Five-Day Mystery: The Two-Faced Angel

Original Story

Puzzle situation

Twenty years ago, St. Elias Orphanage. At first light, a nun's scream sends the pigeons scattering from the bell tower. A man sits upright on a pew before the altar, facing the cross, hands clasped as if in prayer. The nun circles behind him and sees a second face. It grows from the back of his head, eyes closed, the corners of its mouth turned slightly up, twenty years older than the face in front. The coroner's report reads: both faces are real human skin. The edge of the second face is ringed with fine stitches, "workmanship so delicate it hardly seems human." The old director writes a single line in the logbook: "God gave him a second face, so that he may see what lies before and behind him at once." That same week, at the mortuary next door, an old man's body stayed veiled from start to finish during his funeral service. The body was found by the mortuary's apprentice, 14-year-old Samuel Grey. Every day before dawn, he delivered white lilies to the chapel. In his statement, he said only one thing: "He looked peaceful. They all look peaceful."