Senoni

"Would that girl have done something wrong?"

"No. Not as far as we know. We just want to find her to clarify some situations. We won't take her away."

"Oh...that's good. She's in the dressing room. I'll call her out right away. Please wait, gentlemen."

Katrina nodded politely and smiled slightly, then turned and walked into the room behind the red curtain. Jorgen and Elin stood in the corridor. The troupe's performance had just ended, and there were sporadic stage workers dismantling the scenes and actors who had not yet taken off their makeup passing by.

After exchanging information, Jorgen and Elin rushed to the troupe immediately. Knowing that Dores had met with Senoni shortly before his death, Jorgen recalled some details that he had never paid attention to before.

A recent example is that afternoon when he was on vacation at the troupe watching the play. Dores suddenly appeared behind him, looking flustered and saying that he might be followed. In fact, the so-called "followers" were just two little kids. Although Dores had been under a lot of pressure, Jorgen did not feel that he would be so easily frightened.

Perhaps his actual purpose in appearing at the troupe that day was to meet with Senoni. Unexpectedly, Jorgen was also present, so he temporarily made up an excuse. This is not a compelling hypothesis, but it is not entirely impossible.

"What are you thinking? You look listless." Elin said.

"Just thinking that we seem to have ignored many things all along."

"Such as? — Ah, don't worry, let me say it for you. For example, you didn't expect your favorite troupe to be involved too, did you?"

Jorgen opened his mouth to argue but said nothing. He knew Elin was right. Watching plays was one of his rare hobbies. He needed something that seemed to belong to him privately but had nothing to do with his detective life. Whenever he sat in the theater, he could forget what he had experienced and the cases at hand, and experience a life he had never lived.

But now, as the troupe's most important female lead, Senoni was linked to the Dores case. Everything was back on track.

"Senoni is out. You'd better show your usual stern face quickly. I heard that female stars are not easy to get information from." Elin said.

"Ah, you two... Mr. Jorgen and... Mr. Karlin, right? Do you have something to find me?" Said Senoni, who was in plain clothes, walking up to the two. Her eyebrows were high and arched, and her lips were pursed with a smile, like a little girl playing a guessing game.

"Um, not Karlin, my name is Elin. Elin Tias." Elin turned to Jorgen and said, "She can spit out your name so quickly, play fan, but spelled mine wrong, really heartbreaking."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Elin. I won't get it wrong again."

"It's okay, for a beauty like you, 'mistake' is meaningless. Miss Senoni, has anyone ever told you that even if you add up all the images you have created on stage, it is not one percent of your own charm? Hasn't this old play fan seen this? That's really unqualified..."

"That's enough." Jorgen elbowed Elin aside. "We have some questions for you about Dores Stryfe."

"Well, okay. But can we go outside? After all, this theater..."

"Of course."

They went outside to the back wall of the theater. To avoid Elin saying something strange and wasting time, Jorgen went straight to the point: "On the night of the Flame Festival, someone saw you meeting with Dores. Am I right?"

"Yes." Senoni answered briskly and lightly. "Is this important, Mr. Jorgen?"

"You state the facts, and we'll judge if it's important or not, Miss Senoni. Do you understand what I mean?"

"No one wants a beauty involved in murder, but as he said, you provide the material, we are responsible for selection." Elin followed Jorgen's words. "Otherwise, the guy next to me will bite."

Senoni laughed at Elin's words, then immediately bit her lower lip, trying to be serious.

"Well, then you admit you met him that night. Roughly what time was it?" Jorgen continued to ask.

"Um, let me think... Probably about ten minutes before the troupe was scheduled to perform. Because of this, I was late."

"Have you known Dores for a long time?"

"No, I can't say I knew him. We only talked once."

"Was the night of the Flame Festival the first time you talked?"

"No, it wasn't. The first time he came backstage to find me, I thought he was an enthusiastic play fan...He behaved very gentlemanly. He said he liked my performance, but I saw that it was just an excuse to get close to me. Then we started chatting and stuff. "

"Excuse?"

"At first I thought he was going to pursue me." Senoni said. "But later I found that he seemed interested not in me but in something of mine. A necklace, yes. With a ruby pendant. I rarely wear that necklace on stage, I don't know how he noticed it. He said he wanted to see my necklace, he saw it once when he was in the audience and wanted to take a closer look. But at that time I sent the necklace for repair because the clasp was broken. He didn't give a reason, he just kept saying 'I must see it' and so on. I thought there was nothing to it, so I agreed to show it to him on the night of the Flame Festival."

"On the night of the Flame Festival, you two met for you to have the opportunity to show the necklace. Tell us about your meeting."

"Well, there's really nothing to it. As soon as we met, he didn't even greet me, he just hurriedly asked if I had brought the necklace. That made me feel quite embarrassed. Then I showed it to him, and his face became - um, utterly frustrated, making me feel as if I had done something wrong at the time."

"We need to see that necklace. I hope you brought it."

"I have it with me. Do you really want to see it? I don't think there's anything worth seeing..."

"How did we say it just now?" Jorgen said. "You provide the facts, and we judge."

"Okay." Senoni took out the necklace from the small cloth bag hanging around her waist and handed it to Jorgen. "You see, what's special about this?"

Jorgen held the necklace suspended from his fingers. He found that it was a nondescript cheap necklace. A brass chain with a ruby pendant on the front - a cracked ruby with impure color and a whitish tint.

"Did he not say why he wanted to see this necklace?" Elin asked. "Not mentioned at all?"

"Really not," Senoni said, "but I guess... I don't know if I should say."

"Say whatever you think."

"It's something I bought for twenty copper coins at a flea market. Dores lived alone, right? But he must have had a wife and children before, right? I guess maybe this belonged to his original family. When he saw it again, the owner had become me, so Dores seemed so frustrated. It's also possible that he made a mistake and found that this was just a cheap thing. If he committed suicide just because of this...I..."

"It's not like that, don't worry about it." Jorgen said. "However, we need to take this necklace as evidence. Is that okay?"

Senoni did not speak, as if she had not heard Jorgen's request.

"Miss Senoni...?"

"This... must it be taken away?"

Jorgen frowned.

"What are you worried about, Miss Senoni?"

"Well, nothing. Sorry, please take it away."

"Okay." After Senoni left, Elin said, "What do you think?"

"About the situation of their meeting, her and Gubo's accounts match. At least on this point, she did not lie."

"Suspecting such a beauty makes me lose motivation. But I have to admit she lied at least about the origin of the necklace. It sounds like an elementary school student who always uses 'stomach ache' as an excuse for absence."

"Exactly. It's a textbook lie. She said she bought it from a flea market, but immediately showed that she didn't want to hand it over to us. This simple girl didn't even have the intention to lie smoothly. This is good for our subsequent investigation."

"What do you think of her explanation of Dores's reaction after seeing the necklace?"

"I think she really didn't know Dores's intention to see the necklace, so those explanations should be her real thoughts. Otherwise, she would have denied everything from the beginning and never admitted to having met Dores. She thought revealing this point would not disadvantage her."

"Half honest, half false. This little beauty will really trouble us - oh, that's too insensitive. It's a self-protective lie. She meant us no harm."

Half true and half false, what's unnatural about that? After all, she is an actress. Jorgen put the necklace in his pocket.

"On your last day, you gave Dores what he asked for. He used that day to take a look at a cheap necklace, then was killed. Jorgen, that day was not worth your giving. He should have done something more contributory before dying."

"This necklace meant something to him. And after seeing it, he was very disappointed. There are two possibilities: one, this necklace was not the one he wanted to see. Two, through this necklace, he was able to confirm something, something that disappointed him. Which possibility do you think is greater?"

"In any case, our information is clearly far from enough. And we have to consider another possibility: the events surrounding the necklace, including Senoni's lies, are actually unrelated to the murder. At least, we have no evidence now to prove they are related. This really gives me a headache. But if I have to choose now, I would choose the second one."

Jorgen's mind once again recalled Dores's expression when he pleaded for his "last day". That earnestness as if his whole life depended on that one request.

Since Senoni's account of "agreeing to show him the necklace on the night of the Flame Festival" does not seem to be a lie, then this necklace was indeed the purpose for which Dores lived one more day.

Jorgen seemed to see Dores facing the necklace.

At night, the cheap ruby was dim and dull. Dores was extremely eager to see clearly, but also somewhat afraid. He may have thought that even if his eyes suddenly went blind and he did not understand the truth he had been seeking all along, it would not matter. But he still mustered the courage.

Did Dores know those were his last few hours of life?

No, he didn't know.

What was he afraid of? Perhaps he was afraid his life would be denied. He spent his whole life for this one day, then fell into deep disappointment. Even despair. He met death in despair.

Thinking of this, Jorgen knew he needed to know more about Dores's past. There was someone who could help him, but Jorgen had not yet decided whether to visit this person.