Gade gave him a rather wary look. Schiller shook his head and said, "I'm not trying to get any secrets out of you. I just want to know the whole course of events. If I were one of the Pope's men, knowing the entire process wouldn't mean anything to me anyway."
Gade seemed to find his reasoning sound as well. He sighed and said, "I'm not an Oracle at all. I used to be nothing more than an ordinary special affairs investigator."
Schiller listened carefully to his accent, then said, "You're Italian?"
"Yes, I'm a native of Rome. I worked at the Vatican before. At first, I was a guide at the Museum, then I was transferred to the archives, and later I joined the investigation division..."
"What did that department do?"
"Basically, we handled miscellaneous work. If I had to put it another way, we tracked religious developments around the world, including the movements of bishops in certain regions. You could think of it as a combination of public relations and human resources."
"And then?"
"Do you know about that hotel incident from many years ago?"
"I've heard a little about it."
"I was new then, with no connections. The higher-ups wanted to use the incident for publicity, so they sent me over to take some photos and conduct interviews."
"You went into the hotel?"
"I didn't want to go in." Gade let out a long sigh. "But they weren't satisfied with the photos I took or the people I interviewed. They wanted me to get more in-depth information."
"At the time, I'd only heard that the hotel was haunted. I didn't really believe in that sort of thing—I thought it was all rumors. So, one night, while the police were resting, I climbed into the hotel..."
"Then you