After the assistant left, Hollis carefully initiated small talk with Pearce. Hollis tried to ask him indirectly
about what happened.
However, Pearce did not answer his inquisitions. He merely drank his tea in silence. Hollis felt quite
embarrassed with how
Pearce was treating him. However, he finally figured out that Pierce did not want to talk about it at that
time. At last, he chose to
stop asking Pierce and silently wait with him.
In any case, they had been waiting for more than an hour and still, the coroner was nowhere in sight.
With a cold sweat on his
forehead, Hollis strode to the door and asked the guard outside, "Where is my assistant?"
"He went out to look for the coroner in person," replied the guard.
"Didn't the coroner come to the government office today?" Hollis then asked.
"He's on leave today so he didn't come to work. The assistant went to his home to fetch him there. I
think it wouldn't be long now.
My Lord, may I ask what happened? Why did Marquis Pearce bring so many people here? It seems
like..."
But he immediately stopped when he remembered that people could insult the mayor of River City or
disrespect the assistant,
but the only thing they couldn't do was say anything that was remotely unpleasant about Pearce and
his family. Otherwise, any
person who would dare do so would certainly encounter some unexpected troubles.
"Stop talking and go after the assistant! Marquis Pearce has been waiting for a long time," Hollis
exclaimed in a stern tone. Then
he turned around and set foot in the hall again. He then explained to Pearce why the coroner had not
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtcome yet after such a long
time.
Upon hearing his explanation, Pearce did not become upset. He merely said, "It doesn't matter. I can
just wait."
"Thank you for your kind understanding," Hollis said while he secretly wiped the sweat from his
forehead. With that, they
continued to wait in silence once again.
All of a sudden, the assistant ran in a hurry. "My Lord, bad news."
"Stop talking nonsense! Don't panic like this!" Hollis rigidly scolded. Then he suddenly felt that he had
inappropriately behaved in front of Pearce. He glanced at the latter in secret. When he saw that Pearce
didn't show any response, he let out a sigh of relief and asked, "Where is the person I asked you to
bring here?" Looking at Hollis with horror in his face, the assistant said, "My Lord, he killed himself!"
"What?" Hollis blurted out in surprise. He almost jumped because it was too surprising. "What did you
just say? He killed himself? Why?" "I don't know. I took some guards to find him in his house. But when
we got there, no one answered even after we had knocked and called to him repeatedly. According to
the neighbors, he had not left his house for a long time. So I thought maybe the weather was just cold
so he was still sleeping. We knocked on his door harder, but still, no one answered. At that point, I had
no other choice. I turned to the window on the left side and tried to stab it so that we could break into
his house. But when I was finally inside, I found his body hanging from the ceiling. A rope was tightly
wrapped around his neck. I tried to save him but he was already unconscious by that time." Even
though Hollis was really stupid, he immediately understood the situation. He turned to Pearce and said,
"My Lord, it seems like the person you're looking for had committed suicide." "Committed suicide? Did
you bring his corpse with you?" Pearce asked while he turned to look at the assistant.
"Yes, My Lord. His dead body has been brought back here. I've asked the guards to put it outside for
now," the assistant
responded.
Pearce looked at the person around him. Hollis realized that it was another known coroner in the city.
Not a lot of people wanted
to work as coroners, so there were only three of them in River City.
Pearce didn't need to ask. The coroner followed the assistant and walked outside to check on the
corpse. Hollis felt his right
eyelid twitch when he saw the dead body. He thought that he could stay safe and avoid trouble as long
as he stayed inside the
government office. However, there was no way he could avoid it.
After examining the corpse, the coroner looked at Pearce and showed him a mark on the dead body's
neck. "My Lord, this man didn't commit suicide. As you can see, there are two types of marks on his
neck, one stretching up until his left ear and the other around his neck. The killer strangled him first and
then hung him on the ceiling to make it look like he committed suicide." "What? Are you saying that he
was murdered?" Hollis asked in surprise. He and the assistant exchanged looks with great shock on
both of their faces. Who would kill a coroner and what would have been their reason? The coroner was
only earning a few taels of silver a month. He was also of low status so he didn't have a lot of influence.
Why would anyone want to kill him? They
couldn't understand even way beyond their imaginations.
"Hollis," Pearce plainly called out.
"Yes, I'm here," Hollis responded at once.
"I brought another coroner to examine my son's corpse. We have reason to suspect that my son didn't
die out of falling on the
ground and breaking his head." The moment Pierce explained why he was there, Hollis couldn't help
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmbut tremble for a second
with fear. He suddenly understood why the coroner had been killed. It was because he had falsified an
examination record of a
corpse and Pearce found out about it. The person who asked the coroner to do this was afraid of being
discovered, so he killed
the coroner to tie up loose ends.
With the degree of the situation, Hollis' knees became weak, causing him to kneel down on the floor.
"Please, this has nothing to
do with me. I didn't know whether the corpse's test is fake or not. It's the dead coroner who made the
report. The judge
pronounced a guilty sentence for Alexander because of that. I did not collude with others or deliberately
misinterpreted anything.
If someone really fabricated the report, I was deceived as well. I have no idea about the whole thing at
all."
Pearce stared down at Hollis before asking, "Then how are you going to deal with it?"
"I will follow your orders," Hollis obediently said. As far as he was concerned, he was not to blame. At
this moment, he thought
following Pearce's orders was the best way to deal with the matter.
"Give Hollis the record of the corpse's inspection," Pearce commanded right away.
"Yes, My Lord!"
Hollis reviewed the report carefully word by word. At last, there was so much cold sweat on his
forehead after he finished reading
the report. He found out that Alexander was indeed innocent. Since Pearce came in here with so many
of his guards, Hollis didn't
know what Pearce would want him to deal with the case. If he were going to be hanged for a sheep, he
should have just been
hanged for a lamb.