"Based on the ownership of those books, we can roughly determine how long the person hiding here had been in this secret room. I forgot to ask Professor Tomlinson earlier whether the names on those books belonged to first-year students."
"We can ask him when he gets back. It should be soon." "After all, it's Lily's speed. We can trust it."
"It's only late October, not even two months since the school term began. If they started studying on their own this term, then they finished an entire year's curriculum in two months—all through self-study... Perhaps they're a promising talent."
"A promising talent? Have you considered that they might be the murderer we're looking for?"
"The place where Charles triggered the trial was the hiding place of the murderer we failed to find before. If that's really the case, isn't it too much of a coincidence?"
"There's no story without coincidence."
"Perhaps it wasn't a coincidence."
Dark suddenly added, and everyone looked at one another. Then, all at once, they fell silent and began pondering on their own.
Not long afterward, Professor Palmer Tomlinson was dragged out from beneath the floor by Professor Lily.
"Whe—"
Professor Lily came to an abrupt stop, but Professor Palmer Tomlinson's scream took quite a while to end.
"How was it?" Professor Kazel asked.
Professor Lily snatched a list from Professor Palmer Tomlinson's hand and said, "They were stolen. Quite a lot of them, too."
Professor Kazel took the list and gave it a quick glance. His brows immediately furrowed as he said, "Quite a lot really were stolen. You didn't notice before?"
Professor Palmer Tomlinson clutched his chest and took several deep breaths. It took him a long while to recover before he said, "I focus on theory. I don't conduct experiments often."
In