Annabelle Underwood's Adventures : Everything But Green (Part 4 )

Annabelle Underwood thought she was simply killing time in New York before joining the expedition to the North Pole. But the days drag on, the tension builds, and the city reveals a brutal face she can’t understand.

One evening, on her way back, she turns around: a child has been following her. In her hands, a locket. In her eyes, panic. Her sister has vanished. 

And Annabelle realizes this stay won’t be a pause but the beginning of a case she can’t ignore.

If you love old-fashioned mysteries, come and listen to Everything but Green!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone, nice to meet you all. So I have in my hands a collection of letters. All dusty and fascinating letters that tells the adventures of Annabelle Underwood. Right now, all you have to do is listen and enjoy the story. And one more thing, I prefer to warn you but English is not my mother tongue. I promise I will try to improve as quickly as I can on for my acting too. So now you know everything, should we begin? This story is called Everything But Green. So now I will summarize the first, second and third part for you. But if you want to listen to them, you can find the links in the description. So you are in New York, 1911, and Abel Underwood was only meant to stop there briefly, long enough to wait for an expedition to the North Pole, but then the funding collapses, so she has to stay points. One night, a 12-year-old girl named Pearl comes to her, a locket clenched in her hands, a plea trembling on her lips. Her older sister, Louise, a factory worker by day and a waitress by night, has vanished without a trace. Louise had only one goal, to give Pearl a future at any cost. And yet, one evening she does not come home. With Haydn Green by her side, Annabelle patiently follows a trail, a textile mile, a quiet bar, a squalid room, frightened witnesses carefully maintained in silence. Very quickly, a second disappearance emerged, identical, like an echo. Then my clothes fall into place. And what first looked like a single tragedy reveals the working of something larger, more organized, more dangerous. Until the night when, gived by the nutrition born of a childhood memory, Annabelle and Haydn follows a car through the sleeping city to a wasteland and a windowless cabin inside a woman, bound and unconscious, and beneath a white sheet, a face she knows far too well. Louise's faces. So now I'm reading the letter again. I stood there for a long time, not knowing what to say or what to do, unable to sing clearly. I am used to singing like this, to a rear like this, but in that moment my whole being felt frozen, incapable of moving. It was not because of the body laying before me, but because of po. How I was going to tell her. How already picture her, shattered in tears. Haydn broke into my thoughts when he returned. His brew was firm, his anger and frustration obvious. I knew, without him having to say a word, that the man had slipped through his fingers. Knowing the area better than Haydn, the fugitive has vanished into the city's darkness. There was no way to find him now. As Haydn stepped into the room, his expression changed completely. His features tightening even more. He focused on the scene before him, on the bodies later, on the three women. Louise and the boss's niece has been dead for days. The young woman who had just been kidnapped has simply been put to sleep with chlorophone. Its slightly sweet smell still clinging to her. She would wake in a few moments. Haydn moved closer to her, checking that she was breathing properly, that no visible injury met her body. He removed his jacket, rolled it into a bottle to make a pillow, and slit it under the young woman's head. Every one of these movements was professional. I let him work in silence, words were useless in such circumstances. Once he was sure she was alright, he went to the other two bodies, examine them as gently as possible before speaking. I've I've seen these marks a few times before, but rarely, very rarely. I never thought I'd see them here in our time. Anna You see where I'm going with this? Look at their fingers. And just like the scela, the white of the eyes is faintly tingled green. They're eaten away, away by arsenic. The rest of their bodies bears other lesions, arsenic, but have damaged their skin. Despite their young age, these women were doomed to die young. The body tells the story. The victim closer to her, the boss's niece, died no more than two days ago. And Louise was killed at the start of the week. Darned, what is going on here? And it is the same with the young woman who was drunk. Her body shows the same damage, but they weren't killed by Rustonic. Look at the throat, killed with a single strike from a blade. Most likely a knife. What an horrible sight. Look at the state of the wooden board they were lay on. The wood had changed colour, changed completely. He has drunk so much blood. So much. I could see how heavily each word weighed on him. A past he has tried in vain to keep hiding was rising to the surface. I said nothing. Everything he had just told me, I had already observed, but I could feel a need to speak. It was his way of controlling his situation, of trying to accept it, to analyze the layouts of facts, to escape the grim reality right in front of us. You know Anna, I haven't told you yet, but before I became a photographer, I had another life, a very different one. I was a police officer in a small town in the United Kingdom, not far from the sea. I loved my job and did down, I think I still do. Otherwise I wouldn't be here following you like an idiot through New York streets chasing a serial killer who murders women poisoned by arsenic, already doomed to die. And yet I left the force on my own free will. I I don't yet have the strength to tell you everything, but I simply placed my hand on his shoulder to show he didn't have to say more if he didn't want to. A faint smile flinkled across his lips for a second, and then he moved to cover the woman's faces again with profound respect. As soon as a young woman woke, we brought her to the police station and explained everything that had just happened. The finite pieces of the puzzle fell into place when the kidnappered woman gave her statements. I knew everything, every detail, and yet, unlike usual, revealing the truth was going to be far harder than expected. I asked an orfisher to go to the place I had indicated and to wait for me there so that I could explain the whole situation. They seemed doubtful, but once they hear my name, they agreed. It seems my reputation has more than caught up with me here. I had been completely wrong about that. I asked only for a little time, a moment to go and see Pearl. When we returned to the hotel at daybreak, Paul was already waiting patiently, sitting on the bed. She was reading a book about the traditions of Canada's indigenous people. A wild smile appeared on the face, then vanished at once when she saw our devastated expressions. A single tear slipped on her cheek as she got a flowered follow when we told her about her sister's death. She threw herself into Hydan's arm, then into mine, sobbing uncontrollably. Neither of us could hold back all her own tears anymore. Her's present in my life, and this investigation had deeply changed my objectivity. I could not take the necessary distance, the step back that I usually take, the one that allows me to keep my composure in any circumstances it was impossible. I had never known Louise and yet I felt profoundly shaken by her death and by pearls grief. Haydn, stay with Paul while I go finish what I have to do. I took a taxi to the factory where Louise had worked for so many years. The weather was mild. Everyone had asked the police to gather was there, without exception. The woman from the different factories involved, the people from the bar and the boss and his family. As I go out, I quickly brush beneath my eyelids to wipe away one last tears that escaped me. Taking a deep breath, I look at the crown for a moment before I began to speak. Good morning everyone. Thank you for coming. I began forcing my voice to steady as much as possible so as not to betray my emotions. If I gather you here, it is to tell you what happened, to explain under what circumstances several of your colleagues and friends, perhaps even members of your own family, has vanished these past weeks or even months without explanation. And please, no one interests me before I finish. No one. I don't think I will have the courage to tell this story a second time and I have no strength to argue with criminals who will try to justify their horrible acts for reasons I cannot understand. So silence if you please. I will answer questions at the end, but first let us reveal the secrets, the dreadful story behind this disappearance. I do not know whenever I should blame fashion or human madness first. They are both, certainly both. You are all aware, I think, that fashion now is green, a colour that has been out of fashion for years, has suddenly returned as an essential element of many proper outfits for men as well as women. Ever since the first lady, Ellen Heron Taft, wore a magnificent bright green dress at a ceremony at the White House alongside her husband, William Howard Taft, the fashion for green has swept the United States with an uncountable frenzy. But you see, obtaining a beautiful green, a brilliant luminous pigment is noisy, is not an easy thing to do. And the company that employs you, the factories where you work, had employed a magnificent green, the finest on the market and the most dangerous. Because what it neglected to mention in the composition of the dye bath is the presence of arsenic. Yes, arsenic. For those of you who don't know, it is an extremely dangerous substance. It may produce magnificent colour, but at what cost? At the cost of workers' life. The woman who endorsed that green every day were slowly poisoning themselves. Proof lies in the hands and eyes. The woman assigned to work with green. It was not only pigments that rub off and gave them that greenish tint, it was poisons. It kills you little by little, and you know nothing about it. And those who run the factory knew it perfectly well. That is why they isolate you from the others to prevent the truth from being discovered. They deliberately hired women without families, women from poverty and of age. So their disappearance would not be noted. So if they vanished overnight, no family member would come demanding answers. And besides, they were all adults. The police would only assume to have run away, nothing more. And indeed, the macillon plane sleeps under the radar for quite some time. The danger of these pigments has been known for more than 50 years, but you didn't care, profits above all, especially since these beautiful fabrics brings in a great deal of money. And because the arsenic is diluted with other pigments, the only ones who truly suffer are your workers. Proof lies in the hands and eyes. The woman assigned to work with green. It was not only pigments that rub off and gave them that greenish tint, it was poison. It kills you little by little, and you know nothing about it. And those who were in the factory knew it perfectly well. That is why they isolate you from the others to prevent the truth from being discovered. They deliberately hired women without families, women from poverty and half age, so their disappearance would not be noted. So if they vanished overnight, no family member would come demanding answers. And besides, they were all adults. The police were only assumed to have run away, nothing more. And indeed, your macan plane sleeps under the radar for quite some time. The danger of these pigments has been known for more than 50 years, but you did not care, profits above all, especially since this beautiful fabrics brings in a great deal of money. And because the arsenic is diluted with other pigments, the only ones who truly suffer are your workers. Each time the same method was used, you hire someone to do it. And when I say you, I mean the three people in management I had the misfortune to mate. The director, the deputy director of your company, and the owner of all three factories. You are the real Coupids once. The criminals responsible for the murders of the three women. Your case is the death. The moment symptoms began to show. You hire someone to do it, to do your dirty work for you. But you are the real Coupids. As soon as one of them becomes ill, too ill, and asks to see a doctor, you make her disappear. No suspicion, no trouble. You hire a hitman, kidnap them and kill them. Each time you ask your victim to return to the factory in the evening, after everyone has left, to discuss a promotion, a change of position, some pretext, any pretext. You told them to keep it to themselves that the promotion must remain secrets from the other workers. And so each of them came, hoping for a slightly better life, hoping at last to improve their living conditions. Except that one day a grain of sand slipped into your well-oiled mechanism. Because you were not coached after so many victims, you began to grow more confident and less careful about whom you hired. Your last two victims lied and said they had no family. To get a job, they needed to survive, they hired their loved ones. Louis Thompson has a younger sister named Pearl and Texas Reese has a mother named Zima. And they worked for you for so long, you never suspected a thing. When Pearl realized her sister has vanished despite her engage, she searched for her by every means. Change or rather health determination put me in her path and I agree to investigate her sister's disappearance. The rest was not so difficult to uncover, and last night I understood you were about to claim another victim. The day before, I asked every worker willing to speak to meet us at the restaurant while this worked so we could talk. I wanted as much information as possible about how the factory operates because I was already certain there was a link and one of them did not show up. I should have understood sooner. If she did not come, it was because you had arranged to meet her that very evening. Given her condition, she has very little time left to live. So last night you kill her, draw her with color from while she waits for you at the factory, put her in a sack like a bundle of clothes, and toss her into his car. We follow him as discreetly as we could and he suspected nothing. That is how we found the sinister place where you slit this woman's throat with a knife before burying them nearby. As I speak, the police are dragging up the bodies of your victims to identify them and to bury them with dignity. And they have already arrested you, Hitler. A heavy silence held the crowd as I finished my conclusions. It was finally broken by the boss's sister-in-law soaps. The police arrested the three guilty men while I left as calmly as I could. I was boiling inside afterwards with rage and fury. I did not return to the hotel at once, so I went back to the crime scene to ask whenever my help was needed. Sadly, it was not, so I turned around and went back to Pearl and Haydn. For several days we remained in a state of mourning, a sadness impossible to hide. The mayor, William J. Januel, gave a speech in honor of these ten women as they were buried with dignity. Pearl held my hand on Haydn's through the ceremony. She fought back tears, even tried to smile, telling me she wanted to show her sister the smile she loved so much. Louise always told Pearl that smiling in any situation was the greatest threat. A smile was a soul's hamul. The next day, Pearl returned to school, found her rhythm again. She misses her sister at every moment, but she had a promise to keep. The boss and his wife decided to adopt her and take care of her. That reassured me. I knew she would be in good hands and that they would never prevent her for pursuing her dream. I gave them my address, something I do very rarely, so that Pearl could write to me and they could too, of course. The evening, Pearl went to live with them. We all ate together at the restaurant. As I left with Haydn, I could hear them singing Louise's song. Their voices filled the night and warm our hearts as we set off for Boston, where Professor Johnson was waiting for us to secure funding for our expedition to the North Pole. He had only a little money left to raise and he truly believed he could find it there. After everything that had happened, he had offered us to come with him, and I must tell you, I was glad to leave and discover somewhere new, but sad to leave a city that I strangely starting to love. Hoping to hear from you soon, my dear Annabelle Underwood. Thank you all for today. Thanks again for listening until the end. Please don't hesitate to subscribe and give us a like and share it to the world. See you soon for more adventures with Anabel Underwood!