When a place was rumored to be haunted, a patch of wasteland that even locals who eagerly built extra rooms to rent out dared not approach, someone had nevertheless dumped a corpse there without a care.
If only one person had done it, that could have meant he was bold and meticulous enough to find a blind spot.
But if two people had done it, boldness and meticulousness could no longer explain it.
Especially since Fornak had shown familiarity with that wasteland before burning the corpse-could someone who had never been there find such a concealed spot for temporarily stashing a body on his first try, relying only on hearsay?
Impossible!
Arthur had examined the place himself. Unless someone had scouted it beforehand, the ruined wall hidden amid the weeds would have been difficult to find.
And there had been no extra traces at the scene.
Nor had Fornak had time to scout it beforehand-
It was only after seeing the news of Hite, the owner of the Hite Furniture Store, being arrested in the next day's newspaper that he had decided to kill his former partner.
By then, that partner had already begun posing as Frank and was already in full view of numerous people. He could let "Frank" leave briefly, but could not let him disappear from everyone's sight for long-so killing him and hiding the body had been the first step, returning to continue posing as "Frank" the second, and transporting the body the third.
The only possible place to hide the body had been the Handcraft Carving Workshop.
Arthur had already confirmed this from the dried blood in Fornak's washroom.
And the body must have been transported late last night.
Why had "Frank" treated a whole crowd to drinks last night?
He had used "striking it