The sheriff and Shade met on the stairs where no one was around to prevent anyone from seeing Shade. The tall, thin, shrewd middle-aged man took Shade's ID and checked it, then stood at attention:
"What can I do for you? How can we help you?"
MI6 is part of the Royal Army and is not part of the same system as the police. However, when MI6 agents are in action, low-ranking police officers must provide cooperation. Although the sergeant is higher than a police officer, he is also a low-ranking police officer.
"This murder case is related to what I'm investigating. I need to learn some things about this case and identify the murderer as soon as possible before I can proceed to the next step."
Xia De said, the sheriff was a little embarrassed:
"The case is not complicated. We originally suspected that this was part of a recent serial murder case of stealing internal organs, which is why so many people were brought in. However, the body is intact, with only a stab wound and one knife wound. It should not be the recent incident."
The security situation in Midhill Castle is really worrying.
"However, there are too many tenants on the fourth floor. We have only simply screened the possible perpetrators and found 21 possible murderers. If we want to find them as soon as possible..."
"Where is the crime scene?"
Xia De asked directly. This swift and decisive approach further strengthened the sheriff's trust in him:
"In the dead man's room."
"Take me to see it. Also, send the others away for the time being. I don't want too many people to see me."
"clear."
The sheriff asked the police to take the 21 suspicious tenants to another room to wait temporarily, and he took Shad to the room with the metal sign "11".
The rooms on the third floor of the Xikar Hotel are large rooms divided into small rooms with little privacy, while the fourth floor is a real single room, just as small as the guest rooms of the Three Cats Hotel. The desk, bedside table, wardrobe and bed almost fill the entire room. The room is very clean and there is no peculiar smell. The windows and curtains are closed, and the flower-shaped gas lamp on the wall is lighting it up.
"Why are you drawing the curtains in broad daylight? There's no taller building nearby."
Xia De thought to himself.
The deceased was still lying on the ground, but was covered with a white cloth. Xia De lifted it and took a look. The bullet had hit the heart directly from the front, which was the cause of death. There was also a knife wound on the shoulder, which seemed to indicate that there had been a fight there before the shooting.
"Look, this is a typical Carsonrick look."
The shrewd-looking middle-aged sheriff commented.
"What is his identity?"
"We just did a cursory check of his luggage and found his ID. The innkeeper, Mr. Thales, also confirmed that he had been living here since the beginning of the Harvest Month. He claimed to be a merchant from the south and came to Midhill Castle to wait for a batch of goods."
Xia De nodded, and then pretended to search the room. With the bleeding knife wound, he could have used Blood Echo to find the real murderer, but he still had to pretend.
Originally it was just a perfunctory search, but the sheriff behind him introduced it to Xia De diligently, so Xia De had to pretend to be serious.
The luggage of this Carsonrick merchant was simple, with only his personal clothing, a few novels, and a deck of Rhodes cards. In addition, it was worth noting that he had a ticket to the local "Star Tri-Rhodes Card Club" and a ticket from Midhill Castle back to Carsonrick in a book. He had actually purchased a ticket in advance for next Tuesday, which was the first of next month. I guess he already knew the time to pick up the goods.
"Does the innkeeper know when this person usually goes out and when he comes back?"
Shade asked again, and the sheriff looked through his notebook:
"He usually goes downstairs to have breakfast at eight o'clock, and then goes out. He comes back at eleven o'clock in the morning to have lunch, and then takes a nap. In the afternoon, he usually does not go out. He either stays in his room or goes downstairs to play cards with others. After dinner in the evening, he sometimes goes out, but once he goes out, he will not come back to spend the night."
"Life is simple."
Shade said, and then he took out the other person's wallet from his coat on the chair. It was black leather and looked ordinary. The police hadn't checked it yet, so Shade opened it in front of the sheriff.
There were about 3 pounds of banknotes and coins, and several business cards written in Carsonic, which belonged to the deceased, the law firm, and the warehouse. In addition, there was the train ticket when the deceased came to Midhill Castle and several casino weights. The ticket had holes punched in it, indicating that it had been used, and the weights came from a casino very close to here.
"He goes out every night, doesn't he just go to the casino?"
Shade muttered, reaching into the other side pocket of his coat and pulling out a pair of grey gloves. He checked his chest pocket and this time pulled out a pocket watch that looked new, a few coins, a handwritten receipt for the purchase of the pocket watch, and a fountain pen.
When I opened the watch cover, I saw a photo of a woman embedded inside, probably the other person's wife.
"Looks normal."
Then he picked up the pen casually. It was brass in color, about as long as Xia De's middle finger, but only one-third as thick as the middle finger. He took a look and found nothing wrong with it, but suddenly he was stunned:
"Why does this pen look so familiar?"
Of course it looks familiar. You have used magic on it and can recognize the marks.
This was the pen that Shade had received from Virgil Cameron on the night of the Grand City Players finals. Shade later passed the pen to the Gray Gloves intelligence system in exchange for 2,000 pounds. After less than half a month, he actually saw it here again.
He pretended to check the pen to make sure that the filament and the note inside the pen cap were gone. If Xia De had not touched it with his own hands and even cast the Breath of Time, he would not have believed that there would be such a coincidence even if the pen looked exactly the same.
"Did Detective Sparrow cast some kind of curse on me? Why do I always run into people with gray gloves?"
He thought with astonishment, but appeared to be normal as he closed the pen and put it back in its place.
You don't have this curse.
So the so-called "merchant" who died was the consignee who received intelligence from the Principality of Set and came to Punjab Street to pick up the goods. And Shade remembered the date of the goods collection very clearly, which was the last day of this month, which was next Monday. Therefore, the deceased bought a ticket in advance for the first day of next month, which was next Tuesday; so the deceased had time to hang out in the casino instead of acting like a normal businessman.
"But what does this have to do with me?"
Xia De thought to himself, stuffed all these things back into his clothes, and then said to the sheriff:
"Let's go to the corridor and take a look."
He blinked, trying to forget that he had just recognized the pen, and then followed the faint bloodstain left by the knife wound, watching the trace fly all the way out the door, then turn in the corridor and into the next room on the left.
"The murderer was his neighbor."
Xia De said this calmly. Although the sheriff was surprised at why Xia De came to this conclusion, he did not ask any more questions because he looked calm.
As long as the murderer is found, there are plenty of ways to make him tell all the details.
"Who live opposite him, and on his left and right?"
Shade asked, standing in the hallway.
"The person living across the street is a linguistics professor from the South, Professor Ruel Higgins. He just moved in last week and is visiting Midhill Castle for an exchange program. The professor is also a suspect, but he doesn't look like the murderer."
It wasn't folklore that disappointed Shade, but if it was really folklore, he would worry about whether this matter was related to the ring warlock.
"But, it's the Kasenrick people again?"
Shad now looked at all the Carsonricks as if they were Gray Glove agents.
"There are two people living in the room on the right, Armand Bernhard and his nephew Lester Bernhard. They are also from Carsenrick and came to Midhill Castle to seek refuge with local relatives. This is easy to find out. In addition, the two of them are not on the fourth floor now. They went out in the morning, so they can be ruled out as suspects."
"Bernhard?"
These two names are the names of the two vampires encountered in the narrow space between life and death, so they are definitely not agents of the Gray Gloves.
"Fortunately I'm out now, so we don't have to meet each other."
Xia De felt a little relieved, and then asked:
"What about the left one?"
"The one on the left is Mr. Bain Bennett, a businessman who also came from Carsenrick and has lived in the inn for half a year."
He is from Carsenrick again, and happens to be the murderer, so he could be...
"It's none of my business."
Xia De suppressed his distracting thoughts, emphasized it again in his mind, and then said to the sheriff:
"He is most likely the murderer."
Now Mr. Bennett is being held in another room with other suspects. Those people are very dissatisfied and do not want their personal freedom to be restricted, but the sheriff pretends not to hear him. Apart from Professor Higgins, there is no one else in the room whose identity is worthy of note.
“Are there so many foreigners here?”
He asked casually.
"In winter, the train service through the West Carr Mountains is also affected and the frequency is reduced, so if people need to travel back and forth between the two countries this year, they will try to do it in the autumn."
The sheriff said that they opened the room of the foreign businessman, and then Shad pretended to check it again, and easily found the blood-stained dagger and two pistols of different models under the loose floorboards under the bed.
"Someone actually went out with two pistols? I see... The receiver did not bring a weapon to avoid being exposed, and was protected by other people who came here six months earlier (note), so the murderer was also... But why did he have to shoot... Was it an internal conflict..."
Detective Sparrow knew that there was an important mission in Harvest Moon six months in advance, which means that the Principality of Set and Gray Gloves had previous exchanges, so Gray Gloves may have known in advance that the place to receive the goods was Midhill Castle. But the specific location was not passed on by the "Gray Eagle" until the goods were obtained by the Principality of Set in Harvest Moon. Therefore, the fact that the Gray Gloves were able to settle down in the local area six months in advance was not a loophole.
"What exactly is the cargo being delivered?"
Although this was a question, it had nothing to do with Xia De. Xia De did not explore it. He could no longer have anything to do with the spies.
So he did not show up again, and the sheriff announced to everyone that the murderer had been found. Mr. Ben Bennett, who still wanted to quibble, admitted dejectedly that he was indeed the one who did it after seeing the evidence:
"I played Rhodes with him, and this guy owed me 3 pounds a week. He said he would pay it back today, but when I went to him, he denied it. I was furious..."
For Xia De, who almost touched the truth, this must be a lie, but he did not expose it.
Mr. Bennett was then taken away by the police, along with the part of his and the deceased's luggage that could serve as evidence. Because neither he nor the deceased had any acquaintances in the local area, the remaining luggage was temporarily handed over to Professor Higgins, who lived across the street from Carson Creek, for safekeeping until the police found a contact person to take it away.
The deceased, the murderer and Professor Higgins were all from Carsonrick, and the three of them had a good relationship. Shad understood that there were many stories involved, but he still chose not to intervene.
No matter what the cargo was, or whether others knew the information in the pen and could receive the cargo after the death of the deceased, it had nothing to do with Shade. He already had many main occupations, detective, ring wizard, and Rhodes player. He couldn't add a double agent to make himself even busier.
You thought so too before passing on that information.
"She" was whispering softly, and the voice was very pleasant.
"It's definitely true this time."
Yeah
Then there was only the laughter.