Miss Bell wrote the last letter as she finished speaking. The three people on the sofa looked over. The straight line represented the normal timeline, and the curved dotted line represented abnormal time travel.
From 1803 to 1854, there are currently only two "time travel" phenomena surrounding the Cumming family. Among them, James Cumming spanned 51 years, a full half century, while his father spanned
Less than twenty years.
They were all silent for a while.
"Fortunately, Shade discovered that there are only two members of the Cumming family who are cursed by time. If there were one more, I can't imagine how we would analyze this matter."
Miss Winslet sighed softly, and the red-haired girl also nodded:
"And fortunately, the only time tree hole discovered around the Cumming family is that one, otherwise there would be more variables. Anyway, now at least the idea is straightened out. Shade, what is your opinion? Where should we start?"
"From Baron Cumming."
Shade stared at the whiteboard with a very clear idea:
"Baron Cumming's role in the entire timeline seems to be over. He has completed traveling through time, and other major time nodes have nothing to do with him. But it is still unknown whether little Cumming got Erica pregnant.
So although we can easily capture little Cumming directly, it is better to start the investigation from Baron Cumming first."
The two ladies also agreed with Shade's idea. Naturally, the task of chatting with Baron Cumming could not be done by the witch followers. Shade planned to do it himself.
As for whether to sit down and talk to the Baron face to face, or to force the Baron to reveal the secret, it depends on the Baron's cooperation. You can even use magic potions such as "Veritaserum" as a last resort.
To deal with an ordinary person, ring magicians have many methods.
However, things did not go as smoothly as Shade imagined. Not including Miss Charlotte Bell, Miss Winslet currently has only nine followers in Vista City.
These nine girls were divided into four groups to carry out the tasks of monitoring Baron Cumming's mansion, monitoring Bennet's old house, going to the black market to gather information, and staying on standby at the Accordion Hotel, so no one followed Baron Cumming.
This led to the fact that when the witch sent the girl on standby at the hotel to the city to inquire about the Baron's schedule today, she discovered that Baron Cumming seemed to be missing.
When I got the news, it was just before lunch. Shade was chatting with Miss Winslet about the topic of transfiguration. She seemed to want to teach Shade how to do it, while Miss Danister was reading the literature and listening.
.
Miss Bell, who was out on a mission, hurriedly knocked on the door and came in:
"Miss, the Baron is missing."
The witch who had just given Shade an example of "the role of animal hair in transfiguration" frowned:
"What do you mean missing?"
"The Baron met with his local business partners at the club in the morning and left around ten o'clock. We heard from the club's doorman that the Baron got into a taxi at the door of the club.
Then we found the taxi and found out that the carriage dropped the Baron in the northeast of the city, and then the Baron's whereabouts were never found again."
Miss Bell glanced at her pocket watch:
"Almost two hours have passed since Baron Cumming got off the carriage in the morning."
"Where exactly did he get off the bus?"
Miss Denister asked, and Shade swept the documents and information on the coffee table onto the carpet, and then spread the city map on the coffee table.
The young black-haired girl stepped forward to check and pointed her finger at the old city in the northeast:
"The east exit of Lovegood Lane. A total of three of us surveyed the area. I am very sure that the Baron has not left this area. The entrance to the lane is in the old city. There are not many pedestrians on the road. No one saw it today.
If someone like Baron Cumming passes by in a special dress, it means that he has not gone far."
"How did you investigate?"
The witch continued to ask her apprentice, and Miss Bell stood at attention to answer the question, while Daniste asked her apprentice:
"Do you have any idea?"
"Since it is the old town, it means that it used to be part of Ximu Town. We just talked about the past and the present, so where was Lovegood Lane in the past Ximu Town era?"
The red-haired girl bent down and picked up the old map of Ximu Town from the carpet, and briefly compared it with the map on the coffee table:
"That place was called Lovegood Lane in the old days. You have a good idea, Shade, but on this map published in 1810, there is nothing particularly noteworthy about that neighborhood."
"Then let's see for ourselves. I don't believe it's such a coincidence that he is missing now."
Shade stood up, and the eyes of the witch and the red-haired girl met, and the former said:
"Danister stays to guard the cupboards and doors. I'll go with you. Charlotte, you don't need to follow me. You take people to the Morris House where the Cumming family lives, and make sure that James Cumming can
Don’t disappear.”
??????55.??????
"Yes, miss."
So the witch transformed into an owl with spread wings in the gray-white mist, fluttering its wings and landing on Shade's shoulder.
Shade said to Miss Denister:
"Don't forget to have lunch later. We may not be back when, but don't worry even if you don't come back very late."
"You'd better not worry me."
She said, throwing the box containing the [Family Stabilizer] to Shade:
"Looks like I have to eat lunch by myself again today."
Since Shade and Miss Winslet were acting together, there was no need to waste money on taking a carriage. Miss Owl directly grabbed the silver cat and flew into the sky, passing over the city filled with trees and the residents living leisurely lives, all the way to the city.
northeast.
They don't have to worry about being discovered by others. As long as someone doesn't directly witness the owl flying with the cat in hand, ordinary detection and defense rituals are ineffective against this top-notch transformation technique.
There happened to be no one in Lovegood Lane, so Shade and Miss Winslet transformed directly into their human form.
"It really stinks."
She covered her nose, and after thinking about it, she transformed into a gray-black cat and stood on Shade's shoulder. Shade was very used to walking around with a cat on his back, even though this cat was heavier than little Mia,
But it does not affect his actions:
“It’s normal for the alleys in this lower city area to have a stronger smell.”
Lovegood Lane is not a narrow alley that connects two different neighborhoods. The alley is lined with low-rise slum-style apartments. These buildings built a hundred years ago can be classified as "dangerous buildings" at this time. As the city
With the development of the country, this kind of place has been forgotten by the times.
"It seems there aren't many people living here. The real slums in Vista City are in the west of the city. Even the poor don't want to stay in the old city."
The cat on his shoulder said that Shade was not used to the cat he was carrying speaking human language, and he had to resist the urge to touch her:
“Since there aren’t many people—echoes from the past!”
After closing his eyes and listening for a while, Shade shook his head regretfully. Then he squinted and used "Powerful Space Perception", but the surrounding space was normal.
In the morning, Miss Bell had already taken the girls to inquire about nearby shops, so Shade didn't need to ask again. So seeing that Shade had gained nothing, "Miss Cat" coughed:
"Then it depends on me. I thought you were really omnipotent."
The cat's golden eyes shine slightly, she is using the witch's secret technique:
"Don't think that the Great Witch of Death is only good at sending people to death. We also have in-depth research on 'life and death'. Let me see the traces of living people nearby. The traces on your body are too bright!"
It jumped from Shade's shoulder to the side of the wall, and found a cleaner place to stop in disgust:
"You leave this alley first, I'm going to cast a spell to detect traces of living people. If Baron Cumming really entered here less than three hours ago, I should still be able to capture some traces. Give me twenty minutes, this
It’s not something you can do just by looking at it.”
Shade made a no problem gesture to her, put his hands in his pockets and left the alley, thinking that if he walked around, he might gain something else.
The two ends of Lovegood Lane are Banyan Street and Oak Avenue, which is where the town of Brookwood existed. On the 1810 map, even the Sheriff Court of Brookwood was in this neighborhood.
“The old town hasn’t disappeared~”
The stranger sighed in his heart. After arriving on Oak Avenue, he saw a man holding a newspaper across the street glance at him. Shade also stared at him for a few seconds, and then looked away. This was just a stranger.
It's just a look between people.
The man was standing next to an old red mailbox across the street, and behind him was a thrift store that looked particularly bleak. Most of the pedestrians walking on the street were in a hurry, but the man holding his lyre looked happy.
He was very excited, probably because he got some good news, but he disappeared as soon as he turned the corner at the next intersection.
There were only some ordinary scenes at noon in autumn. Standing at the entrance of the alley, Shade took out his pocket watch and took a look. Then he stopped moving and pretended to be impatient to wait for someone. The movements of "Ms. Cat" behind him
It wasn't fast. Shade stood there bored for five or six minutes, unable to help but complain in his heart:
"I thought I could still meet the Ring Warlocks from the [Tree Hole Association]. Did something happen to them? How come they never showed up again after they arrived at Bennet's old house?"
The outsider didn't know that the other party's attempt to spy on him was unsuccessful, so he was so frightened that he huddled in the forest for the time being and hardly took any unnecessary action.
He continued to think about things in this city, and was worried that if he continued to investigate, he would find that all the permanent residents here were actually related to each other for one or two generations.
Fortunately, a few gentle cat calls came from the alley in time. Shade turned and entered the alley. The gray-black cat stood on the wall:
