[size=+1]The blood on his shoes.
The look on both the boy's face and the sailor's.
I think I know what has transpired, even before I've viewed the scene for myself.
Setting the pint down on the counter, I snatch up my briefcase and begin to make for the staircase.
"Forgive me, miss," I call over to the barmaid as she attends to the trembling teenager, "I shall go and see what the commotion upstairs is." With hurried steps I ascend the stairs, trying not to look down at the bloody footprints the boys shoes have left as they sailor led him down not a minute before.
Still wet and crimson red. Freshly spilled.
Instantly, I am quite certain that nothing I find upstairs will be to my liking.
The hallway at the top of the steps is dark and cold, the candles that once illuminated it having been blasted into submission by the howling wind that emanates from Room 4. Bag in hand, I slowly walk down the hall towards the open door. There's blood on the floorboards here as well, even thicker, and a bloody smear down the wall next to the doorway where someone had been sitting not long ago.
As I pass through the door and into Room 4, I suck in a hiss of breath at the scene that greets me. The young investigator stands not far away from me, transfixed or horror-struck by what we look upon, and I find myself wondering if this is the first time she has seen such a sight in her career. Two more of the sailors stand on either side of the bed, one having lit a lamp that's sealed by glass from the wrath of the wind.
It acts an eerie, trembling glow over the body of the dead woman and the gore that spatters the room.
The white sheets are soaked crimson, as is the nightdress she wears. Beside her corpse is the knife used to bring her to such a gruesome end. I have seen more dead bodies in my time than I would care to remember; pieces of men floating in dark red puddles, wide-eyed faces contorted into gasping death masks from the mustard gas they could not escape in time, boys as young as sixteen cut in half by automatic fire. But even beside such terrible sights, this woman died a brutal death.
Sighing and squaring my shoulders to the task ahead, I move past the investigator and over to the bed. I set my bag down on the desk next nearby, careful to avoid as much blood as possible, and remove my suit jacket before rolling up my sleeves. "Would you please inform the owner downstairs of what has transpired?" I say out loud to no-one in particular as I open the bag and retrieved a set of black leather gloves.
This is not what I was anticipating when I set out from London for this desolate place.[/size]
The look on both the boy's face and the sailor's.
I think I know what has transpired, even before I've viewed the scene for myself.
Setting the pint down on the counter, I snatch up my briefcase and begin to make for the staircase.
"Forgive me, miss," I call over to the barmaid as she attends to the trembling teenager, "I shall go and see what the commotion upstairs is." With hurried steps I ascend the stairs, trying not to look down at the bloody footprints the boys shoes have left as they sailor led him down not a minute before.
Still wet and crimson red. Freshly spilled.
Instantly, I am quite certain that nothing I find upstairs will be to my liking.
The hallway at the top of the steps is dark and cold, the candles that once illuminated it having been blasted into submission by the howling wind that emanates from Room 4. Bag in hand, I slowly walk down the hall towards the open door. There's blood on the floorboards here as well, even thicker, and a bloody smear down the wall next to the doorway where someone had been sitting not long ago.
As I pass through the door and into Room 4, I suck in a hiss of breath at the scene that greets me. The young investigator stands not far away from me, transfixed or horror-struck by what we look upon, and I find myself wondering if this is the first time she has seen such a sight in her career. Two more of the sailors stand on either side of the bed, one having lit a lamp that's sealed by glass from the wrath of the wind.
It acts an eerie, trembling glow over the body of the dead woman and the gore that spatters the room.
The white sheets are soaked crimson, as is the nightdress she wears. Beside her corpse is the knife used to bring her to such a gruesome end. I have seen more dead bodies in my time than I would care to remember; pieces of men floating in dark red puddles, wide-eyed faces contorted into gasping death masks from the mustard gas they could not escape in time, boys as young as sixteen cut in half by automatic fire. But even beside such terrible sights, this woman died a brutal death.
Sighing and squaring my shoulders to the task ahead, I move past the investigator and over to the bed. I set my bag down on the desk next nearby, careful to avoid as much blood as possible, and remove my suit jacket before rolling up my sleeves. "Would you please inform the owner downstairs of what has transpired?" I say out loud to no-one in particular as I open the bag and retrieved a set of black leather gloves.
This is not what I was anticipating when I set out from London for this desolate place.[/size]