Forensic Imperial Concubine

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."

secretly wiped the sweat from his forehead. With that, they continued to wait in

sudden, the assistant ran in a hurry. "My Lord,

at the latter in secret. When he saw that

at Hollis with horror in his face, the assistant said, "My Lord,

jumped because it was too surprising. "What did you just say? He killed

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.

to Pearce and said, "My

suicide? Did you bring his corpse with you?" Pearce asked

here. I've asked the guards to put

at the person around him. Hollis realized that it was another known coroner in the city. Not a lot

felt his right eyelid twitch when he saw the dead body. He thought that he could stay safe and avoid trouble

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

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

Pearce plainly