
"Hmm .... Seems like his style." Lorenzo said nodding
"By the way Mr. Holmes, if you're coming next time please order ahead and I'll come pick you up, it'll avoid some unnecessary conflict.
The coachman added, considerate as a butler.
Lorenzo nodded without saying a word, and although he had not been on board for long, it was clear that his destination had arrived.
Behind a heavy pile of dilapidated buildings was a hidden castle, made of various piles of rubble, hung with tattered banners and iron frames, as if it was the work of some artist.
Walking towards the strange castle, the half-hidden door opened directly to him and then the real appearance of the lower city was revealed to his eyes.
Unlike the outside world, which was in a state of decay, this place was like the inner city, as if he had traveled from a slum to a platinum palace in an instant.
It was already the end of October, and the weather was turning cooler, but the moment he went inside Lorenzo still felt a rush of heat, not only physically, but also internally.
The space inside was much larger than it looked from the outside, with all sorts of expensive wall paintings hanging on the pale gold walls, the floor was marble that could reflect people's shadows, and valets with ornate masks carried trays and served drinks at the various gaming tables.
The distant female voice chanting on the high platform in the center drove the atmosphere of the entire casino.
Smoking incense was lit in the delicate iron cages around the room, that smelled good, but with trace amounts of stimulants to make those still hesitant customers gamble all their chips.
This was what the lower city was really like, paper-drunk.
Unlike the inner city, this place was not subject to jurisdiction and had become a den for many nobles to sell their stolen goods; they appeared to be gambling but were diverting their wealth to another channel, and every day the amount of money traded here in the shadows was an amount that was hard for ordinary people to reach. Of course there would also be many nobles looking for excitement who would come here, they were all VIPs in the lower city.
Burrow had told himself this, that according to the laws of Invergar, everyone here had committed enough crimes to spend the rest of their lives in prison, and of course, as a result, the entire noble class of Old Turin would be at least a third short.
No one stood in Lorenzo's way, unlike the short-lived strangers in the outside world, those who were here were the ones who would live a long time, and they knew exactly what Lorenzo was.
Pushing through an iron door, Lorenzo easily made his way to the deepest part of the underground, and it was here that he met his employer for this business.
The man wore a mask of delicate silver, carved with thorns and birds. Sitting behind an oak table, the whole room was filled with incense as well, and the song flowed slowly from the phonograph as he closed his eyes and waved his hands like a conductor until Lorenzo's arrival shattered the world he was immersed in.
"Welcome! My friend!"
He saw Lorenzo and smiled in welcome.
This is the true ruler of the lower city, the Burrow to whom all gangs bow down.
Butcher-Bird Burrow.
Lorenzo unceremoniously sat down across from him and spoke directly with little courtesy.
"There was nothing on that man, the whole person was like crazy before he died, nothing could be asked, and there were no clues to be found."
"Hm??Is that really true?" Burrow took out his wine glass from under the table and poured his favorite wine into it, "Renzo, you're the best detective I've ever seen, you should have found more than just this right."
Listening to Burrow's words, Lorenzo sighed helplessly.
"It's just speculation."
"What speculation?"
Hearing Lorenzo's words, Burrow raised his interest, sure enough Lorenzo Holmes never let him down.
"I found his whereabouts based on a drug dealer. A sailor in the lower city, not earning much but going to a different drug dealer every day for hallucinogens. By the time I found him the sailor appeared to have been injected with a large dose of hallucinogens, his speech was slurred, and with the inner city neighborhood, full of patrolmen, I wasn't able to ask much ..."
So I surmised that something had happened to him, something that had spooked him so much that the fear was so great that he had to resort to hallucinogens to escape."
Lorenzo's voice was soft, as if he were reading a seeping story.
"What makes you think it's the fear thing." For some reason Burrow cared about the word fear.
"Because I shot him in the chest, dozens of rounds pierced his heart, lungs and bones, and even inhaling hallucinogens he felt pain and came to his senses.
Knowing that all men are afraid of death, with a little seduction on my part, he would spend the rest of his life obeying my words and answering whatever I asked."
"But he didn't, and kept speaking in a foreign tongue I didn't understand . .... Though his face was also smashed by the projectile, I could see the relieved beauty of his face."
"It was as if I hadn't killed him, but saved him from some nightmare." Burrow froze at that, ignoring Lorenzo's speculation and caring about his actions." You killed him? You should have brought him to me alive!"
"Huh?"
Lorenzo froze.
"You didn't say you wanted him alive, and would you mind who you are, please?You're the Burrow, the boss of the entire lower city, the House nobles want you dead, and so do the gangs down below, and only if you're dead can they become the next boss."
Taking the glass directly and drinking from it, he continued.
"I'm doing this for your sake, people who are clear about my identity more or less know about the relationship between you and me, and you've emphasized again and again that this matter should be kept secret, I guess this matter is very important right."
They all want to bring you down, and I won't leave them any leverage on this important matter, you see it's just a dead sailor, no one will think on you.
Lorenzo puts down his glass and spreads his hands.
"The best of both worlds."
"So the best of both worlds for you is to kill the only lead you have and come here to drink?"
In a calm, steady tone, Burrow produced a revolver from under the table, the shiny silver metal surface embossed with gods and ghosts, exquisitely unlike a firearm at all.
"I want you to understand one thing, you are my employee and I am your employer, you won't get paid this way, instead you will get a bullet."
didn't even look up at Lorenzo as he filled the nest with bullet after bullet, filling it with five rounds leaving -a- round, then he spun up the nest with the gun pointed at Lorenzo.
"You're the best detective I've ever seen, but this is a really stupid thing you've done ... So want to take a chance? One in six odds."
Burrow looked at Lorenzo seriously, he wasn't kidding on this one.
The smile on Lorenzo's face stiffened."Well, well, you're really no fun to be around.
"Well, well, you're really no fun to be around."
Waving his hand, he tried to press that muzzle down, but immediately afterward Burrow raised it again. Seeing this it was clear to Lorenzo that he would have to make things clear at gunpoint.
"I've been following that sailor for many days now, his name is Wall, he's a Viking from the northern seas, he's spent the last few days wandering between a few drug dealers without the slightest inclination to return to the harbor, and looks to have been abandoned by his captain in general."
"When you gave me this case, you merely asked me to investigate this man, who you said had a secret.
As if there were no gun in sight, Lorenzo was casual again.
"Honestly, you're really pulling the wool over your eyes with this case, you don't know his secrets either, yet you're asking me to investigate "
"Identity, socialization, nothing, very clean guy until I witnessed him injecting hallucinogens."
"What?"
Burroughs was extraordinarily concerned in this matter concerning Sailor Waugh.
"It's pretty ripped you know?"
Lorenzo was bullshitting and posing for a shot in his neck.
The whole hallucinogen, that's a lethal dose for a regular person, and he just shot it all in, and for days on end, which I got confirmation from the drug dealer, who buys it every day.
"I thought it might be a Viking physique thing, after all their ancestral pirates used to fight right up to the old Turin Gate."
Speaking of which Lorenzo raised an eyebrow, it always amused him extraordinarily to speak of such black history.
"I found a Viking in the lower city to experiment on, a whole hallucinogen went down and he was already foaming at the mouth."
"So there's something wrong with Val's body?"
Burrow caught the crux of it.
"Yes, there's a major physical problem. And not only that, he was very aggressive, he killed at least six people in the intervening miles, where else do you think a sailor would have the money. And I did kill him afterward, but it was only because he begged me to."
Lorenzo recalled the story of that night.
Amidst the rising white steam and the light cast by the Zeppelin, Lorenzo was the dark silhouette of twisted, living flesh and blood underneath him, dark red blood bubbling from every bullet hole, his chest heaving violently and a whimpering sound coming from his throat, a sound that he couldn't understand but it was as if he understood what it meant.
Kill me!
Take me away!
"Then I stabbed down the bullet hole wound with my staff sword."
Lorenzo drew his cane, the dark wood cracking to reveal the chilling blade beneath it.
"I stabbed him through the jugular... .... The carotid artery ruptured, there was massive internal bleeding, and he died quickly, but that's when the weird thing happened."
As Lorenzo's story unfolded, Burroughs couldn't help but lean forward, listening carefully to every word, constructing a picture of that night in his mind.
"He should be dead .... Was definitely dead, but his heart was still beating, violently, so you could say his brain was dead, but his body was still alive, taking a steady stream of blood out of the bullet hole."
"This being a complete anomaly, I stabbed him through the heart again with my staff sword, and that's when the body was truly dead."
The story ended, Burrow was silent seemingly thinking about something and Lorenzo was in no hurry, just sipping his small drink he knew very well that anything he could lay his hands on Burrow was good, a little more was good enough.
"You should have brought his body back."
"There was no need."
"There's no need? You know full well there's something wrong with that corpse!"
Burrow was genuinely angry this time, looking as if he was about to shoot next.
"So what if I get it back? You're in a casino not a morgue, you have a bunch of thugs but not even a coroner ..... Do you know how many bones there are in the human body?"
Looking disdainfully at Burrow, Lorenzo continued.
"Right now Wall's body is lying in the morgue of Victoria Central Hospital, being dissected by a bunch of forensic pathologists who stayed up for who knows how long before graduating from King's Medical School. Slice after slice, neatly laid out on a wire rack like a sumptuous human meal, every abnormality recorded in a report in strict adherence to the code, and it's all just sitting there waiting for me to pick it up at this very moment."
Picking up his pocket watch, Lorenzo checked the time.
"Two hours until this group is off duty, do you have anything else to ask?"