Ch.293The Ninth Entanglement – A Carol for the Ancient God (3)

The morning was brief. It seemed to pass while the detective shook a snow globe several times, gazing at a miniature Christmas scene he’d never experienced himself, and while Rose Clichy was breaking in her pen.

Rose appeared to be trying to hide in her room. The detective sat in a living room that wasn’t his own. But Rose kept glancing at the living room, and the detective didn’t place much weight on his gaze resting on the snow globe’s landscape.

Perhaps he thought it would become a common sight in the future. Perhaps he thought there was no need to look at it right now. That’s how it was until Paulina knocked on Rose’s door at nearly 11 o’clock.

The ambiguously mixed atmosphere—neither fresh nor dry—seemed to find its place only after a buffer arrived in the middle. Only then did Rose emerge from her room, heading toward the door with her pen tightly gripped.

The door opens. Paulina was still wearing a fairly thick coat over her gray suit. The sound of chain mail lining still clinked whenever she walked, and her coat was longer than the detective’s, reaching to the middle of her thighs.

As Paulina walked in, she lightly tapped the inside of Rose’s door, which had no Christmas decorations. The detective had done the same thing. She grinned.

“I thought Rose would rely on such superstitions. Did nothing really happen?”

“Sometimes you don’t need mistletoe.”

The detective turned his head and grinned. He put down the snow globe and stood up to greet the guest. It was around then that Rose’s ear tips, which had been twitching about twice per second, accelerated to four times per second.

Rose stammered a little. She looked like a sixteen-year-old caught by her parents in a secret rendezvous. She lightly pushed the detective away with her palm but ended up being pushed back herself.

“W-what, what are you talking about?! That, well, I stayed quiet because I thought Mr. Michael would be good at hiding secrets and would just gloss over it…”

“For a detective, relationships with women are experience, not secrets. That’s all. So, it seems we’ve exchanged all our gifts… after giving Rose Clichy hers, let’s get ready to leave.”

Until now, Paulina had always been caught off guard, but this time it seemed it was her turn to catch the detective off guard. Unlike her usual self, she smiled with her lips curled upward beneath her bangs that covered her eyes.

“Don’t dismiss it so easily when there’s something for you too. If a lawyer skimps on gift money, three ghosts will pop up from somewhere.”

“Let them pop up, then tell them to send my regards to old man Scrooge, why not.”

Paulina had brought only one box. The heavy box was for Rose, and the envelope that unexpectedly appeared from her pocket was for the detective. Rose Clichy’s eyes lit up again.

Though her family’s Christmas traditions had already run their course, it seemed a new Christmas was growing, nourished by what had ended. Paulina smiled with a satisfied expression.

“I went to the tailor to recommend a suit for Rose, and another person who wears suits well came to mind. I know all of Rose’s measurements, but I know nothing about Michael, so I just wrote a letter of recommendation. You can go to any tailor shop used by Petrov & Volkov lawyers. They’ll even fit you for a shield.”

The detective chuckled in response to the contents of the envelope, which were quite substantial for just a letter. He tossed out a somewhat ominous story as a Christmas joke.

“So, if there’s news about a lawyer beating someone to death with a shield, you’ll come straight to Husband Detective Agency first?”

“If you couldn’t evade some of our company’s investigators, you wouldn’t have made it this far. That’s all there is to it.”

They didn’t hide their sinister stories from each other, but there was no real malice. The detective wasn’t the type to deliberately leave traces. Hiring him was, as Rose put it, like hiring the north wind to push a boat.

Paulina still had her eyes covered by her hair, but she could see the pen Rose was clutching tightly. It was still brand new, not yet broken in, and it gleamed enough to show it was a gift.

She looked up, glancing between the detective and Rose. It was obvious who had given it. She nudged the detective once, as if to say it was an uncharacteristic gift. The detective didn’t bother to respond.

It was just two people becoming three, but the atmosphere became much more familial. The three left the house around 3 PM at the detective’s suggestion. He proposed they become late guests.

He thought that if attention was going to be drawn anyway, it would be better to create a proper reason for it. Robert Merrick the journalist’s house was quite a large three-story home.

It was too big a house to afford on a journalist’s salary, but the detective’s deductive powers were currently on sabbatical. They had been retired after deducing the contents of Rose Clichy’s snow globe.

The detective tidied his clothes. He straightened his posture a bit more and stood behind Rose Clichy as she knocked, looking more like a former soldier than an active detective.

This too was an act of mimicry. The purpose was different from usual. It was like a child trying on his father’s suit because he wanted to see the inside of a bar. He wanted to sneak in and see an ordinary Christmas in an ordinary family.

I know who’s coming. A voice was heard from inside the door. After the sound of someone rushing out, a neat and somewhat thin man ran out and opened the door for Rose. Instead of offering a handshake, he spread his arms wide.

“Ah, Julia would faint with happiness if she saw this. Welcome to the Merrick family’s happy Christmas. Paulina, it’s been a while, you look healthy, and you are…”

Only then did Robert the journalist look at the detective. The detective deliberately extended his hand with a somewhat clumsy movement, and they shook hands lightly.

“Michael Husband. I believe Rose mentioned there would be three guests.”

“Ah, so you’re our Mr. Someone. Rose doesn’t tell us anything about you. But you certainly look reliable. Though not big in stature, your body is very solid. Reminds me of my twenties!”

He struck a somewhat boastful pose of showing off his strength. He was an informal person. The detective didn’t dislike such people. They might be a bit more uncomfortable to deal with, but they had warmth.

Being cold-blooded and efficient didn’t make someone a good person. Rather, it was quite the opposite. The world belonged to these ridiculous and somewhat frivolous people.

Robert Merrick the journalist must have been quite a respected person. You could tell just by the number of people gathered in his house. The three entered the house leisurely.

And it was clear that Rose Clichy had just as much respect. The “scoop machine of Golden Age Press” was being called by that rather amusing nickname.

The detective had many nicknames, but for Rose, this would probably be her first. The detective burst into laughter a little as he watched Rose shy away from people’s compliments and try to hide behind Paulina.

The air was warm. There was a feeling of being somewhat filled. It seemed like a good place to fill with something ordinary where hatred had drained away and left holes. The dinner they shared in that house was quite nice.

The cooking skills weren’t exceptional, but being intoxicated by the atmosphere made it seem quite good. In a place like this, even a dinner worth less than 50 cents could be eaten like a banquet worth at least 2 dollars.

Nothing else special happened. The detective wasn’t receiving compensation right now. Perhaps he was finding the beginning of the path toward 1924. He might have taken a step or two forward.

The destination was still far away. Walking all day would only bring it one day closer. After dinner, the three left Robert the journalist’s house, saying they had prior engagements.

Bringing two cars meant they would split up. Normally, the detective would head home alone while Rose and Paulina went elsewhere, but today was the opposite.

Rose took the detective’s car and headed to Two Face. Having seen the bustling Christmas scene that Rose usually experienced, it was now time to see the detective’s. His Christmas was usually not bustling.

It was already past 6 PM, but Two Face had not become Bar Two Face. Today, it was just Two Face. It was the legacy of the Dunham family, and a place whose appearance was remembered by only two people in New York now—Michael and Sarah.

There were no customers. While the two were spending the evening at Robert the journalist’s house, the regular customers of Two Face had probably gathered to celebrate Christmas together and left. This time, the detective opened the door and entered.

Sarah could be seen leaning against the bar. And sitting on a stool in front of the bar was a black-haired girl. It was Corinne. After having dinner and comfortably lying down, she sat up when the detective, who was a stranger from her perspective, arrived.

It was an awkward and ambiguous scene. After all, sitting in that seat and straightening one’s back when an outsider entered was something the detective himself used to do. Sarah waved her front paws at the two.

She had already been a wolf for quite some time, but today she looked a bit more affectionate. Perhaps it was because she was wearing a Santa hat sized to fit a wolf’s head.

“You always know how to avoid the busy hours, Mickey. And Rose, welcome! You’ve seen my wolf face many times, so you’re not scared, right? Your regular bartender wants to give you a hug!”

Behind her, her tail with its tail cover swayed affectionately. Somehow it seemed she had been waiting more for Rose than the detective, but the detective didn’t mind much.

He was someone who always visited around this time. For Rose, this was the first year. And Sarah was always someone who dreamed of having a little sister. People who lived lives surrounded by men often had such thoughts.

As Rose ran with small steps behind the bar to hug Sarah and exchange happy Christmas greetings, the detective put a book down on the bar. He pushed it gently.

“The same Christmas gift again this year. Open it and see if I avoided the books already on your shelf this year. How many times have we overlapped?”

Sarah lifted her front paw and carefully tore off just the wrapping paper with the tip of her hook-like claws. She was quite accustomed to her werewolf body. After seeing the book inside and taking a long sniff of the book smell, she said:

“Ah, the smell of a bookstore… How many times have we overlapped? Maybe… twice or not at all? That year there weren’t many good books published. Here, Mickey. Your share.”

With those words, a glass slid across the bar. It was an ordinary cylindrical glass. As always, a transparent, strong drink was poured into it, and familiarly, a few drops of hot sauce fell and spread.

The gift was probably waiting in the back room of Two Face. This was their natural way for the detective. Sarah always enjoyed giving surprise gifts.

The bartender seemed to have come a little closer to the image of the cool bartender she always talked about being. Smiling, she poured a Silver Bullet for Rose and a light drink for Corinne as well.

Corinne didn’t like alcohol, but today she decided to drink. In short, she decided to drink because she no longer needed to send fifteen or twenty dollars out of her twenty-five dollar weekly wage to her family.

She decided to drink to celebrate parting ways with a family that would call her a bitch if she tried to keep her share of the money she earned. Corinne, who received her glass last, raised it first.

She wasn’t someone who knew the backstory well. She only knew simply that the detective used to live here, she was grateful to Sarah, and… she only knew Rose as a regular customer.

But perhaps because she had so little prior knowledge, she could say just the right words for the moment. Corinne, holding the slightly minty-scented drink, said:

“Let’s have a drink to new beginnings! It’s thanks to the boss and the detective. Well, Rose has spent quite a bit of money as a regular too, so you’ve played your part!”

The detective recalled cleaning the room on the second floor of Two Face with Sarah. Rose remembered when the detective had held her shoulder as she faced the end of her childhood.

Sarah remembered that Michael had decided not to lie this year, and Corinne, who knew nothing, thought about what she could do with her weekly wage of 25 dollars. They were all different kinds of new beginnings.

After a couple of drinks each, everyone except the detective began to feel pleasantly tipsy. The detective was still sober enough to taste the alcohol in his drink. Double vitality was with him today as well.

Nothing had been resolved. It was just that, being the end of the year, they could talk about nice-sounding things like new beginnings. The detective decided not to worry about it. Either way, peace of mind was what mattered.

Rose, who had downed her second Silver Bullet, spoke to Sarah. At least this time she didn’t pour out drunken confessions. It was just casual, comfortable talk.

“Oh, Sarah! You said before that Michael used to live on the second floor of Two Face, right? I want to see if there are still traces of little Mickey!”

There would certainly be traces. The detective was skilled at erasing traces, but it was impossible to completely erase ten years of living in just three hours. Sarah nodded willingly.

“If that’s what you want, you should have come before we cleaned the room! Before that, it was preserved well enough to be used as a museum. Corinne, do you want to come see too? We’re going to dig up the roots of Detective Sir, who can make an awesome entrance, say awesome things, and beat people up awesomely! Mickey is quite similar to you. Hey? Mickey, you’re coming too, right?”

The detective shook his head. Uncharacteristically, he yawned once. Perhaps he had used too much energy sneaking naturally into the home of the journalist’s senior colleague. Mimicry is tiring work.

“I’ll pass. I’m sleepy. I’ll check the gift in the back room and… need to get some sleep. See you tomorrow morning. Probably at dawn.”

He would only be able to sleep for four hours today anyway. If he woke up around midnight, Sarah would still be awake, and they could talk or do whatever then, thought the detective as he slowly got up.

He staggered into the back room of Bar Two Face. It probably wasn’t because of the alcohol. Sleepiness was washing over him. It was unlike him. Sleep was always like passing out.

Inside the gift wrapping placed on the desk in the back room was a clock. It was an alarm clock. It was something that had been essential in the old days when he used to oversleep, but now it was just an object that held memories, like a music box.

I thought I’d put all the old stories to rest. The detective chuckled, then threw himself onto the hard bed, recalling old feelings. It was quite uncomfortable. Perhaps a softer mattress would have been better.

The night of carols to the old god ended like that. The detective fell asleep at 8:47 PM and woke up at 2:51 AM the next morning. By then, Sarah had already fallen asleep.