With this lead, Li Wei quickly settled on a direction for his investigation.
Choosing a direction was one of the trickiest parts of investigating a case. Without one, no matter how many clues you gathered, you would be grasping at reflections in the water. Chief Macmillan was a perfect example. He had always believed Luddist terrorists might be responsible, so that was where he kept directing his efforts.
The problem was that all those efforts had yielded nothing.
There were few traces left at the scene, and scarcely any clues. As things stood, Li Wei felt that starting with Miss Ovelia's great-grandfather would be a promising line of inquiry.
So Li Wei spent the entire night in the library.
After working through the history of the entire Baskerville Family, he did indeed discover a few peculiar things.
First, the heads of the Baskerville Family had been women for generation after generation. Even when twins were born, the woman became the family head. As for the man... he could go do whatever he pleased.
Second, the Baskerville Family's offspring always included a girl.
Either a girl was born on her own, or there were twins.
This "tradition" had lasted a thousand years, only ending with Old Sir Baskerville—his wife had given birth only to Young Sir Baskerville, Miss Ovelia's grandfather. Young Sir Baskerville's wife, in turn, had given birth only to the third Sir Baskerville—Miss Ovelia's father.
Only in this generation had another girl been born-Miss Ovelia herself.
Of course, from a statistical perspective, such things were always possible.
But as a detective who had read countless mystery and suspense novels, Li Wei felt these odds were far too abnormal.
Especially with so many coincidences involved.
Old Sir Baskerville had broken Baskerville House's rule that only women could inherit leadership of