"Resigned? What a coincidence..."

  Yvette asked the pharmacy owner about the physical characteristics of Syrsa Hedges. According to his answer, the pharmacist Miss Hedges, who had worked in the shop for a long time, had similar hair and eye colors to the woman who appeared at the club, but her other features seemed quite different.

  They were clearly not the same person!

  From her letter claiming she was being followed and watched, to a woman impersonating her coming to the club to cancel the request for help, to the pharmacy owner saying she resigned because she was getting married—what exactly happened in between?

  "Did Miss Hedges resign in person? When was it?"

  "Not exactly. A week ago, she wrote me a letter saying she was returning to her hometown to get married."

  "Are you sure it was written by her?"

  The pharmacy owner grew somewhat impatient with her questions and waved his hand dismissively. "Of course. She worked in my shop for years—I’d never mistake her handwriting!"

  "Do you know where she lives?"

  "Sir, you’re asking far too many questions. I’m under no obligation to answer." The pharmacy owner regarded her warily.

  As they spoke, a customer arrived to buy cough pills. The owner retrieved a brown glass bottle from the shelf but only managed to shake out two pills.

  "Sorry, but we’re out of stock for this medication."

  Disappointed by the answer, the coughing customer left in frustration.

  "Well, in that case, I came here because a friend of mine bought a certain medicine from this lady. He followed the instructions and took a full course, but his condition worsened, and he fell into a coma. If you insist on protecting her, I suppose I’ll have to ask my friend’s relatives to contact a lawyer..."

  Yvette made as if to leave, prompting the pharmacy owner to hastily stop her. "Wait—hold on! I was only hesitant because it’s improper to give out a lady’s address to a strange man. But since this concerns a precious life, and since you, sir, seem like an honest gentleman, I suppose there’s no harm in telling you..."

  He grabbed a prescription slip and quickly scribbled down the address, muttering as he wrote, "To be honest, lately there’s been a young man coming here looking for Miss Hedges, claiming to be her lover. I told him she had resigned, but he kept coming back, growing more and more agitated—like an opium addict going through withdrawal. Yesterday, he caused a scene in the shop and ended up being beaten by a passing constable. If the officer hadn’t taken pity on him because his sweetheart was marrying someone else, I’m sure he’d have been thrown in jail... It’s no wonder Miss Hedges resigned so abruptly—probably to avoid him."

  "What did this troublesome man look like?"

  "He reeked of alcohol, unkempt, with blue eyes, brown curly hair, and a cleft in his broad chin. If he cleaned himself up, he’d probably be quite handsome."

  After leaving the pharmacy, "Bitter Road" noticed the structured nature of her earlier questioning and asked, "Did you find anything?"

  "Not yet, but I suspect there’s more to her resignation. Let’s check her residence first. Maybe her landlord knows something."

  Upon arriving, they discovered that Miss Hedges' landlord was unaware of her resignation or departure from London. The landlady had kept the room reserved—the single woman had rented the small house for three years straight. Though narrow, with only four doors' width facing the street, it was in a prime London location near the commercial district and thus expensive. Yet she rented the entire property, had a flawless payment record, and held a steady job. Moreover, all her belongings remained in the room, as if she had only stepped out for a few days.

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  After gathering this information, Yvette used Rabbit’s pocket watch to alter the landlady’s memory, claiming to be a relative of Miss Hedges, entrusted with handling the woman’s private affairs due to her sudden long trip. The old woman asked a few questions, which Yvette answered smoothly, and without further suspicion, she handed over the key.

  Miss Hedges' rented home was only a ten-minute walk from the pharmacy. Wedged tightly between two neighboring buildings, it occupied every inch of usable space in the capital’s pricey real estate, sharing walls on both sides—a defining feature of middle-class townhouses of the era.

  Though small from the outside, the windows were spotless, and the pale floral curtains lent a charming effect.

  "For a single woman in London, affording a place like this is no small feat," remarked Bitter Road.

  "That’s not surprising. The pharmacy owner relied on her, and she likely sold medicines privately—using the shop’s equipment with her employer’s tacit permission."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Just now, I noticed. The owner’s cabinet was filled with medicine bottles. The ones labeled in female handwriting were nearly empty, with hardly any halfway full, and their surfaces weren’t dusty, meaning they’d been made recently but were already selling out fast. Others with different handwriting had thick layers of dust and remained more than half full, suggesting Miss Hedges’ remedies were more effective and popular. When I mentioned a friend had taken her medicine and suffered adverse effects, the owner wasn’t surprised—he must’ve known about her side business."

  "You learned all that in just a few minutes... Impressive."

  Upon entering, the interior appeared perfectly ordinary, as if the occupant had just stepped out. Yvette touched the stove’s ashes—cold, yes, but still dry. In the washroom, dirty dishes sat in the sink, their moldy cream sauce crawling with freshly hatched maggots—proof that the house had been used at least half a month ago.

  But would someone really leave their home in such a state, knowing they’d be away for months?

  A boy’s crying and the unmistakable sound of a cane striking flesh echoed through the shared wall, proving how easily sounds traveled in this tightly packed housing. Any commotion here would surely be noticed by the neighbors.

  "Hmm?" Yvette paused by the washroom drain.

  To prevent rats, a round iron grate typically covered the pipe opening—but now it had been removed and set aside.

  Coincidence? Or...?

  Next, they headed upstairs to the living quarters, where they found something unusual.

  "This set of clothes... Feels odd," Yvette murmured, crouching down.

  Littered across the floor was a complete set of women's garments. The eerie part? Everything was still in place—undergarments, whalebone corset, stockings, garters, slippers—even small accessories like hair ties, pins, and earrings were there, exactly where they should be. The corset strings were still tied, trapped around the waist of the skirt; the garters hung loose where they would have clung to thighs; all of it lay within the draping fabric of the wide skirt.

  It was as if... the person wearing them had simply vanished, leaving these abandoned layers to collapse where they fell.

  "Look at this!" Bitter Road exclaimed. "Just like the piled-up clothes the robber mentioned in his confession—the disappearing woman he witnessed! Could Miss Hedges be the one he saw? That also matches the woman you lost in the alley earlier!"

  Yvette quickly checked the clothing’s dimensions but found they were slimmer, especially at the waist, than those of the woman from the club. The imposter couldn’t have fit into these without tearing the seams.

  Wait—there was no evidence connecting the two. The yellow-clad imposter had also behaved strangely, vanishing in a straight alley with no exits. The only clue led back to this flat.

  Both Miss Hedges and the imposter had seemingly disappeared. If she were a shapeshifting supernatural being who suddenly changed her mind about seeking help, why would she assume a stranger’s face to impersonate herself?

  But Yvette kept these doubts to herself. The leads were too scant, and after the "Midnight Killer" incident, she had learned that even colleagues within the organization couldn’t always be fully trusted. With Bitter Road jumping to the opposite conclusion, she mentally reviewed his words and actions, assessing whether he might be complicit—a collaborator covering for rogue supernaturals.

  Nothing suspicious—yet.

  The rest of the rooms seemed normal, except for the attic, repurposed into a makeshift distillery. On its workbench, they found several ampoules filled with a dark, viscous red liquid.

  "Looks like blood samples," Bitter Road declared confidently. He snapped the thin neck of one, releasing a spoiled metallic tang. "Ampoules were originally used to preserve blood from the dead—especially in Roman tombs—before they became medical tools."

  As he dipped a finger in and brought it toward his nose, Yvette’s sharp gaze locked onto the glass.

  The black-red hue, the thick sludge, the ominous pudding-like clots...

  There was no mistaking it.

  "Stop!" she shouted.

  "What? Did you find something?" He paused.

  "Well... it’s just a possibility, but... based on appearance alone, I’d say that resembles... the monthly flow of a woman’s..." Yvette hedged, her earlier confidence vanishing.