Lord of Mysteries:The Good Witch

The chairman's office door was locked, which was expected by Angel. Klein's divination had clearly indicated that the ring was being safely kept. If the door had been wide open with the ring sitting on the table for anyone to take, she would have suspected it to be a trap.

She pulled out a set of simple lockpicking tools from her pocket. These were essential items for Cole Granger's activities in Tingen's underworld, used for burglary and murder. Due to their compact size, she always carried them, though this was the first time she had used them.

The door locks of this era were not as complex as those from her previous life. Angel, with her inherited experience, manipulated the lock with a wire from her toolkit. Her other hand applied torque with a tension wrench. Soon, all the pins aligned, and with a gentle turn, the lock opened.

The chairman's office was twice the size of other rooms, evident from the distance between its door and those of other rooms. She entered, carefully closed the door, and locked it from the inside. Now, unless someone had a key, no one could disturb her search.

The office's curtains were drawn tight. With the door closed, only slivers of sunlight penetrated the room's edges. However, her dark vision allowed her to see all the furnishings clearly, so she didn't need to light the gas lamp. The light leaking through the door cracks would have aroused suspicion.

A wooden desk stood in the center of the office, with a matching chair tucked into its recess. The desk's edge was covered in leather, secured by decorative rivets. A small bookshelf occupied a third of the desktop, but it held only a few newspapers, suggesting the desk's owner had no intention of appearing scholarly.

Behind the desk were curtained windows. Given the office's location, the windows likely overlooked the warehouse's main entrance. The commotion from below was now clearly audible through the wall, with uncensored profanities replacing earlier demands and persuasions, indicating an escalation of the previous conflict.

A single armchair sat by the window, next to a low coffee table with a small coffee pot and a few upturned cups arranged haphazardly. A black top hat hung on the coat rack beside the armchair, covered in a layer of dust.

Apart from these, the office contained no other furniture. Even the usual file cabinets were absent. Only two oil paintings on the walls added a touch of color to the room. The space resembled more of a private lounge for the guild chairman than an office, containing only what he needed, without even a second chair for visitors.

Angel moved to the other side of the desk and flipped through the newspapers on the bookshelf. They were all copies of the "Tingen Daily," with the most recent dated a week ago. The front page reported the death of Magwen's second son, a Constant City banker, in a home invasion in Tingen.

She ran her finger across the desktop and rubbed her fingertips, feeling a thin layer of dust. It seemed the chairman had been gone for at least several days, and without a key, no one could enter to clean.

Angel moved the chair aside and examined the desk's underside. There were three drawers on each side. She opened and checked each one, finding only half a pack of cigarettes, about 1 pound in coins, and a stack of documents meaningless to her.

Surveying the room, she realized the desk was the only place that could hide something. This differed from her expectations; she had worried about too many rooms and complex furnishings making it difficult to find the ring. Instead, the overly simple room proved more challenging.

She now missed Klein, the "diviner." If he were here, a simple divining rod could solve the problem. Unfortunately, she had left him outside, and he was now likely wandering the streets.

Angel even pulled out all the drawers to check for false bottoms but found nothing. Finally, she turned her attention to the wall paintings. If this yielded no results, she would have to retreat for the day.

Both paintings were colorful oil works with a bold style, unlikely to be from famous artists. They were probably cheap decorative pieces, reflecting the room owner's conflicting desire for decoration despite a dislike for art.

The paintings were framed in wood, with one frame even showing some paint chipping. Hmm, chipping paint?

Angel approached this painting, touching the damaged part of the frame in the lower right corner. She gently pushed it to the left, and as expected, the painting swung open on its upper right corner hinge, revealing the wall behind and a small recess.

Indeed, this was a hidden "safe." The paint had worn off where the room's owner frequently touched the frame to access it.

Holding the painting with one hand, Angel peered into the recess. It was divided into two levels by a shelf. The upper level contained several rings, a diamond necklace, and a stack of gold pounds, all in small denominations and old bills. The lower level held a leather-bound notebook.

All easily portable items... Small denomination old bills for easy use, jewelry that could be sold or used for bribes if necessary. It seemed this small safe contained someone's "escape funds."

Angel tucked the notebook under her arm and grabbed the jewelry with her free hand. After a moment's thought, she took the stack of bills as well.

Replacing the painting, she sat at the desk and spread out the jewelry for inspection. The ring Mrs. Green needed was indeed among them, matching the description: a golden surface, though clearly not pure gold, with one side flattened into an oval shape bearing the raised cursive inscription "Green," surrounded by stripes and symbols for authenticity verification.

The other two rings were ordinary gold rings set with gemstones, likely worth about twenty pounds each on the market. The diamond necklace could probably sell for thirty pounds. Adding the stack of old bills, this small safe contained over a hundred pounds in funds, and without even a lock. The chairman was either very bold or...

Perhaps he kept it this way for easy escape, using only the painting to conceal the safe for quick access, rather than protecting his assets with a complex combination lock?

Angel pocketed all these valuables without hesitation. As far as she knew, while the Labor Mutual Aid Society rarely took lives, they were no strangers to theft. The appearance of Mrs. Green's stolen ring here was proof enough that these money and goods were ill-gotten.

Muffled shouts and cries of pain came from the window behind her. The confrontation outside had predictably turned violent. She quickly opened the notebook from the safe, intending to skim through it before leaving.

The leather cover showed wear at the corners, but less than a quarter of the pages were used. It seemed the notebook had been in use for years, with its owner recording only important matters.

Angel rapidly scanned the pages. Most of the content detailed the Labor Mutual Aid Society's "grey businesses," including protection fees from industries under their "protection" in the South District adjacent to the dock area, destinations of smuggled goods, and other crucial information about the mutual aid society's illicit operations.

However, Angel had little interest in this. She was here only to retrieve Mrs. Green's ring, not to uncover evidence of gang crimes. Besides, did the Tingen City police really not know about these grey industries? There was no need for her to meddle unnecessarily.

Turning to the last few pages of recorded content, she found entries different from the rest.

"That guy contacted me again, this time not just with enticements, but threats! I, Jick, have clawed my way up from the bottom. How could I fear threats from these shadowy figures?"

"An agreement was reached today. The mutual aid society only needs to arrange ships and workers, without interfering in anything else. Hmph, the police can't touch us here anyway, so why not profit from this?"

"What do they mean some died on the way and they used my shipworkers to make up the numbers? Only two-thirds of a ship's crew returned. How am I supposed to explain this to my men? Do these guys think they can disregard me now?"

"After deducting hush money for the families, we can clear 20 pounds per worker! With the high population turnover in the dock area, who would notice a few missing people anyway?"

"Going to Enmat Port next week. If things can be arranged well there, we can make a big move in Stone City too!"

Interspersed among these entries were departure and arrival times for ships, mostly departing from Lemon City in the Intesea County, traveling along the Tussock River through Tingen City, and finally reaching Pritz Port.

This guy really dares to write everything down?

Angel was covered in cold sweat by the time she finished reading. If her understanding was correct, this Jick must be the chairman of the Labor Mutual Aid Society, and connecting the dots from the text, he was involved in human trafficking!

Although the Northern Continent had abolished the slave trade, it was said that many factories and plantations were still secretly using slaves for heavy labor. Where there's demand, there's supply. In the dark corners beyond the reach of sunlight, this kind of human trade had become even more profitable due to its illegality.

From the records, it seemed Chairman Jick was initially coerced and enticed onto this criminal path, possibly unaware of the exact nature of the business. However, he was quickly drawn in by the high profits and voluntarily expanded the operation.

This was far beyond petty crimes like collecting protection money or fencing stolen goods. Angel believed that if this notebook were handed over to the Tingen City police, the Labor Mutual Aid Society in the dock area would surely be destroyed in one fell swoop.

This couldn't go unreported...

She closed the notebook and turned back to lift a corner of the curtain, looking down. The once-bustling warehouse entrance was now nearly empty.

Most of the workers had left the scene. The makeshift platform of wooden crates had been overturned. Several part-time security guards looked battered and disheveled, apparently having taken quite a beating. However, judging by the expression of the middle-aged man they were protecting, the conflict seemed to have ended with the workers' concession, or at least a postponement of the dispute.

It was time for her to leave. Once the "performance" downstairs ended and the second-floor staff returned to their offices, it would become much more difficult to slip away unnoticed.

Dropping the curtain, Angel surveyed the room one last time, checking for anything she might have missed. Then she scattered the newspapers from the desk onto the floor, pulled open the drawers, and took all the loose change, staging the scene to look as if the office had been ransacked by a thief.

This way, even if that Jick character returned, his first thought would be that his office had been burglarized in his absence. At most, he might suspect someone had come for the notebook. He would never imagine that the intruder was only after Mrs. Green's ring. This greatly reduced the chances of exposing herself, or rather, Black Thorn Security.

Having done all this, Angel took the notebook and quickly approached the office door. She first held her breath and listened for any movement or breathing outside. Hearing nothing, she gently unlocked the door and turned the handle to open it.

As light from outside flooded in, her spiritual intuition flared. A sense of crisis washed over her like ice water, stopping her foot mid-step.

A dagger flashed through the light, thrusting directly at her face.