Mary's Nineteenth Century

The morgue is located on the negative floor of the cabin. After entering the room, the temperature drops by three degrees.

As a serious cruise ship, the "Diamond" will definitely not prepare a morgue in advance, but there is a faint smell of blood in it.

Not from Miss Fanny's body, but from the breath left in the room.

"It's usually used to store fresh seafood."

The first officer briefly explained, but he didn't want people to misunderstand that the "Diamond" was engaged in illegal and criminal activities. "The design of the cruise ship took into account the low temperature in the cold storage room, and some special building materials were used."

In the place where seafood was stored in the past, now lies a swollen female corpse.

Mycroft started the autopsy expressionlessly, but his slightly trembling hands could not be ignored.Why do you shake your hands?Of course, because Mrs. Roman couldn't get used to facing the corpse.

What a deceptive background setting.

After boarding the ship, Mycroft No.30 silently greeted Lord Matthew three times.

When Mrs. Roman was not married, she studied medicine with her father who was a doctor.

After getting married, her husband traveled back and forth between Paris and the Eastern Continent, and she often traveled with boats, seeing many exotic customs and customs.

Therefore, Madame Romain is not often seen in Paris, and she is not the same as those noble ladies who like balls and salons.

No matter how different it is, they will not find a corpse to check.

Not to mention the fictitious Mrs. Roman, Mycroft hasn't faced a corpse up close for several years.The last time was three years ago when I sat in on an anatomy class at a medical school in the university time zone.

Today, revisit old dreams.

Mycroft cut open the coat of the corpse without missing a single detail, and he sincerely hoped to find out the truth as soon as possible.

Since being Mrs. Roman made him lose the right to fall in love with desserts, he couldn't also deprive him of his unwillingness to go out.Crack the case early, rest early.

A door apart.

Outside the morgue, there were only three people in the aisle.

Mary, the captain, and Zal, the head of the Nightingale Troupe, will talk about why Fanny's death is suspected to be weird.

"God willing, this won't be a serial murder case."

As soon as Zaar opened his mouth, he threw a bomb, "It's not that I'm alarmist, but it's too weird. Fanny's death is too similar to the plot of "Twenty Thousand Miles of Love: Middle Act" that was originally scheduled to be performed tonight. "

The captain also frowned, "Let me tell. Zall finished writing the mermaid's revenge a month ago, and this voyage is the first performance of this play.

The mermaid begged the wizard for the power of black magic, so the people she killed died in strange ways.The first deceased disappeared inexplicably on a trip to sea. When the ship docked, the sailors found the body at the bottom of the ship, with hair wrapped around the iron rod at the bottom of the ship. "

Does it sound familiar?

It happened to be exactly the same as the corpse in the morgue.

"interesting."

When Mary heard this, she finally became interested. "Did the script not leak out? How many people died in the story?"

"Only eight people know the plot, seven people from the troupe including me, and Mr. Captain. As for how many people died in the story?"

Zaar smiled wryly and shook his head, "The main target of the mermaid's revenge is the prince, and the first to strike is the prince's cronies, that is, the leader who led the troops to destroy the mermaid island. Then..."

Zal counted.

There are kings who died haunted by ghosts, queens who couldn't stop dancing and died of exhaustion, prince brothers whose heads were beheaded in a dream, and princesses from other countries who were engaged to princes for the second time.

"The princess of another country was poisoned to death. At the end of the story, the prince found that everyone around him died one by one. He became more and more frightened, and finally died in a fire."

Zall briefly talked about the plot that was not performed, "No one in the whole palace was spared, and everyone was burned to death."

Speaking of this, Zall couldn't help but feel chills down his spine.

He asked himself that he is a well-informed screenwriter, and here he specifically refers to having read many dramas, and he was deeply impressed by one of them.

—A fictional story that somehow becomes true.

The insane criminal committed the crime by referring to the script's modus operandi.

"God, please forgive me."

Zall deeply regretted, "I didn't choose the dark version of Mermaid's Revenge from the very beginning. It would be great if it was just a simple romantic love story!"

Deaths have already happened.

"It's not time to draw conclusions yet."

Mary talked better than nothing to comfort her, "Mr. Zall, you can pray that the fundamental modus operandi is different. Mermaids kill people with black magic, but there are no non-human forces on this ship."

Not long after, a sailor came to the negative floor.

"Captain Bolton, we searched outside the cruise ship several times, but found no blood, but found this."

The sailor held a piece of pale green gauze which was the corner of Miss Fanny's dress. "It hangs on the rusty metal buckle near the bottom of the boat, the same half-round buckle that the chain is attached to when the boat is tied down."

Half round metal buckle, about the size of your palm.

Welded on the outside of the hull, close to the sea level, it is inevitable to rust due to the erosion of sea water all year round.

"That position is hard to say."

The captain has already fetched the design drawing of the cruise ship. The whole ship has five floors.

The first floor is the restaurant, performance hall, dance hall, control room and crew room;

The second floor is the comfort cabin and the rooms of the troupe members;

The third floor is the first-class cabin; the fourth floor is the casino, sports field, and Turkish bath.

Look up from the place where the pieces of clothing were scratched, and draw a line to find where Miss Fanny might have fallen.

It may be the sea viewing corridor outside the ballroom on the first floor, or it may be near the window of a guest room on the second floor.However, it is impossible to fall from the third and fourth floors, because there are all closed cabins without doors and windows.

"The corridor, anyone can go in and out, but no one has said that they have seen Miss Fanny."

The captain pointed to the guest room on the second floor, "There is no occupant in this room. According to common sense, it should be locked. Before, I also sent someone to check the empty room without guests, and found that the door lock was not damaged. "

is it?

Mary doesn't think the cruise ship's door locks are burglarproof enough that, as far as she's concerned, they can be opened nonviolently.

"I'll check it out later."

Mary turned to ask the sailor, "I noticed that Miss Fanny's hair was cut off. Did you cut it when you salvaged the body?"

The sailor nodded, "Yes. The hair wrapped around the iron rod at the bottom of the boat is too tangled. We have no way to untie it, but to cut it off."

Mary pressed, "The Diamond has been in operation for 11 years.Are you also an experienced old sailor, have you ever encountered something like a tangled hair in your sailor career?I mean, can you be sure it's a hair knot caused by natural forces such as ocean currents? "

It's hard to tell.

The sailor looked conflicted, "The bottom of the boat is often entangled with seaweed. I have indeed seen seaweed in a mess, but human hair..."

The sailor shook his head, "Sir, with all due respect, even if I have encountered wounded or dead bodies at sea, they were all men, and their hair was at most shoulder-length.

The sea is a man's world, and ladies with long hair will only be passengers.Today is the first time in my 20 years of sailor career that I have salvaged a female body in this way. "

Therefore, it is impossible to judge whether the long hair wrapped around the bilge was caused by the waves or someone deliberately did it.

Mary: Wait a minute, what is the sea is a man's world.

At this moment, the door of the morgue was pushed open from the inside.

Mycroft came out, put on clean gloves slowly, and looked around to make sure of the person who had just spoken.

"You said the sea is a man's world?"

Mycroft looked at the sailor calmly, "Then what can you be sure of to prove that you understand the world of the sea?"

The sailor couldn't hide his embarrassment.

He was wrong, why did he forget that it was a lady who came for the autopsy today.

"Um, yes, what can you be sure of?"

The sailor forced himself to use his brain to think, not to be too embarrassing. "Yes! What I am sure of is that there were no bows or ribbons to tie Miss Fanny's hair when the body was found."

In other words, if someone really had made a knot of Miss Fanny's hair at the bottom of the cabin, there was no obvious evidence left.

Mary asked lightly, "Did you find anything else?"

The sailor sneered, "Not anymore."

Seeing this, the captain eased the atmosphere, "Old Bree, you go back to rest first, maybe you will go into the water later. Zall, you might as well wait for the news in the meeting room, please take care of your troupe members."

How to take care of it is self-evident.

It was to let Zall keep the mouths of the other seven people in check, not to reveal that the plot of the mermaid's revenge was actually staged, so as to avoid the spread of panic.

Sailor and Zal both left.

Mycroft was only beginning to speak of the preliminary autopsy results.

"Three findings. First, the fatal trauma was on the back of the head, with rust and white paint remaining on the wound, and the shape of the wound was similar to a circular arc, which was caused by a fall from a height. Second, no signs of struggle were found on the body so far, but Finn Miss Nee has scratches on her neck. I suspect that one of the necklaces she was wearing is missing."

Having said that, Mycroft paused.

"What about the third point?"

The captain couldn't help asking, and saw the first officer came out of the morgue one step later, and the first officer looked very bad.

"Thirdly, I found this in Miss Fanny's sock, under the sole of her foot."

Mycroft pointed to the paper bag in the first mate's hand, signaling him to pour out a scale the size of half a palm. "Looking at the look, the scales are not fresh, they have been stored for a while."

Yes, somewhat shriveled scales, about half the size of a palm.

The air suddenly became quiet!

Fish scales of this size are rare, does it coincide with the theory of mermaid revenge unintentionally?

"Legends are different from reality. In legends, mermaids come from the deep sea, and the scales on their tails are beautiful."

Mary was the first to break the weird atmosphere, "Deep-sea fish in reality basically have no scales, while the scales of common sea fish are very small. With such large scales, it should be a big freshwater fish."

Mycroft nodded, "It's carp scales. It's a very unusual shape. Anyway, I've never been lucky enough to see it. Captain Bolton, "Diamond" doesn't provide this kind of carp meat, right? "

"Of course not, carp is not on our menu."

The captain was sure, and thus plunged into a deeper fog. "If it's a small scale, it can be explained by accidentally dropping it into a sock. But with such a large scale, it's impossible for Miss Fanny to walk without feeling it."

Then we have to figure out, when did the fish scales appear in the socks?During Fanny's life, or after her death?

"Mr. Minton, Mrs. Roman, maybe you should talk to the maid Abby."

The captain rubbed the space between his brows, and things got weirder.As for him and the chief mate, there are still many things to deal with, among which the key point must first be to stabilize the mood of the whole crew.

The four left the negative floor and acted separately.

Mary continued to walk up, but her eyes couldn't help falling on the people walking with her.

There was no one else around, she suddenly smiled and said in a low voice, "Mrs. Roman, you are really a special woman."

Mycroft paused, then continued up the stairs naturally, turning his head back with a smile: "Mr. Minton, are you complimenting me?"