Number 31, Tour Street, Rose District.
After asking no fewer than five people for directions, and enduring seven tram transfers and one bus ride, they finally reached their destination.
Ghervil suspected Esli’s inherent bad luck was at play.
What should have been an hour-long journey stretched to over two, plagued by narrowly missed connections and misleading directions.
Somewhere along the way, the bouquets the lady knight had purchased were left behind on a tram.
She also had to keep a close eye on Esli, lest the younger knight wander off inadvertently.
Furthermore, Ghervil found herself constantly needing to silence Govet-Ghervil’s endless complaints about their companion, chastising her for choosing to travel with Esli in the first place.
The optimal solution would have been to simply inform everyone of the destination and reconvene at a pre-arranged time.
Ghervil felt a pang of regret for not heeding that advice.
Those two hours felt as draining as an entire day’s labor.
Finding a relatively clean spot, Ghervil settled onto Esli’s large trunk to rest, her gaze sweeping over the streetscape of the old district.
Indeed, the Rose District constituted the city’s venerable old town.
The streets appeared somewhat narrow and dilapidated, with aged gas lamps lining either side, their long neglect evident in several gaping holes.
While the pavement was tidy enough, it couldn’t be called truly clean; one could discern the faint trails of a broom, yet no thorough cleansing had occurred, leaving stubborn, greenish-black, grease-like stains smeared across the ground.
These unsightly marks brought to mind the horse manure that often littered Canary Street.
What was mildly unsettling was the pervasive scent of mildew in the air.
This was likely due to the recent rainy season, coupled with the narrow streets that rarely saw sunlight.
Fortune smiled upon them; shortly after Esli knocked, footsteps echoed from within, descending the stairs.
For a man so busy—an agent who also took on private cases, a detective, one might say—it was astonishing to find him home at this hour.
Had the door remained unanswered, Ghervil had already resigned herself to finding a hotel.
“Oh, look who it is.”
The door swung open to reveal a blond-haired man in a finely tailored wool cardigan, his expression one of surprise.
He appeared to have just woken, his hair a disheveled mess.
“Hello, Mr. Ramsey,” Esli began, extending a gloved hand, “I am a knight of the Plague Knights, Ishmele-Esli.”
“Greetings, ladies.”
His gaze sweeping over the two women and the rat, Ramsey shook her hand.
“I trust you’ve already heard of me from Sister Ghervil, so I won’t belabor the introduction. I am Valo-Ramsey, a Grade Four agent, and a rather well-known private detective in these parts, currently on leave.”
“Since when have you been on leave?” Ghervil questioned, a frown creasing her brow.
“Thanks to your efforts, after the troubles in Mistfall City were thoroughly resolved, I was granted forty days of paid leave by my superiors.”
“Why wasn’t Helm given leave? I was just at his office looking for him on Thursday.”
“Did he explicitly tell you he wasn’t?”
After a brief moment of stunned silence, Ghervil understood.
‘Alright, alright, so everyone was just waiting for me to walk right into it!’
The Order had unilaterally assigned a knight to accompany her, while the Epidemic Prevention Bureau covertly pulled strings behind the scenes.
It was clear that a commission worth over three hundred Trin Gold Coins wouldn’t be so straightforward after all.
Merely discussing Blood Rose knowledge, answering a few questions, and attending an exhibition seemed far too easy.
She had always firmly believed that there was no such thing as a free lunch.
“Haha, don’t misunderstand,” Ramsey quickly interjected, noticing the shift in the young woman’s expression, “it truly is a coincidence. My superiors never informed me you’d be coming, otherwise, I wouldn’t have let such important friends waste two or three hours, missing trains and taking wrong turns, only to finally arrive here.”
“That’s simply astounding! How did you know all that!” Esli suddenly cut in, her voice brimming with excitement.
“It merely requires a few small tricks and precise temporal calculations, Knight Esli.”
Ramsey produced a pocket watch, flipping open its cover before tossing it lightly and catching it by its chain.
“Just Esli is fine!”
“Very well, Lady Esli.”
‘It’s nothing more than calculating the train’s arrival time and understanding the public transport routes to make such a deduction.’
Ghervil, having no interest whatsoever in listening to his bluster, had been about to tell him to cut the nonsense.
Before the words could leave her lips, she felt the rat on her shoulder gently tug at her hair, prompting her to exercise patience and refrain from interrupting.
“The Blue Rose train was scheduled to arrive around three-oh-five, and the journey here typically takes an hour. It is now almost half past five.”
With no one offering an opinion, Ramsey continued to expound, idly playing with his pocket watch.
“That’s true,” Esli conceded, “but how did you deduce that we missed our connection?”
“Buses to the old district are infrequent, only available from the nearest station, with departures roughly every forty minutes. Arriving at this hour, you could only have missed one, and only one, service.”
“While you’re not wrong,” Esli mused, lowering her head, “a forty-minute interval means even missing two services would still have gotten us here in time. Even taking a carriage would have resulted in a similar arrival time.”
“Because the next bus is meant for the steel and coal factory workers finishing their shifts, he surmised that two ladies such as yourselves would surely not brave a public bus reeking of oil, smoke, and sweat. As for carriages, those tend to only operate within the confines of the old district.”
Ghervil stated, her tone dismissive.
The old district’s defining characteristic was its dense cluster of factories, resulting in notably poor air quality.
This arrangement fully exploited the cheap labor available in the old district.
Moreover, it kept the pollution safely away from the city’s central residents.
“Good heavens, were you a detective before?” Esli exclaimed, looking at Ghervil in astonishment.
“I happen to be in need of an assistant,” Ramsey said, his tone ambiguous—it was impossible to tell if he was serious or simply humoring Esli, “no… that’s too presumptuous. It would be more fitting for me to be your assistant.”
Ghervil turned her head, disinclined to engage with either of them.
“And how did you guess we took a wrong turn?” Esli’s curiosity remained unsated.
“Missing only one bus, carrying luggage, and observing Sister Ghervil’s weary and vexed demeanor, it was clear you weren’t out for leisure. That’s one factor. The most crucial reason, however, is that ‘Tour Street’ sounds remarkably similar to another street name, leading to frequent confusion. Hence, my conjecture.”
“Of course, other possibilities exist; I merely happened to be lucky enough to guess correctly.”
“That’s truly impressive, far more so than many people I’ve met.”
‘That’s only because you haven’t met many people, isn’t it?’
Ghervil increasingly felt that Esli was no true knight, but rather a sheltered young girl, whose actual fieldwork likely comprised a minuscule fraction of her entire knightly career.
‘What exactly was The Order’s purpose in sending her? Was it to complicate her own tasks and increase the difficulty of her commission? Or simply to let Esli tag along and see the world?’
“No, no, no,” Ramsey demurred, “my meager abilities are nothing compared to a knight of the order.”
“Yet you are still a Grade Four agent of the Epidemic Prevention Bureau,” Esli countered.
“You know I’m utterly exhausted and annoyed, yet you’ve kept me standing here for ages!” Ghervil burst out, unable to tolerate their mutual flattery any longer.
“My apologies, my apologies,” Ramsey said, tucking away his pocket watch. “It’s simply that I haven’t had friends visit in so long, I became a little carried away with excitement.”
Ramsey put away his pocket watch, then stepped forward, readily taking the luggage from their hands.
“I’ve prepared some black tea for the three of you. If that’s not to your liking, there are also some sweets available.”