HBWnovel Chapter 260
Chapter 260
Chapter 260
At the restaurant, Jian Jing sits alone by the window, recording today's investigation results in her small notebook.
So far, there seem to be three motives for killing Zi Shu:
1. Disrupting the transaction (the buyer lost the bid? Doesn't want the auction to succeed? Prevent the bronze head from leaving?)
2. Thinking Zi Shu was the seller (snatching the bronze head? Out of historical resentment?)
3. Personal revenge against Zi Shu for his forgery
Zi Shu's time of death was between 8:30-10:30pm. By screening everyone's timeline, the following suspects can be obtained:
Chou Niu: 7:52-8:30 pm, bidder 2
Shen Hou: 7:50-8:35 pm, bidder 2
Wu Ma: 8:15-9:00 pm, claimed to be a proxy bidder, refused to disclose the client and auction item
Yin Hu: 8:40-9:20 pm, bidder 2
Si She: 9:30-9:55 pm, bidder 1
Chen Long: 9:50-10:00 pm, refused to disclose
--Auction Ends--
Xu Gou: 10:05-10:15 pm, bidder 3
Yin Hu: 10:10-10:20 pm, left for the third time
Hai Zhu: 10:15-10:25 pm, bidder 2
Through the timeline, Wei Yang and You Ji can be ruled out, but it cannot be determined that they have no suspicion. For example, could the elderly woman You Ji have conspired with Shen Hou?
But there is still a critical question here.
After 10pm, not everyone necessarily went to the auction room, but before 10pm, everyone had gone to the auction room. If Zi Shu had died very early, how could later arrivals not have noticed? Or to be more precise, would they cover it up for someone?
Maybe they would, but the bodyguards said that after 9pm, they saw with their own eyes Zi Shu ordering them to fetch fruit.
So the scope can be further narrowed down.
Yin Hu: 8:40-9:20 pm
Si She: 9:30-9:55 pm
Chen Long: 9:50-10:00 pm
--Auction Ends--
Xu Gou: 10:05-10:15 pm
Yin Hu: 10:10-10:20 pm
Hai Zhu: 10:15-10:25 pm
The murderer is among these five people.
Then, don't forget about the missing auction slip. This could have been taken by the murderer, or by someone who came later. There is no further information for now.
Jian Jing bites the end of her pen and tries to deduce some possibilities first:
1. Yin Hu knew the auction failed, killed Zi Shu in a moment of impulse, then fled in panic. Si She and Chen Long discovered the problem but chose to remain silent for various reasons (such as the auction slip). Later, afraid of exposure, Yin Hu returned to the auction room and faked the locked room scenario.
It kind of makes sense, but it's quite far-fetched. Could it be that both Si She and Chen Long held grudges against the deceased? Yin Hu should also have known clearly that problems would be discovered immediately by later arrivals. And it's really difficult for two people to both remain silent.
2. The killer is Si She, and Chen Long kept silent for some reason. Then in all likelihood, he took away the auction slip and faked the locked room - if he couldn't get in and didn't know about the victim's death, it seems a bit unreasonable for him to stay silent.
3. The last person to enter, Chen Long, is the killer.
But don't forget that Xu Gou, Yin Hu and Hai Zhu went out again at 10pm. Surely it can't be just by coincidence that all three really needed the bathroom at the same time? If any one of them went to the auction room, why didn't they mention the locked room?
Oh right, the locked room.
She circles this phrase. There are many possibilities for creating a locked room scenario - detective novels have mentioned it more than once. For example:
1. Disguise the victim’s death as suicide or accident;
2. Frame the person who has the key or is in the same room;
Could it be that the murderer is Yin Hu or Hai Zhu?
Yin Hu went back and forth three times, showing strong intention. Hai Zhu has a rude personality and deliberately rushed into the locked room first, which seems to match the motive of the creator of the locked room very well - but what is the use of this locked room?
No, something is wrong.
Something is completely wrong!
Jian Jing suddenly became irritable, feeling that this case was not like what was being analyzed at all. It seemed to make sense and be reasonable without any other explanation, but it just made people feel uncomfortable all over.
This is not the feeling of taking the pulse accurately.
Intuition told her it was not true, and under the "Spiritual Intuition" skill card, intuition is usually correct.
The reasoning just now was definitely not the truth.
She knocked hard on her forehead, discarding all previous thoughts.
Forget about the auction, forget about the collectibles, forget about the motive.
Review the clues from the beginning.
The reliable clues currently known are: 1. The timeline she witnessed herself; 2. The testimonies of the two bodyguards; 3. The terrain of the locked room, including the auction room and the large locked room from the hall to the auction room; 4. The missing auction list.
Is there anything else?
Are any clues being overlooked?
Jian Jing racked her brains, but still did not have the answer.
The clock ticked to eleven o'clock. She glanced at the clock in the auction room, brought over a chair, climbed up and took a look. Very good, the dust accumulation was uniform and moderate in thickness, no one had tampered with the time.
So why make a locked room?
A super simple locked room that anyone who has read detective novels could suggest a way out of, what is the necessity of its existence?
It couldn't be that the murderer had a flash of inspiration and did it on a whim while having a chuunibyou episode, right? Any author who dared to write that could expect a rating of 1.0 on Bookworm Reviews.
After fussing about it, it was twelve o'clock, still without a clue, so she had to go back to sleep.
The sleep quality was terrible.
It seemed like she had just dozed off for a bit when she heard strange noises outside. She jolted up in shock, rushed out the door, and patrolled the corridor vigilantly: "What's going on?"
An employee came rushing down the stairs, panting: "This is bad, something happened in the safe room!"
Jian Jing: "Huh?"
She hurried upstairs. By the time she reached the hall, she saw the overflowing pungent white smoke. The character status panel indicated "trace anesthetic".
"You stay here and wait, I'll go take a look." She stopped the employee and entered alone.
Inside the passage, the white fog was even denser. She held her breath, thinking she could rush in in one go by relying on immunity. However, this time she had overestimated the 1 point increase.
Just barely making it to the vicinity of the safe room, she already felt dizzy and her vision blurred. She could vaguely see that the four bodyguards guarding the door of the safe room were all unconscious.
She really wanted to take a closer look, but it was difficult to stay in the enclosed passage for even one more second, so she quickly retreated back to the hall, opened the doors wide, and asked the employees to arrange the ventilation system to quickly dispel the anesthetic fog.
After about ten minutes, the white fog finally dispersed and she hurried in.
The doors of all three safe rooms were wide open. The safes in Room 1 and Room 3 were completely undamaged, but the safe containing the bronze head sculpture in Room 2 had been violently cut open, completely empty inside.
Jian Jing couldn't help but swear.
The employee who had come with her was dumbfounded: "What should we do now?"
"Wake up Tina, contact Mr. Gu, and then gather all the guests in the dining room," Jian Jing said.
The employee hurried to follow her instructions.
When Tina arrived, she was still wearing silk pajamas, and asked in a shocked and bewildered tone: "The collectible... was stolen? Who stole it?"
Jian Jing was also quite frustrated. She also wanted to know! But she couldn't panic, and spoke calmly: "We are going to investigate this matter. Go ask all the staff on the ship, who was not sleeping or not at their post just now."
Tina had one advantage in that although she could not make decisions, once given a command she could take action: "Oh, okay."
Jian Jing called the four unconscious bodyguards over. They were still a little woozy and confused about the situation.
"Tell me what happened just now, you go first." She randomly pointed at one of them.