Unfortunately, they made several rounds of the villa and searched every room they thought was empty, but found no door that the key could unlock.
It was getting later, as though a demon were drawing closer.
They had no more time to waste. Bailey urged everyone to hurry out of the villa through the back door.
The others had no objection. Though they had not shown it, their hearts had been pounding too, for fear that the chef would suddenly appear and go mad and kill them all.
After opening the lock earlier, they had locked it again, afraid someone might discover in the meantime that they wanted to escape.
This time, they opened the door again and hurried out of the villa.
In the dim light, the villa's exterior was more frightening than it had been during the day. Sofina nervously tried to hide behind Saul, only to discover that he had not come out.
The others noticed it too. Song Nan frowned at the Black police officer. "What's wrong? Did you leave something behind?"
Phil also looked back at him and suddenly noticed that a lock that had been on the outside of the door had disappeared.
Annie noticed it too and pointed it out to the others.
"Then doesn't that mean we can't lock this door?" Bailey asked, a little panicked.
The lock on the inside was part of the door and could not be removed, while the separate lock outside that had stopped them last night had been taken away. If they left like this, anyone who discovered their escape would come after them immediately.
The best solution was to lock the door from outside, but they had no tools on hand, and could not even find a wooden bar to block it.
"Saul, you..."
Song Nan looked at Saul with a complicated expression. He had been staring silently at the moon outside the door.
"Go on. As long as someone locks the door again from the inside, no one should discover you've escaped until tomorrow."
Saul spoke calmly. The Black police officer was not among the smartest of them, and he had always seemed eager to stay alive. But why was he suddenly willing to sacrifice himself for them and stay of his own accord in this dangerous villa?
"You have to understand, it's very dangerous to stay in the villa alone. That chef might kill you tonight."
Song Nan tried to persuade him. Of the people in the group, Saul was the only one she felt any fondness for, and she did not want him to lose his life here for their sake.
She instinctively knew that none of them were good people. Even Annie, who seemed timid and weak, was not as innocent as she appeared.
Saul, on the other hand, was an upright police officer. He had wanted to save the mother and daughter back on the ship, but Brussels, Stock and the others had subdued him, and to keep him quiet, they had also forced him to eat the meat.
She, meanwhile, had eaten the lamb of her own accord so she could stay alive and take revenge.
If they were all guilty, Saul should not have been the first to die.
But after hearing her out, Saul only shook his head, showing no intention of changing his mind.
"I know what you're thinking, but I don't actually want to live anymore either. I fought in World War II. You can't imagine how brutal the battlefield was. When we went without food for days, we used enemy corpses as food reserves. So that time on the ship wasn't the first time I ate lamb..."
Saul's words shocked everyone.
They had not expected the Black police officer, who seemed so serious and upright, to have been through such things.
Seeing their expressions, Saul gave a bitter smile. "I thought I could forget those memories after I left the army. The daily routine of work gradually numbed me too. If I hadn't eaten it again on the ship, I would still have thought that guilt had gone away. But it hasn't. It torments me every night, and the slightest slip could let it swallow me whole. I really can't take it anymore..."
Perhaps only a good person like Saul would feel guilty about hurting others.
Everyone present remained silent. Each of them was a selfish scoundrel who would use any means to stay alive. They simply could not understand Saul giving up his life to ease his conscience.
[I'm crying. This officer really is a lotus growing out of a pool of muck.]
[There really is a good person among all these villains. I'm speechless.]
[Is the definition of a good person that loose now? He ate lamb! Does regretting it afterward make it okay?]
[Only by comparison, I suppose. Compared with these people who feel no guilt at all, he counts as a good person, doesn't he?]
Since Saul had made up his mind, the others said no more.
It could not have been better to have someone take care of things for them.
Phil studied Saul with a curious look, as if surprised that someone like him could exist.
The others said goodbye to Saul and left. Only Song Nan remained where she was.
Saul looked at her, wondering what the female captain wanted to say to him.
Song Nan simply took a dagger from inside her clothes. It was the one she had used to kill Stock.
She handed it to Saul and said quietly, "Good luck."
With that, she followed the others away.
Holding the dagger, Saul silently closed the back door.
The view outside grew smaller as the gap in the door closed, and Saul's body was gradually swallowed by darkness.
After locking the door again, Saul stood there for a long time, his thoughts unknown.
Suddenly, he moved, turning toward the stairs.
The candles in the villa had not yet been lit. Dressed all in black, Saul was concealed in the darkness; unless someone looked closely, they would not even notice a person moving about.
Lina was carrying the clothes Xie Qi had changed out of and was about to go downstairs to wash them when someone unexpectedly bumped into her and knocked her over.
"Ow!"
Hearing the girl cry out in pain, Saul froze for a moment and looked down at Lina's indistinct figure.
This maid was one of the few people in the villa who could speak with them normally. Seeing how young she was, Saul could not help reaching out to help her up.
"Wh-what are you? Why are you all black?"
Lina's voice trembled as she shrank away from the black hands reaching toward her.
Hearing her silly question, Saul could not help laughing, even with his nerves stretched taut.
"I'm Saul. I'm Black. Sorry, I scared you by not making a sound just now."
Realizing he was not a ghost or anything of the sort, Lina blushed slightly and let Saul help her to her feet.
"G-guest, why aren't you in the guest room?"
Lina first gathered the clothes that had fallen from her hands, then looked up and asked Saul.
Saul was at a loss. He had meant to seek out the chef secretly, without alerting the other servants, but now that this little maid had seen him, he could no longer do as he had planned.
He had never been quick-witted, and, afraid of alerting the other servants, he said to Lina, "I need to see the chef about something. Could you call him down for me?"
The first-floor hall was spacious and suited him. He had originally planned to launch a sudden attack when he went to knock on the chef's door, catching him off guard, but this would work too.
After the chef came downstairs, Saul would take advantage of the darkness that helped conceal him and try to kill the murderer, preventing him from hunting down the others tomorrow.
That was the last use he could be put to.