The next morning, an old brown envelope arrived at her apartment. It had no stamp, no return address, and only her name written neatly on the cover:
"Ella Morgan."
She opened it cautiously.
Inside, there was just a single page, torn from a book, and beneath it a sentence written in blue ink:
"He wrote as if the truth were betrayal, but he was the truest."
And beneath it:
"British Library - Third Floor - Number 121 - Before the Ice Melted."
The air was gloomy, the fog thicker than usual. Ella headed toward the British Library, where she kept some old papers from her working days. The third floor was rarely used... the Special Publications Department.
She entered without being stopped.
She raised her head and began searching: Number 121.
She found it.
An iron drawer, inside a small, dark red volume bearing a single name: "Alastair Crawford."
A name she hadn't heard in over twenty years.
She took out the folder. It contained unpublished literary essays and a separate paper titled:
"The Doctrine of Taste... The Last Defense."
It was signed: Leonard Graves.
The essay resembled an angry manifesto from a frustrated critic, explaining how taste, as an aesthetic criterion, had become a crime in the age of the market.
The words were scathing, but pure, like the last attempt of a man who had decided to bury something at the heart of the world and tell no one.
But in the margin, in a different handwriting, in a tense, italicized style, was a note written years after the text:
"There were five... the signature of each was a dagger. This is unforgivable. I will write their names as I remember them. No one will escape by silence."
Underneath, four names were clearly visible.
But the fifth? It was crossed out.
Ella emerged from the library with a photocopy of the paper in her hand.
Five people had participated in something... something that had prompted Leonard to recount his own death before it happened.
But who are they?
And why now?
And who sent her this note?
And were the figs, the ear, the letter, and death all part of this final defense of taste?
In her heart, a disturbing thought began to form:
"What if the killer didn't hate Leonard? But loved him too much?"
Ella knew that every great story begins with a rupture, but this one... began with dried figs and voiceless regret.
12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWaT4p1ssJc
