Forensic Imperial Concubine novel Chapter 535

After the assistant left, Hollis carefully initiated small talk with Pearce. Hollis tried to ask him indirectly about what happened. However, Pearce did not answer his inquisitions. He merely drank his tea in silence. Hollis felt quite embarrassed with how Pearce was treating him. However, he finally figured out that Pierce did not want to talk about it at that time. At last, he chose to stop asking Pierce and silently wait with him.

In any case, they had been waiting for more than an hour and still, the coroner was nowhere in sight. With a cold sweat on his forehead, Hollis strode to the door and asked the guard outside, "Where is my assistant?"

"He went out to look for the coroner in person," replied the guard.

"Didn't the coroner come to the government office today?" Hollis then asked.

"He's on leave today so he didn't come to work. The assistant went to his home to fetch him there. I think it wouldn't be long now. My Lord, may I ask what happened? Why did Marquis Pearce bring so many people here? It seems like..."

But he immediately stopped when he remembered that people could insult the mayor of River City or disrespect the assistant, but the only thing they couldn't do was say anything that was remotely unpleasant about Pearce and his family. Otherwise, any person who would dare do so would certainly encounter some unexpected troubles.

"Stop talking and go after the assistant! Marquis Pearce has been waiting for a long time," Hollis exclaimed in a stern tone. Then he turned around and set foot in the hall again. He then explained to Pearce why the coroner had not come yet after such a long time.

Upon hearing his explanation, Pearce did not become upset. He merely said, "It doesn't matter. I can just wait."

"Thank you for your kind understanding," Hollis said while he secretly wiped the sweat from his forehead. With that, they continued to wait in silence once again.

All of a sudden, the assistant ran in a hurry. "My Lord, bad news."

"Stop talking nonsense! Don't panic like this!" Hollis rigidly scolded. Then he suddenly felt that he had inappropriately behaved in front of Pearce. He glanced at the latter in secret. When he saw that Pearce didn't show any response, he let out a sigh of relief and asked, "Where is the person I asked you to bring here?"

Looking at Hollis with horror in his face, the assistant said, "My Lord, he killed himself!"

"What?" Hollis blurted out in surprise. He almost jumped because it was too surprising. "What did you just say? He killed himself? Why?"

"I don't know. I took some guards to find him in his house. But when we got there, no one answered even after we had knocked and called to him repeatedly. According to the neighbors, he had not left his house for a long time. So I thought maybe the weather was just cold so he was still sleeping. We knocked on his door harder, but still, no one answered. At that point, I had no other choice. I turned to the window on the left side and tried to stab it so that we could break into his house. But when I was finally inside, I found his body hanging from the ceiling. A rope was tightly wrapped around his neck. I tried to save him but he was already unconscious by that time."

Even though Hollis was really stupid, he immediately understood the situation. He turned to Pearce and said, "My Lord, it seems like the person you're looking for had committed suicide."

"Committed suicide? Did you bring his corpse with you?" Pearce asked while he turned to look at the assistant.

"Yes, My Lord. His dead body has been brought back here. I've asked the guards to put it outside for now," the assistant responded.

Pearce looked at the person around him. Hollis realized that it was another known coroner in the city. Not a lot of people wanted to work as coroners, so there were only three of them in River City.

Pearce didn't need to ask. The coroner followed the assistant and walked outside to check on the corpse. Hollis felt his right eyelid twitch when he saw the dead body. He thought that he could stay safe and avoid trouble as long as he stayed inside the government office. However, there was no way he could avoid it.

After examining the corpse, the coroner looked at Pearce and showed him a mark on the dead body's neck. "My Lord, this man didn't commit suicide. As you can see, there are two types of marks on his neck, one stretching up until his left ear and the other around his neck. The killer strangled him first and then hung him on the ceiling to make it look like he committed suicide."

"What? Are you saying that he was murdered?" Hollis asked in surprise. He and the assistant exchanged looks with great shock on both of their faces. Who would kill a coroner and what would have been their reason? The coroner was only earning a few taels of silver a month. He was also of low status so he didn't have a lot of influence. Why would anyone want to kill him? They couldn't understand even way beyond their imaginations.

"Hollis," Pearce plainly called out.

"Yes, I'm here," Hollis responded at once.

"I brought another coroner to examine my son's corpse. We have reason to suspect that my son didn't die out of falling on the ground and breaking his head." The moment Pierce explained why he was there, Hollis couldn't help but tremble for a second with fear. He suddenly understood why the coroner had been killed. It was because he had falsified an examination record of a corpse and Pearce found out about it. The person who asked the coroner to do this was afraid of being discovered, so he killed the coroner to tie up loose ends.

With the degree of the situation, Hollis' knees became weak, causing him to kneel down on the floor. "Please, this has nothing to do with me. I didn't know whether the corpse's test is fake or not. It's the dead coroner who made the report. The judge pronounced a guilty sentence for Alexander because of that. I did not collude with others or deliberately misinterpreted anything. If someone really fabricated the report, I was deceived as well. I have no idea about the whole thing at all."

Pearce stared down at Hollis before asking, "Then how are you going to deal with it?"

"I will follow your orders," Hollis obediently said. As far as he was concerned, he was not to blame. At this moment, he thought following Pearce's orders was the best way to deal with the matter.

"Give Hollis the record of the corpse's inspection," Pearce commanded right away.

"Yes, My Lord!"

Hollis reviewed the report carefully word by word. At last, there was so much cold sweat on his forehead after he finished reading the report. He found out that Alexander was indeed innocent. Since Pearce came in here with so many of his guards, Hollis didn't know what Pearce would want him to deal with the case. If he were going to be hanged for a sheep, he should have just been hanged for a lamb.