Darent's abnormal behavior appeared immediately after he saw the traveling troupe. If his guess was correct, the wooden man must have remembered an old friend who was related to the troupe's work... maybe a pretty girl.
"Oh, that was... a long, long time ago." Darent forced an ugly smile. He didn't deny it, but he obviously didn't want to share the story with them.
"Let's go, the road is clear, hurry over... there are quite a few people queuing up."
Without waiting for the other two to say anything, he pinched off a piece of the burning cigarette butt, threw it on the ground and crushed it with his shoe. He then clamped the remaining longer piece of cigarette between his ears, put it in his pocket and crossed the road.
Hitzfeld and Ethan looked at each other again, shook their heads at the same time, and followed silently from behind.
At least Darent was right about one thing: there were indeed a lot of people queuing up.
Ethan's initial thought was to take out his notebook and force his way into the queue, but when he looked around, he saw that most of the people queuing here were teenagers.
They are around 14 or 5 years old. The younger ones are either in a group with older children or accompanied by their parents.
There were nearly fifty or sixty people in the line, and each of them was staring at the store door with great excitement - staring at the poster of the Count pasted on the door frame.
So he thought about it and put the notebook back.
He could indeed do so, but if he did, the news would quickly spread throughout the queue. Those parents who were afraid of trouble would definitely not continue to queue, and the dream-fulfilling time of many children would have to be postponed for another day.
So just queue up normally.
Ethan had very beautiful thoughts and even felt proud of his own nobility.
But he soon regretted it.
Because when he officially stood at the end of the line with Hitzfeld and Darent, they attracted strange gazes from almost half of the street.
A housewife who was obviously with a child was happily chatting and laughing with her child the last second - she was planning to queue up, but she soon found that this serious and rigid man was not going to cross the line - he just stood still at the end.
Her smile disappeared, replaced by a strange suspicion.
She began to look Ethan's head and feet up and down, thought for a while, and took the noisy child away.
This change in atmosphere quickly spread to the entire team.
The children and parents queuing in front began to look back frequently, and some of the brave ones just stared at them without moving.
From time to time, he would cover his mouth and whisper something to his companions, and then burst into laughter together.
Ethan: ...
Darent: ...
Hitzfeld: ...
As for Lily——
Lily huddled in the corner alone, looking very interested in the patterns on the wall.
"Aisun... look at the wonderful place you picked."
"None of my business, how would I know there would be so many people at dinner time!"
"Then dear Mr. Heidegger, can you play a role~"
"Since you strongly request——"
Ethan was just looking for the stairs. He coughed when he heard Darent's words, and finally took off his last bit of mercy. Under the gaze of half the street, he slowly and carefully... took out a black leather notebook.
"police."
He shook the thing a few times at a little fat guy in front of him.
"We have a need to investigate this store."
……
Half a minute later, Ethan walked into the door under the resentful gazes of the shop assistants. Looking at the spacious space that was already somewhat empty with no customers anymore, he raised his eyebrows and breathed a sigh of relief.
"Ethan..."
"What's wrong, Hitzfeld?"
"I'm curious, how did you get to Wayne... I mean, this can't be your first time in a place like this..."
"Well, I usually go at night..."
“Are there fewer people at night?”
"Quite a few, but there will be many similar people if you go there at night..."
"…so you won't stand out if you blend in with them."
"……Is such that."
Darent felt like laughing when he heard this conversation - and he did so, his mouth almost stretched to his ears, and his smile was so bright that it made his boss nervous.
"Several...distinguished guests."
The boss was a bald man with a round figure. He came over, rubbing his hands together, and looked at Ethan cautiously.
"I don't know what you mean by investigation..."
"Oh, that's right."
Hitzfeld got straight to the point: "We received a report that someone tried to poison the animal pen by mixing anesthetic powder with ground sugar..."
"This was most likely done by poachers!" a young female clerk immediately shouted.
"Those thieves! They can't hunt, so they come to prey on the farmers!"
"That's right..." Hitzfeld was stunned for a moment, and continued: "The amount of powdered sugar used is very exaggerated, so we need to find you to understand the situation - in your impression, has anyone bought a large number of candy gift packages recently?"
"No!" The female clerk immediately shook her head.
"No……"
“I haven’t seen it…”
The other shop assistants also shook their heads. No matter how Ethan tried to induce their memories, they insisted that there was no such customer.
"I swear on my mother's name that I have never seen anyone like this."
A male clerk actually raised his hand as he spoke.
"I'm serious, Miss Officer... The people who come here to buy candy are all children, or adults with children. Every request they make is normal. If there is... an outlier like what you described mixed in, we can't help but remember it."
Darent snorted and looked at the girl with some sarcasm.
"Oh, that's normal. It's not unexpected."
Hitzfeld raised his eyebrows slightly.
"I don't know what the police officer means..."
"If someone wants to do something bad in this way, he certainly won't be stupid enough to buy it this way."
“So I’m going to ask it in a different way now.”
"Did you see any familiar faces?"
"It's people who have offered to buy similar gift packages... repeatedly... in a short period of time."
--------
I need to adjust my biological clock and write three chapters in one go.
Chapter 30: Weird Guests 2
People who offer to buy the same type of gift packages multiple times in a short period of time?
The group of people went over her request in their minds and understood what she meant a little.
"Do you have any impression?" Hitzfeld glanced at the faces of the store clerks.
It can be seen that they are not all formal employees.
There were four employees in total, three men and one woman. Only one of them had a thick beard, and although he was not strong, he looked like an adult.
The others - including the female clerk - were too young, not to mention 20 years old, they might not even be 18 years old.
Hitzfeld estimated that these young people were temporary workers. They were only needed when the candy store launched new gift packages and free gifts and welcomed a surge in customer traffic.
So it was useless to ask them about this kind of impression that required long-term work to retain. Her gaze finally stopped on the face of the bearded clerk, switching back and forth between this face and the chubby face of the store manager or boss.
"This is Barless, he's worked here for more than thirteen years." The store manager, Jones, was a smart guy. He knew what she wanted from the look in her eyes and immediately introduced her to him enthusiastically. "I'm not in the store sometimes, so you can just ask him about this kind of thing!"
He may not be unaware of it, but may just be cautious as a businessman and not want to get himself involved.
Hitzfeld didn't see through his thoughts, but just squinted at him for a while, which made him sweat on his back.
"I vaguely remember..." Just then Barless spoke up, "I did encounter a similar situation."
He had been frowning and thinking from the beginning until now, and didn't even notice the change in Hitzfeld's eyes. Even when he spoke now, his eyes were still unfocused, obviously still stuck in his memories and unable to extricate himself.
"It was a long, long time ago, so long that I'm not sure if it was five or six years ago...On a normal night, I was just about to close the store when I saw a man in a dark black coat with a stand-up collar and a big hat walk through the door and start looking through every rack."
When he began to speak, everyone turned their heads and stared at him. Even Lily, who had followed in, sat down and kept looking here.
"I thought he was a guest after all... so I paused and waited for him to finish watching. But his subsequent actions were very strange."
"What a weird way." Darent couldn't help but interrupt, "We are short on time, please hurry up..."
"Shut up, Maps." Hitzfeld glanced at him and soothed Barreth in a gentle voice: "Don't worry about him, think slowly, talk slowly...Try to tell us all the details."
"Okay, miss." Barless looked at her in surprise at first, and then hurriedly thanked her.
Not only him, but also the staff were surprised. Because they originally thought that this strange girl was just an assistant, but she seemed to be their leader? That guy who looked very capable actually needed to listen to her?
Only the store manager, Jones, was not surprised. He had a much better eye for people than they did, and he noticed the difference in Hitzfeld's aura the moment she walked in.
"He... that guy was very slow in picking things up." Barless continued, "I originally planned to wait for him to finish picking things up and buying things before closing the shop, but he was too slow. He picked up every bag and looked at it carefully. I had to walk up to him and ask him what he needed."
"Do you remember what you said?" Hitzfeld asked him.
"Remember, I said, 'Sir, is there anything I can do for you?'"
"you sure."
"Ms. Sure... because I have a deep impression of this scene. It replays in my mind almost every year and every once in a while."
"So you remember everything he said afterwards?"
"I can't say that."
"why?"
"Because he never said a word."
The air in the store froze for a moment, everyone was stunned for a moment, and then their eyes widened in surprise.
"Are you kidding?" Darent raised his right eyebrow. "Did you make a deal with him later?"
"Done."
"He didn't say a word the whole time?"
"No."
"So how did you complete the deal?"
"He..." Barless raised his hand and tried to gesture to them. Finally, he simply picked up a bag of candy from the shelf next to him, turned it over, and showed them the price stamp on the bottom of the bag.
"That's how he showed it to me," he said. "He picked up a bag of candy ... turned it over, pointed to the price stamp and shook his head at me ... so I immediately realized he wanted to get a cheaper deal, so I took him to the discount section and pointed out the cheapest range of candy to him."
"What series did he buy?" Ethan asked him.
"Classic Mystery Series," Barrès replied. "Completely random. All the candies are packaged exactly the same."
"Is it a pack of twenty-four or thirty-six?"
"Thirty-six." Barless looked at him in surprise. "After all, judging from the price...thirty-six is more cost-effective."
"The kind that smells like two cow dung balls hidden inside?"
"Yes...you know a lot about candy!"
"He bought a few packs," Hitzfeld spoke again.
"Two packs."
“Is this a normal amount?”
"Very normal." Barless nodded first, then explained to her: "Generally speaking, they buy 1-2 packs. On ordinary days, it may be 1 pack, and during festivals, it may be 2 packs or more... It usually depends on the situation. Some wealthy families will buy more."
