After more than two hours, they had each laid out the data they had collected and cross-referenced it with each other, thus deducing a series of things.
From the data they had gathered, it was almost certain that Heidrich had collected a massive amount of material related to occultism in the Czech Republic in his time and had left it here.
One thing they could be sure of was that the Thule Society, as the remnants of the fiery crisis, definitely knew about this, so their arrival in Prague this time was very likely related to this batch of items.
"There's a question here, and that is why they would want to kill the president of the Golden Society," said the officer named Jeanne, who had come with Burke, after everyone had roughly guessed what the other party wanted to do.
"Organizations like the Thule Society, no matter how wealthy, are the kind that operate in the shadows, so their actions are as secretive as possible, and that’s why I don’t understand why they would kill someone in a public setting."
For these illegal organizations, they generally try to keep a low profile, keeping themselves out of the public eye as much as possible, which made the previous assassination seem quite irrational.
"I have an explanation for this," Liang En immediately explained after Jeanne had finished speaking. "I guess the president of the Golden Society might have had some important information that he wanted to use to blackmail the Thule Society, and then he was silenced."
"That's very possible," Officer Jeanne nodded. "The data that the president of the Golden Society had at that time must have been very important, but unfortunately, that’s where the trail ends, leaving us with no further information."
"But we still have a chance to find them. At least after they hastily headed to Prague to plan this murder, it indicates that something significant for them, or the entire Thule Society, is going to happen here," Officer Burke added.
"So next, we need to check the entire Prague area and the surrounding areas for recent exhibitions, auctions, or other similar events related to occultism, especially those involving Heidrich, as this will give us a chance to catch them."
Because this was a private operation by the group, their work efficiency was naturally high. The next morning, after hurriedly finishing breakfast, everyone started to inquire through their own contacts.
Clearly, this type of news was not very secretive, so when they met at the scheduled time at noon that day, they had roughly pinpointed their target.
"If nothing unexpected happens, the target is likely the recent auction held at the Czech National Library in Prague," Liang En said as he opened a website. This website was the official site of the library.
"As you all know, the Czech economy hasn’t been very good in recent years, so places like libraries, which are not considered crucial, have received less funding, even to the point where they don’t have enough money for maintenance."
"According to the public statement on this website, the library has decided to sell a batch of non-core books to raise funds for upcoming operational projects and the maintenance of a series of medieval parchment books."
Although the Czech Republic is not a large country, the number of ancient items left here is not small, so for today’s Czech Republic, this is also a heavy burden.
After all, in the medieval period, when it was known as Bohemia, the Czech Republic was one of the richest regions in Central Europe, and even Europe as a whole, so naturally, countless valuable things have been left until today.
But the problem is that today's Czech Republic no longer has the splendor of the past. However, these items, representing past glory and history, could not possibly be abandoned, so naturally, there is a bit of a struggle when it comes to funding.
Especially during recent times when the economic situation hasn’t been great, the state naturally tends to allocate funds to more urgently needed sectors of social production, not places like libraries that barely make a profit.
At such times, museums need to make some painful decisions, like selling some less important books, and then using that money to maintain some more important books.
And now, the books Liang En and his team were focusing on were part of this batch about to be auctioned, marked as 13,000 volumes of books and notes, once belonging to Heidrich.
"You’re right, our investigation also confirms this; at least the only significant event related to fiery occultism in the entire Central European region in the last half month is this auction," Officer Burke continued.
"It’s also because of this auction that attracted many new right-wing individuals, so I took the pretext of investigating the transnational fiery groups to get a lot of new information from some local reliable informants."
Although the police in Eastern Europe were sometimes unreliable, if you don’t ask directly but rather probe indirectly, it’s not too difficult to safely get some information you want to know.
"The first piece of news is that the
person we were tracking indeed arrived in Prague by train and should not have left this city. The second piece of news is that the value of these auction items might be lower than everyone expects."
"Has anyone been into the warehouse to see those auction items?" Liang En quickly flipped through the data he held and asked, "If I remember correctly, no one has been in that warehouse since the 1950s."
"No one has entered that warehouse, but the records from the library here were made public a few days ago," Officer Burke shrugged. "According to the records from the inspectors in the 1950s, there are no precious originals among these books."
"No originals, what does that mean?" Joan of Arc asked curiously.
"It means that although the knowledge recorded in these books is very old, even the oldest of that information was not produced before the 19th century."
"If I remember correctly, Heidrich should have collected a massive amount of occult materials here, how could he not have collected any old books?"
"You’re right, that’s a fact, but the problem is that according to the information we found, the precious originals were sent back to Germany by the other party, leaving only some copies here," Officer Burke shrugged.
"That’s actually good news for me; it means the money needed to buy those items won’t be too much," Liang En felt this might be the advantage he had learned through using his tarot cards.
"Of course, you’re right," Burke nodded. "But more importantly for us, this means that the antique dealers who come to buy might not be willing to pay too high a price, allowing us to easily identify the targets we’re looking for."
In the antique industry, except for a few items, those modern copies are often not very valuable. The price might not even be 1% of the original item.
So, these items might have some value for those scholars researching history, but for those antique dealers, they are not very valuable, thus the likely payers would be those far-right folks.
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