Mary's Nineteenth Century

Moulton, chief director of the London station of the "Art of the Skeleton" traveling exhibition.

On the night of the first exhibition of the skeleton exhibition in London, he died in the glass piranha tank of the Westminster Aquarium.

When it was discovered, the entire body had been eaten by piranhas and almost only a skeleton remained.Incidentally, the decapitation is different.

"God! How did he fall into the three-meter-high fish tank?"

Shopkeeper Tanner looked at the blood-red fish tank in disbelief.

The fish tank is 1.5 meters above the ground, and the tank is 1.5 meters high, and the glass cover on it is not tightly sealed.It is impossible for a person to fall into the tank under normal activities.

In the piranha exhibition hall, the furnishings are in order.There were no traces of fighting, and no suspicious footprints on the ground.

Except for the addition of a fresh wreck in the fish tank, everything else looked as if it had been cleaned and tidy last night when the museum was closed.

Not only the piranha area, but other exhibition halls are also very tidy.

It is not ruled out that Moulton opened the door by himself. He has a set of keys for the temporary passage of the aquarium and the skeleton exhibition hall, but does not include the live fish exhibition area.

However, the door locks used in the aquarium are not precision objects, and some lockpicking experience can handle them.

"Are you sure it was Mr. Moulton who died?"

Lestrade came to the scene after receiving the alarm. "The body can't see the original appearance of the human body at all. It can only be judged based on the clothes and hair left in the water tank. Who has been to Moulton's residence? Maybe it's not the dead. Where is Morton?"

Last time, in the hunting case that happened in the X forest, the murderer had cheated.

Dress up a group of slum dead people in an attempt to confuse investigators into thinking they are missing people.

Lestrade had learned from past experience, so of course he had to ask more clearly.

"I asked someone about it, but there was no one in the hotel. The front desk said that Moulton left at eleven o'clock last night."

The owner of Tanner gave the address of the hotel. In order to facilitate the management of the skeleton exhibition, Moulton lived a 15-minute walk from the aquarium. "I'm not familiar with him, and I haven't heard him mention a late-night appointment."

Tanner and Moulton, an investor of an exhibition organizer and a person in charge of an exhibition organizer, are also business partners.

Lestrade saw a little bit of clues, "Shopkeeper, this is not the first time we have met. Look at you, seeing what happened to Moulton, why do you have some emotions of "as expected"? "

There was no sign of a fight at the death scene. If Moulton entered the aquarium without being coerced, the possibility of an acquaintance committing the crime cannot be ruled out.

Why is it determined that he killed it, not that Moulton wanted to steal the piranha and fell into the water tank?

Because piranhas can eat people, but they can't cut Moulton's body and head with precision like a knife.

"Officer L, did you also have an ominous premonition at a certain moment in the past?"

The owner of the shop Tanner said bluntly, "I am not sure that Morton will die, but I feel that something will happen to this skeleton exhibition. Did you see the lucky rabbit feet in the souvenir shop when you entered the aquarium? They were customized by me, and the first One batch went missing. The lucky rabbit’s feet went missing, and I was a little uneasy right then and there.”

A few days ago, exhibits from the skeleton exhibition were sent from New York to London.The rabbit's foot that accompanied the ship disappeared, and was replaced by a large suitcase containing human corpses.

"Later, I sent a telegram to the supplier in New York, who firmly denied that the wrong goods were sent."

Tanner was skeptical, but it was impossible for the other party to admit sending a corpse.The procedures for legal corpse trading these days are complicated, and most of them are black market and illegal trading.

Corpse?

So there was a dead body already?

Lestrade didn't expect this to happen. "Whose corpse? What kind of corpse?"

"I don't know who it belongs to. Anyway, it was shipped from New York Harbor. Moulton explained at the time that it was a prop during a performance. I knew he was lying when I heard it."

Shopkeeper Tanner is well aware of the plot of the self-made drama, and the props used in it are all artificially made and synthesized, so there is no real corpse.

Why didn't you ask what happened?

The reason, of course, is to do business smoothly.

Morton is in charge of the skeleton exhibition, and he can figure out who he will contact with his toes, and there must be a type of bone trafficker among them.

The shopkeeper Tanner believed that Moulton had taken on a private job, and he did not go into the source of the suitcase's body in order to keep the exhibition going smoothly without any conflict.

It's not that Lestrade is unsophisticated, he already knows the tricks.

The question now is who killed Morton?Does it have anything to do with that suitcase corpse? "So, what about the body in the suitcase?"

"I don't know. Since Moulton said it was a prop, I let him keep it."

The shopkeeper Tanner didn't ask too much, "I took a glance when I opened the box. The deceased looked like an old man, most of his face was rotten, and he had a scrawny figure. The clothes he wore were tattered, and he looked like a scavenger."

The Whitechapel area of ​​London has a lot of scavengers.The owner of Tanner opened a dangerous pet shop there, and saw many similar dead bodies.

Those dead should theoretically be buried in welfare cemeteries, or at worst in mass graves, but some of them have become black market sources of corpses.

No wonder.

Tanner would not dispute a suspected black market corpse with Moulton during the exhibition, but who would have thought that Moulton would be killed.

He could only guess the whereabouts of the corpse in the suitcase. "Moulton lives in a hotel, and he can't put the corpse in the hotel. It is most likely in the storage room at the back of the skeleton exhibition hall."

Scotland Yard failed to find any further clues at the aquarium.

In the skeleton exhibition hall, there were quite a few shrunken human heads in the display cabinets, but there were no suitcases in the storage room.

The other employees who organized the exhibition couldn't remember where the suitcases went.According to their memories, the suitcase was placed in the storage room a few days ago, and the key was kept by Moulton alone.

As for the opening day on June [-], no one paid attention to the specific situation of the storage room, and everyone was busy paying attention to the situation of the exhibition.

Let's talk about the aquarium. Because of the sluggish business, only two night guards were arranged at the main entrance at night.

There is no night patrol team, and there are no security personnel even at the side door.Naturally, no one heard any abnormal movements in the late-night piranha area.

Sometimes, life just sucks.

Some people think that one thing more is worse than one thing less. Others' indifference and seemingly insignificant behavior are superimposed, which constitutes many obstacles to solving the murder case.

Lestrade sneered in his heart, and he had no choice but to take away the wreckage of Moulton first.

This case doesn't look complicated, but there are no clues to be found.

A group of people related to Morton, such as Tanner's shop owner, other skeleton exhibition staff, etc., have alibi from last night to morning.

**

December 6, at dusk.

Mary's home welcomes two visitors, Lestrade and Tanner.

The two came straight to the point and said their intentions, hoping to find out the truth about Moulton's death as soon as possible.

"Mr. Minton, you know there's always some competition for the Skeleton Show. "

The owner of Tanner hopes that the exhibition will go on smoothly. Moulton's death will not stop the exhibition. The organizer will send another person in charge, but it is hard to say whether the tickets will be sold smoothly. “A few gossips can ruin an exhibition.”

Mary understood, "For example, whoever watches the skeleton exhibition will be targeted by the god of death. The first deceased has appeared, and it is Moulton, the former head of the organizer who had the most contact with the skeleton."

exactly!

Shopkeeper Tanner nodded heavily, "London has no shortage of newspapers catching rumors, and the fact that Moulton was dismembered by piranhas cannot be kept secret."

As soon as these words came out, Lestrade's complexion was not very good.

As a police officer of Scotland Yard, he did not want to admit that foreign aid was necessary to solve the case, but the situation waited for no one.

Take the discovery of Moulton's death this morning as an example. Scotland Yard told the aquarium to block the news as much as possible, but the deterrence is obviously insufficient.

The Evening Times, published half an hour earlier, published the murder on page three.Apparently, a staff member leaked the news to the outside world, or it should be said that they sold the news about the murder case, and the newspaper would pay for it.

At the moment, the owner of Tanner is willing to pay for foreign aid, and Lestrade can't stop him.

Hearing this, Mary didn't talk nonsense, as if she was a righteous man who was determined to catch the real murderer. "Life is at stake, so let's get straight to the point. What clues are there now? Autopsy results?"

There really aren't many clues.

Lestrade could only reluctantly say, "At present, it is speculated that the crime was committed by a gang. After all, to throw a grown man into a three-meter-high water tank, one needs to step on a ladder or a stool to throw the body. It is too difficult for one person to operate gone."

Also, the oversized suitcase containing the unidentified body was missing.

That box is also very heavy, and if it takes a long distance, one person may not be able to carry it.

"As for the autopsy results..."

Lestrade shook his head, the flesh and internal organs were gone, and there was only a pile of skeletons left, how could we detect it.

"The doctor who took over the autopsy has not been found for the time being. The old police detective looked at the bones and made a new discovery-in addition to the piranha tooth marks on Moulton's bones, there are also some sharp tool marks."

"What about the specific situation?"

Mary didn't let go of any detail, "What kind of puncture wound? Where on the body? How many punctures were there?"

Lestrade recalled, "It wasn't a fatal injury. There were wounds on the limbs and torso. It's hard to say what kind of sharp weapon it was. It was like an awl. There were more than [-] stabs in total."

"So, in the twenties?"

Mary saw Lestrade shaking his head in embarrassment, and she stood up first. "Let's go, go to Scotland Yard first, and count how many puncture marks there are."

Lestrade didn't understand, "Is the specific number of stabs important? It looks like a kind of stabbing to vent anger, and the murderer himself may not even know how many stabs were stabbed."

"Agent L, according to your description, do you really think the murderer didn't know how many knives were stabbed?"

Mary spoke softly, "The scene was so clean that there were no footprints. It is suspected that a gang committed the crime, and there was no blood left outside the fish tank. Among other things, how did you cut off the head without leaving any blood?"

The shopkeeper Tanner answered quickly, "Could it be that the head was chopped off on the fish tank? Like killing a chicken, holding the head in one hand and wielding a knife in the other? All the blood flowed into the fish tank. The smell of blood aroused the viciousness of the piranhas. They Eat up the corpses."

"Yes. The problem is that a human head is not a chicken head. Even a professional executioner can't guarantee a one-shot death."

Mary had to see the corpse, "You two, don't you feel it? If the aquarium is the first murder scene, it shows the murderer's emotions—calm to cruel."

Therefore, there is no needless venting of anger like stabbing a dead body.

Lestrade realized later, "We are facing an organized, disciplined and professional murder gang."

Mary couldn't be 100% sure, so had to see the body first.

When she heard that there were more than [-] puncture marks on the bone, she had a vague guess.It is necessary to count the specific number in order to verify the speculation.

After half an hour.

Scotland Yard mortuary, but one person arrived first.

"Mr. Holmes?"

Lestrade opened the door unexpectedly to see Mycroft.But he didn't ask stupidly, because the senior inspector of Scotland Yard was still standing in the mortuary.No need to ask, it was his superior who brought Mr. Holmes.

"good afternoon."

Mycroft greeted briefly, and expressed his intention more simply, "I heard that something happened in the aquarium, and I'm here to take care of the situation."

Mary didn't believe this kind of nonsense. Who would let Mycroft, who should be reading in the club after get off work, move to the morgue?

The answer is simple - Mr. Matthew.While the death of the head of the traveling exhibition was not enough to alarm Whitehall, something more serious may have occurred.

Mary and Mycroft looked at each other, but neither said anything.

But Mycroft nodded slightly, which seemed to indicate that Mr. Minton had guessed right.

The specific situation will be discussed later.

At the moment, Mary focused on the corpse first, "Mr. Holmes, since you have seen the corpse, you must have counted the number of sharp weapon wounds. Is it 23, 22, or 29, 28?"

Mycroft reported a number, "It's 28 stab wounds. Mr. Minton, if you ask this question, you must have guessed like that."

"28 stab wounds, plus a beheading knife."

Mary knew that things would not be easy, "A total of 29 dollars, this figure seems a bit obvious."

Lestrade: Wait a minute, wait a minute!

What happened to the number 29?Why do you look so knowing?Could it be that he suddenly lost his mind?

Thinking about it, Lestrade took a peek at the shopkeeper Tanner who followed and the senior inspector opposite.

He secretly breathed a sigh of relief, it was good that he was not the only one with a confused face.So he can rest assured.