Melanie had no clue.
She asked in confusion: "Why would someone want to kill me?"
Jian Jing asked: "Do you have a grudge against anyone? Or, who would benefit if you died?"
Melanie shook her head, "I don't know Karl. August is my best friend. I don't know any of you. Mary..." She hesitated, then shook her head, "Although she doesn't approve of our marriage, I only met her after I came to Barna, and I didn't have much contact with her. The same goes for George."
Jian Jing was also puzzled.
This case is really strange, and there is almost no obvious motive. Generally speaking, murder is nothing more than for profit, revenge and emotion.
After Melanie's death, according to the law, her estate was inherited by Leo. But Leo was very wealthy, so why would he kill his wife, unless he was actually on the verge of bankruptcy and bought a multi-million insurance policy for his wife.
Apart from that, there is the rumored curse about killing his wife - this can't be believed, right
Holland is more complicated, he may have problems with Melanie, or he may secretly hate Leo.
"Have you known Mr. Hollen long?" she asked, probing and guessing.
Melanie smiled slightly, and even at this moment, there was still a kind of breathtaking beauty in her smile: "Yes, Auguste and I are good friends. He introduced Leo and me to each other."
Jian Jing asked carefully: "How is your relationship?"
"Auguste is a good friend, but..." Melanie said tactfully, "He is not suitable to be a husband. Leo is the opposite. Although he doesn't know how to say sweet words, he is exactly what I want, a responsible, loving and gentle husband."
Jian Jing examined her expression, not missing any clues. But Melanie looked calm and spoke in a relaxed tone, without any signs of lying.
"Where are Mr. Hollen and Leo?"
Melanie explained, "August is a proud man. He has a lot of conflicts with his family. Sometimes, it's hard for everyone to understand him, but Leo can. They are very loyal friends."
"Where's Carl?"
"I'm not familiar with him." Melanie apologized, "Actually, Kimberly and I haven't seen each other for years. About a year ago, she emailed me saying she was getting married and that she was planning a travel wedding instead of a wedding. I just sent her my blessing, and this was also the first time I met Carl."
Jian Jing asked: "Has Kimberly talked to you about him?"
Melanie recalled: "She said Carl was a good, caring husband, but his job was unsatisfying and his finances were tight."
At the end, she could not help but fall silent. After all, if she was not poor, Kimberly would not have borrowed the necklace from her, and if she had not borrowed the necklace, Kimberly would not have died.
Jian Jing understood her thoughts, thought for a while, and asked: "So, from the time Leo and the others left the lounge to the power outage, no one else knew that Kimberly was wearing the necklace?"
Melanie hesitated for a moment before saying, "I don't think so. It's just a fashion trend. Maybe Carl can guess?"
Jian Jing nodded slightly.
Although all the clues now point to manslaughter, we cannot be 100% sure that the target is Melanie.
If someone witnessed or guessed that Kimberly would borrow the necklace, it might also be used as an excuse for the poisoning incident, making people mistakenly believe that it was the second murder of Melanie, thus misleading the direction of the investigation.
The biggest suspect is Carl.
The husband is always the first to be suspected.
However, speaking objectively, Carl should not have chosen this method to kill Kimberly. Melanie said that the biggest problem for them was financial constraints, but Kimberly didn't have much money either.
The motive for inheritance is not established.
Moreover, murder is like carving the word "murder" on one's forehead, which makes it difficult to get insurance premiums.
There must be some secrets in this case that have not yet been uncovered.
For example, singing.
"Can you describe to me what you and Kimberly did after the power outage?" Jian Jing asked.
"After the power went out? We, we stayed in the room for a while." Melanie tried to answer. "It was very dark in the room, and there was singing - I mean, it was like singing and wind, you've heard it, right? - Kimmy was very angry and said she would catch Mary this time - she always felt that Mary was the one behind it - so we went out.
"Someone was coming towards us, and I heard Kang's voice... Then everyone came over, and Kimmy suddenly screamed, and I felt her pressing towards me, and I thought she fell..."
She narrated in a confused manner, and what others said was more or less the same.
Jian Jing asked: "Can you tell there is a person at the scene?"
"Kang, Si, and August are all here. I heard their voices."
"I can't see how many people there are?"
“Of course, it was too dark,” Melanie said. “I didn’t pay attention to anything.”
Jane Jing was about to ask some more questions about the song, but there was a knock on the door behind her. She turned around and saw Leo standing at the door, apologetically interrupting their conversation: "Jane, it's already ten o'clock, and Mela needs to rest. Can we talk about it tomorrow?"
Melanie quickly said, "I'm fine, it's okay, Jane did this for Kimmy."
"So, I am sorry to bother you." Jian Jing turned around tactfully, "Your body still needs it, so take a good rest."
But Melanie suddenly sat up, took her hand, and asked hopefully, "You will find someone to hurt Kimmy, right?"
"I'll do my best." Jian Jing shook her hand.
Melanie finally smiled with relief, relaxed back on the soft cushion, and in a few moments, fell into a light sleep.
Leo straightened the quilt for her, dimmed the lights, and closed the door quietly.
Jian Jing had not gone far yet, standing in the dim corridor, as if waiting for him.
"Jane, is there anything wrong?" Leo maintained his so-called gentlemanly demeanor and asked politely.
Beyond his words, his body language expressed strong resistance - you came to ask me, you got to the bottom of it, Kimberly is dead, it's a pity, but I only care about Melanie.
She smiled, pretending to know nothing, and said softly, "I want to say good night to you."
Instantly, Leo's tense muscles relaxed, and his tone became more sincere and gentle: "Good night, go to bed early."
Jian Jing waved her hand and turned to go downstairs.
Rest? No, no, no, she seemed to be in high spirits after drinking a cup of espresso.
The confession has been recorded, and the next item to be done, of course, is to investigate the scene.
She wanted to test the time it took to walk up the stairs from the dressing room.
Turning on the light normally takes 50 seconds.
Then I turned off the lights in the corridor on the second floor, delayed for a while, and walked slowly, groping my way, for about three minutes.
The smoking room is at the stairs, about 3 minutes away.
It took Carl 5-6 minutes to get down from his room on the third floor and climb the stairs on the second floor. It took Jian Jing about 7 minutes to get down from her room and listen to music in the room.
It normally takes 7-8 minutes to walk from Mary's room on the first floor to the kitchen, and then to the second floor. Although she later had candles for lighting, it took 10 minutes considering the time it took to find the candles.
In short, Leo's behavior was abnormal, Carl and Mary had timing problems, George was invisible the entire time, and Hollen's confession was the most reasonable, but unfortunately no one could corroborate it.
Summary: A lot of things.
She returned to her room, ran some hot water for a bath, and took the small notebook from the bedside table. She thought while soaking in the essential oil bath.
The first thing that can be confirmed is that three different events occurred in the castle.
1. Strychnine poisoning
2. Corpse Threat
3. Cyanide poisoning
At present, she thinks that the first and third cases are similar, both of which involve poisoning, while the second one uses a corpse to intimidate, which has the best horror effect without causing any actual harm.
However, from another perspective, when the corpse appeared and the cyanide poisoning occurred, it was dark and accompanied by singing. This was not the case when the dinner was poisoned for the second time.
Was it done by different people, or was one of them a smoke bomb
The tip of the pen moved over the three lines for a moment, and then drew two horizontal lines on the last line.
Poisoning, no matter what, is the most serious case and this is it. To find the murderer, we must start from this case.
Jian Jing decided not to pay attention to the current situation for the time being and concentrate on thinking about the whole picture of Kimberly's murder.
Everyone has problems; it is impossible for everyone to be a murderer.
When there is no motivation, we can only use the most stupid method to eliminate them one by one.
She bit the pen and turned up suddenly. The water droplets stained red by the bath ball splashed and slid down on the ancient tiles, outlining winding and strange lines.
A flash of inspiration came to her mind, and something touched her heart. However, when she tried to grasp it, it disappeared in an instant, leaving no trace.
Strange, what happened just now
Jian Jing wondered for a while, but to no avail, so she had to wipe off the water drops, put on her home clothes, and knocked on the door leading to the next door.
This room was the same as the one Kimberly and Carl lived in. In addition to the main door leading to the corridor, there were side doors connecting the two rooms, with bolts on both sides that could be locked.
It took half an hour for the door to open. Kang Mucheng was surprised and worried: "What happened?"
"I still have some questions." Jian Jing kept turning the pen in her hand and looked around, "Are you asleep?"
"No, sit down."
Jian Jing sat in the armchair by the window and adjusted herself to a comfortable sitting position: "I have a lot of questions that I don't understand."
"For example?" Kang Mucheng had already assumed a posture of listening.
Jian Jing pondered: "Does Leo have a motive to kill Melanie?"
"No." Kang Mucheng said without hesitation, "You don't know Leo. He is a very serious person. If he regards someone as a friend, he will give all his loyalty, and love is no exception. Besides, why did he kill Melanie? They are getting married soon."
"Love can also be murderous." She said matter-of-factly, "Do men have possessiveness?"
Kang Mucheng paused. This didn't seem like a suitable topic for them to discuss. He tried his best to put aside all distracting thoughts and asked, "Are you talking about jealousy or betrayal?"
Jian Jing: "All is fine."
He still shook his head: "Leo is a kind person."
"Okay." Jian Jing didn't pursue the issue and changed the subject. "Can you recall all the details of what happened after the power outage?"
Kang Mucheng tried his best to cooperate: "Leo went out first..."
Before he finished speaking, she interrupted him: "Boss Kang, slow down, he's out. Do you remember which direction he went?"
Kang Mucheng was stunned for a moment, and thought: "Direction? It should be towards the library, right?"
"No, no, you are in that place, and it takes about 2 minutes to walk to the stairs. In the dark environment, the library and the lounge are facing each other, separated by a corridor." Jian Jing described, "It takes at most half an hour to walk up the stairs from the lounge."
She said, "If Leo really went to the library, there was a 90% chance that he would run into Melanie. Even if he didn't run into her, shouldn't he have called her first? Look carefully, which direction are the footsteps going?"
Kang Mucheng pondered in silence.
It would be fine if Jian Jing didn't say anything, but with such a detailed analysis, he couldn't be sure.
At that time, after Leo rushed out the door, where were the footsteps going... where were they going
"The dressing room is on the right, the library and lounge are on the right, and the smoking room is on the left. Is it left or right?"
Kang Mucheng frowned and shook his head, saying, "I can't remember. The singing was very loud at the time, and I was just listening to the song. I didn't pay attention to where he went."
Unexpectedly, Jian Jing suddenly sat up straight and asked for confirmation: "The singing was loud? Are you sure?"
He said, "I'm sure of this, what's wrong?"
Jian Jing propped up her head and muttered, "Strange, it's really strange."