A R T H U R

Right at that moment, Mrs. Hester's voice came through the speakers hung on the walls, "Messrs. Pierce, Anderson, Crew, Miller, and Kane. Please come to my office immediately. Messrs. Pierce, Anderson, Crew, Miller, and Kane. Come to my office immediately!"

    She repeated, but neither of the boys moved, all staring around at each other. Two weeks ago, the police refused to even bring John Carter to custody for more investigation, and yet here they were, taking him away in handcuffs. What had changed? What secret had they found? Had he truly been proved guilty of Nancy's murder?

    Nicholas was first to turn around and walk out of the common room, and so the rest of the boys followed after him without uttering a single word, and yet with a hundred questions in their mind.

    Walking down the hall, the five of them entered Mrs. Hester office, but she wasn't alone in there. A middle-aged man with a thick mustache was sitting at her desk, and a man — whom they recognized as Officer Cullen — was standing right behind him.

    "Thank goodness, you're finally here," said Mrs. Hester breathlessly, her hand placed over her fast-beating heart.

    "Thank you, Madam. We'll take it from here," said the middle-aged man, letting her know that it was her cue to leave the office.

    Glancing sideways at each other, the five boys stood in front of the desk side-by-side and faced the man, not sure what they were asked here to do, though they knew it had to be about John Carter and the murder of Nancy Green.

    "I'm Sergeant Grant, and you five, I believe, were the ones who had come to the station two weeks ago to report the murder of Miss Nancy Green. Correct?" said the man, but when the five boys only nodded, he sharply looked up at them. "Answer me with your words."

    "Yes," they all murmured. 

    "Good enough," Sergeant Grant grumbled in a deep and rough voice, running a hand over his grey mustache. "My team ran a small investigation, and as it turned out, Mr. John Carter in fact had a criminal record, which certainly did not help him with this case."

    "A criminal record?" Luca whispered, his breath hitching in his chest.

    "Constable Williams mentioned that he had lived in New York briefly for studying music. We did our research, and found that Mr. Carter had served five months and one week in prison for beating a man nearly to death at a bar during his stay in America, due to a fight that had taken place between them. He was, of course, intoxicated at the time, and he'd been suffering from alcoholism long before."

    Arthur dared to glance at Luca for a brief moment, knowing how hard hearing all of this had to be for him. He looked more in disbelief than any one of them.

    "From the letters Miss Green had sent him, it seemed as though the two were in some sort of a close relationship. Cullen," the Sergeant called the young officer so he would continue.

    "In one of the letters, Miss Green mentioned going to a pub called Tony's. We interrogated the previous owner of the pub and showed both their pictures to him, and he informed us that he had seen the couple many times in his pub together, and confirmed their relationship; he had seen them get intimate many times."

    "Thank you, Cullen," Sergeant Grant stopped him, looking through the files he had in front of him. "We had one of our detectives come here early in the morning today and search Mr. Carter's office and room — with his consent, of course — and he found a torn piece of undergarment hidden underneath Mr. Carter's mattress, along with claw marks at the bottom of his wooden bed's headboard. We believe that he had been assaulting Miss Green throughout their relationship, but there's no way to prove that yet. But tonight, when we knocked at his door again to escort him to the police station with our warrant, we found that he had packed his suitcase and was probably planning on fleeing the city, with a train ticket to London in his bag. But that's not all."

    With that, Sergeant Grant took a small piece of paper out of the file and stretched out his arm to place it closer to the boys so they could take a better look.

    "If you remember, Miss Green had mentioned a secret in one of her letters, and in the next one, she wrote about how Mr. Carter had, and I quote, 'forced her into it'. And in her Latin notes, as we had them translated, it was also stated there that he had forced her to do something she didn't want, and that he was a killer. And this," the Sergeant pointed at the piece of paper, "is what we think she meant by those statements."

    "What is this?" Nicholas asked in a small whisper.

    "We found this note in Mr. Carter's room, thrown at the far back of his wardrobe; it's an appointment note, with a doctor's name and address on it," said officer Cullen. "The doctor was arrested today for performing illegal abortion on pregnant women. We interrogated him, and he confessed and said..."

   Officer Cullen took a notepad out of his pocket, reading through it,

    "'It was a few months ago during summer when a man called me for an appointment for his wife; I was almost sure he was lying about their relation, but I didn't question it. I never ask my clients and patients about these things. That same night, this poor girl came to my home crying. She said she was eight weeks pregnant. She kept saying that the man who had impregnated her was forcing her to kill the baby, even threatening her to death, because he wanted to marry someone else. He wanted nothing to do with her or the baby. I asked her whether she wanted to back out, but she said she was too scared to disobey him, and told me to get it over with soon. Afterward, I told her that if she had any severe pain or bleeding, she should not go to the hospital, and that she should come back to me, but only with prior appointment. But I never heard of her again.'"

    "Furthermore," Sergeant grant continued after Cullen was done reading the doctor's confession, "the time and date Miss Green had asked to see John Carter in her dorm, perfectly matched the picture you gave us, as well as the time of her death. The long velvet tuxedo he had worn that night was also found in his wardrobe, proving that he was in fact the man in the picture, entering the residency building at half-past-six."

     He then went on, saying, "It is merely our guess that the reason John Carter went through this act of violence was because Miss Green wanted to tell everyone about their relation and the baby they were supposed to have. Afraid that this would ruin his future with his fiancé, he probably killed her to ensure her silence. He pushed her off the window, making it look like a suicide. Mr. John Carter will now be sent to jail until his initial appearance in front of a judge."