Stepping from the sunlit alley into the sewer morgue, thick with the stench of preservatives and even stranger odors, felt like crossing from one world into another.
Mr. Ptolemy Albert was still wearing the brown smock Shade recognized. He was busy dissecting a corpse suspected of having choked on its own vomit, so he spoke with the two of them while working.
Naturally, all three wore masks, and curtains had been drawn around the autopsy table. Mr. Albert was inside the curtains, while Shade and Mr. Bernhardt could only see his busy silhouette from outside.
"The Unnamed Female Corpse case has been solved, and the murderer was killed by you two, so I won't say much about that. As for the Headless Serial Murder Case, it has now been classified as a supernatural incident. Those headless bodies will no longer be sent to morgues like ours in the Lower District, and the investigation can be considered concluded."
Shade and Mr. Bernhardt both saw him remove a large mass from the corpse's abdomen and place it onto a tray beside him. Even though they could see only its shadow through the curtain, both instinctively held their breath.
"Recently, though, some interesting things have happened again. You know what the Lower District is like. More specifically, over the past week, I have consecutively dissected two corpses that died of heart attacks."
"That doesn't sound too outrageous."
Mr. Bernhardt said in a muffled voice.
"Yes, but after a careful examination, I found that both male corpses had been fairly healthy while alive. Mystical testing made it even more interesting: neither had hereditary heart disease. It is summer now, and even if the temperature is lower than in previous years, the odds of sudden heart attacks should not be this high."
As he spoke,