Clayton wasn't concerned with Joe's safety.
Back when they left the theater, they had already hopped out of Holy Grail Society's sight. As long as Joe didn't go back home, it was no difficult task to shake off their pursuit.
Furthermore, Clayton was in no mood to rise up against the Holy Grail Society for Joe's personal affairs.
Challenging an unknown enemy risked a lot. He was a merchant now, which made him inclined to stay as far away from risky behavior as possible. He would rather maintain peace with the Holy Grail Society and never probe into its details.
He just wondered what the other party had in mind.
After cleaning the first floor, he went upstairs and infused a pot of red tea for himself. Then, he laid flat a sheet of paper on the desk and was about to write up a letter.
After inking the fountain pen, he pressed its pointed tip to the paper, describing a curve ------
"My beloved... "
"Bullshit!"
Clayton reclined heavily onto the back of the chair and intended to take a two-minute rest before going on writing.
If not for the desperate situation, he would never seek help from Cuitisi.
She was the wife of Uren Bello, his long-gone elder brother, and also a repulsive narcissist.
After Uren passed away, Clayton once wrote a letter asking her to properly raise her daughter, the fruit of his elder brother's loins. Should she not come to know a decent gentleman, refrain from remarrying to ensure the child's upbringing was unaffected.
But the letter seemed to have been misinterpreted.
Cuitisi's burgeoning suspicions were best illustrated when she flatly rejected Clayton's offer to pay a visit to them, even though she was so glad to receive the money he packed in the envelope.
Thanks to her, he had never seen what Donna Bello looked like.
The mere thought of Cuitisi's face gave him the impulse to throw a dart.
Woefully, she was the only person by now that Clayton could trust.
Cuitisi had once undergone the complete set of training for nuns in a monastery; perhaps she could answer some questions he had ---- about the use for the Extraordinary object as well as the way the White Church would treat it.
Breathing out a heavy mouthful of air, Clayton started putting pen to paper once again while pondering, touching upon his encounter yesterday in a fuzzy way and putting a fictional friend in his shoes. After expressing his awe of the Extraordinary world, he built upon this and elaborated further...
After an unknown amount of time, the pot of tea was drained while the paper letter grew densely packed with words.
Only after starting the letter did he realize he actually had several times as many questions as he formed in his mind earlier on.
He checked through the letter to make sure that it would not cause Cuitisi's misunderstanding before slipping it into the envelope, on which he then put down the address and name of the recipient.
Suddenly, his hand wielding the pen froze as he looked over his shoulder into the window.
He caught a whiff of the scent wafting from the window that left a deep impression on him yesterday.
"Mr. Bello, a guest is here for you." Charlotte's voice echoed from outside the door.
Upon hearing this, Clayton eased the fountain pen down on the desk. He retrieved a revolver from the drawer and tucked it into his belt, concealing it with his jacket.
During his service in the military, all the weapons he had laid hands upon were old-fashioned ones, seldom even getting to try a breech-loading gun. But the revolver was a user-friendly new weapon, granting six shootings in a row that would make up for his bad aim or inability to handle its strong recoil.
Downstairs, a honey-skinned woman with delicate facial features was waiting, wearing a blue floor-length dress.
As Clayton descended the stairs, he showed a smile that he did to every customer, then tipped his hat to her, asking, "Madam, nice to meet you. I wonder what I can help you with?"
Judging by her smell, he surmised that she was Rosa, the veiled lead dancer on the stage last night.
Clayton had no idea why she was here but genuinely hoped for a peaceful development.
Otherwise, he would have to put the revolver to proper use.
Before he emptied the revolver, at least, he would not transform into a werewolf.
In stark contrast to last night, Rosa appeared to be a demure woman now. She padded a step forward and bent her knees, curtsying to Clayton. "Pardon me for disturbing you. By the way, we actually met each other last night."
Her posture made her look like almost a young lady of the aristocratic class. Meanwhile, Clayton displayed a confused expression, asking,
"Pardon me, but my memory fails me. Where did we meet last time?"
The dancer's face was painted with a blushed red, seemingly feeling ashamed over her work.
"Back then I was on the stage."
Clayton dropped his jaw, doing his best to exhibit his astonishment ----- anyway, if without his Extraordinary sense of smell, he would have been struck with the emotion.
"I'm here to look for Mr. Mani, who had been with you then and there. Where is he now?"
Rosa pursed her lips as she surveyed the surroundings and then looked toward the stairs, bringing forth her desire to explore the second floor.
"He left too early, my gossamer coat is still with him."
Clayton wasn't sure whether she was playing some trick or probing into his relationship with Joe.
But the second possibility did make sense since the Holy Grail Society had to keep a distance from Joe while spying on him and couldn't know him inside and out.
With this in mind, his expression changed dramatically, laced with a pretentious blend of lewd longing and disdain toward Rosa. "Joe Mani isn't here. I have no idea why you're here to look for him, but I can tell you where his home is."
Noticing the look in his eyes, Rosa chuckled awkwardly,
"I know it. I have already been to his home. He isn't there, but leaving behind a note asking me to look for you... the gossamer coat is not cheap, and I don't have a second one. It's meant for my performance."
The antique merchant banged the counter by his side, jolting Charlotte out of her reveries.
"Goddamn it, the bastard! Has he told you so? Your item isn't in my possession, how can I return it to you in place of him?"
Seeing that he had hit the roof, Rosa was dumbstruck. "I'm sorry, I thought you are friends."
Clayton snickered inwardly. If putting on a show was what she wanted, he wouldn't be shy to follow it through with her.
"Friends? Then why would he repay his debt with piles of rubbish and the ticket for a strip show?"
He spread his hands while continuing to weave the story. "Last night, I asked him to do errands for me. But he ended up leaving with my goods and must be fooling around somewhere now."
He was acting as though he were not on Joe's side. If he could manage to keep the troubles away from him, that would be best. But at the very least, he had to convince Rosa that he wasn't a foe.
Rosa wore a sorrowful, bitter smile. "I have never expected him to be such a man. I have given him my family cherished ring as a love token, but now.. I may have lost it forever."
As she said this, her eyes reddened, so pitiful she looked that she might have evoked sympathy from anyone.
Clayton almost had believed her speech, but for the stinking corpse odor suffusing the air.
Drawing a long sigh, Clayton pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and held it out to her, "When it comes to a ring, Joe did have left me one, in part to repay his debt of sixty pounds."
The dancer's eyes sparkled with radiance. "May I take a look?"
"Of course."
Clayton made his way back to the second floor and retrieved the ring. He indeed had intentions of handing it back to her.
The Bishop's Signet Ring boasted only one special effect: turning a shape-shifter back to their true forms. That proved useless to him. Without an intended buyer, it amounted to nothing more than an ordinary ancient silver accessory.
If he was to be caught keeping it for himself, that would leave him more suspicious.
Upon seeing the ring, Rosa's body instantly relaxed as she reached out for it.
"Thanks..."
Taking a step backward, Clayton dodged her hand. "If you can pay fifty pound for it, it will be yours."
He had to put forward a request and keep it from becoming a dubious free gift.
"Well..." the dancer withdrew her hand as her face blushed bright red. "Sorry, I don't bring enough money along with me today."
"That's nothing, Miss Rosa. You can raise money for as long as it takes, I will keep it in reserve for you, for the sake of the Holy Light. "
"I won't see you off. Should you meet Joe someday, remind him of his three-hundred-pound debt to me. You see, this year's end is drawing near."
Beaten down with dejection, Rosa took her leave.
Clayton didn't feel delighted at all. Although he was seeking peace, he would rather settle all this with a stirring battle.
The unwillingness of the Holy Grail Society to confront anyone in public spoke for the severeness of the trouble that Joe Mani had made, which made the members of the Holy Grail Society even decide to settle down in Sasha in the long term.
Now, he felt regretful that he hadn't inquired further with Joe.
Joe took two items away from the Holy Grail Society, one of them the Bishop's Signet Ring in his possession. Another one had been destroyed, which the Holy Grail Society was unaware of. It must be something that prompted them to stay in Sasha.
And it must be incomparably valuable.
............
During the following three days, Rosa didn't show up at the shop.
The Bishop's Signet Ring quietly lay in the workspace, unattended.
After mailing the letter at the post office, Clayton was heading for his home, ready for anything.
His home was under surveillance now.
After Rosa came by 'Rusty Silver coin', the watcher emerged. Apparently, the fact that Joe asked Rosa for another ticket for the strip show and gifted it specially to Clayton caused much misunderstanding regarding the relationship between the two of them.
The cheap apartment Clayton stayed in was in Saint Modred Parish, across a street from the so-called slum. A fence of black metallic railings topped with spikes cut them down the middle, evoking images of how ancient people protected themselves from smallpox.
Some people wanted their way in; some wanted their way out.
Clayton wasn't clear whether the Holy Grail Society eyed him less suspiciously, but he was in no mood to probe into this.
The strange corpse odor filled the air all around, and he had to pretend to be unaware of it.
Their tracking didn't cause him much trouble; anyway, there was no bad blood between him and the Holy Grail Society, and all his actions were legal and decent.
Clayton cast a glance at the window in the sitting room, where the curtains that had always been kept shut were now open.
The corpse odor pervaded the air everywhere and made him unable to locate its source.
More than tracking, someone seemed to have rummaged through his apartment today.
He didn't close the door, allowing currents of air from the corridor to blow in. Then, he made several detours and opened wide the other windows in the sitting room and bedroom for ventilation. After this, he lit a candle and walked toward the cellar.
Down in the cellar were kept frozen, bloody chunks of beef, which Clayton planned on gobbling up without cooking. Feasting on raw meat made for the satiny coat of a cat or a dog. He believed that the same was true with a werewolf.
These days he was under watch of these stinking people such that he had to refrain from turning into his true form.
Clayton never knew his way around the kitchen. So he couldn't prepare a dish for himself.
Judging by the time, he assumed that the ice was about to thaw out. He had to deal with those chunks of meat, or otherwise, they would soon spoil and smell as bad.
Pulling open the lid of the cellar, a candle in one hand, he rested another hand on the ladder and began descending it.
Before he set foot on the floor, a strong, repulsive odor assailed his nostrils.
The fresh and old decaying smells simultaneously wafted his way, giving him an ominous feeling.