Mrs. Reinhart recalled those old events:
"Mrs. Otto was a truly good person. Nearly everyone here had been helped by her."
Shade had already told Miss Larson what he had heard earlier, so she had formed some guesses of her own:
"If Mrs. Otto's husband disappeared in the mountains, didn't she try to find him afterward?"
"Of course she did. My father mentioned it too, though I hadn't been born when it happened. Many people from the town went up the mountain to search for him, but unfortunately, they never found him. People go missing on the Holy Mountain every year, and most of their bodies are never found."
The woman born at the foot of the Snow Mountain quietly offered a prayer for them:
"So the knocking sound I heard... was actually that missing man returning?"
Shade nodded, thinking of something else from Friday:
"That's very possible. You may not know this, but on Friday afternoon, a large number of Ice Sculptures were thawed in the Snow Mountain. Most of them were dead. I suspect that one of them had an obsession that lingered for a long time, and only after his frozen body was completely destroyed could he finally find his way home from the mountains."
Mrs. Reinhart even seemed somewhat saddened:
"If that's the case, I truly feel sorry for Mrs. Otto. Oh, while I don't know how you plan to handle this, I do know Mrs. Otto's current address. If you want to find her, you can look in the City of Time Wheels."
It was already past ten in the morning. Seeing Shade and Miss Larson rise to take their leave and continue their investigation, Claire's Mother tried to keep them for lunch, but Shade politely declined:
"Perhaps we'll be heading into the city shortly.