Mermaid Reef

John saw his own face through the window glass, very dark.

He didn't understand how the money he kept in the bank safe was taken away. Some accident must have happened in the middle.

John got up in a hurry, ran back to Detective Martin's desk, and quickly asked, "What is the relationship between that banker named Ball and Pullen Bank in London?"

Detective Martin was taken aback for a moment, then took out a notepad from his pocket.

"...well, he's Swiss. He became the new director of Pullen Bank a few years ago, but the economic situation is not ideal recently, and he sold his shares before leaving London."

John's eyelids twitched, and he gritted his teeth and said, "So that's the case, I know."

As a detective, John will read the newspaper in time to grasp all kinds of information.

So John is very clear that the Great Depression that caused turmoil in the United States a year ago has not passed, and it has also affected the European financial industry.

The doors of the stock exchange were almost smashed down, and many middle-class people became poor overnight.Many factories were closed, countless people lost their jobs, and some bankers were in trouble due to unrecoverable debts and investment failures.

If you want to get out of the predicament and keep your social status, you can only find a way to raise money.

Selling antiques, real estate, and securities are all very common means.

Obviously, these were not enough, or failed to sell at a reasonable price, so Bauer couldn't help but use his brain and stared at the anonymous safes of Pullen Bank.

There are two types of private safes in banks, one is fixed and the other is temporary, both of which require payment of fees.

However, the former are usually people with status, so they cannot move.

The situation of the latter is more complicated. A large part of it is stolen goods, which cannot be seen, and part of it is money or items assigned to someone.

John has used this method to receive remuneration from many clients. The client deposits money and items and produces a receipt with the name of the item and the cabinet number on it.After completing the commission, the detective gets the key and goes to the bank to extract it.

Whether it is extraction or storage, you do not need to provide your real name.

At the same time, there is also a disadvantage of anonymous extraction. If it is lost, missing, or broken, it will not be compensated.

This is because when many people store items anonymously, they are unwilling to truthfully fill in the name of the item on the receipt, or they are unwilling to unpack the item and let the bank staff check it. How to estimate the value of things that are difficult to distinguish and whose contents are unknown?

The maximum storage period for anonymous safes is only five years.

Once five years arrive, no matter what is inside, it will be cleaned up by the bank and owned by the bank.

So Bauer must have first set his mind on those anonymous safes that were about to expire, and turned them into his own personal property, and then he was not greedy, and he focused on those who had rented the longest period and had no movement within two years. safe.

John cursed angrily: "That damn bastard, is he so short of money? How big a hole can those little Spanish gold coins fill?"

He disposed of the bag of gold coins so casually, partly because he was in a hurry, and partly because the money was a windfall to ordinary Londoners, but it was nothing to the bank.

Spanish gold coins are rare because of their high gold content, so they were melted down and recast into new coins.

Well-preserved Spanish gold coins, the value is not bad, but not without, what gold coins have not seen in an old bank?I will not smash my own credit and embezzle customers' gold coins.

Who would have thought that there would be a bank director like Ball who was determined to sell his shares and run away?

John left London in April 1928. Not to mention him at that time, people all over the world could not have imagined that such a tsunami-like economic crisis would occur.

John stood up angrily, ready to go to the banker Ball, because the guy was not in the dining car.

"What are you talking about? Bauer is not selling ordinary Spanish gold coins, but King's gold coins!" Detective Martin said while flipping through the notepad.

"King gold coins?"

John froze.

Of course, the king's gold coin does not refer to the gold coin with the king's head, but a special gold coin specially minted for the royal family, which is generally not used for circulation.

John never emptied out the bag of gold coins.

When Jason proposed to add more money and threw the purse over in the alley, John only checked the two or three coins on it. Who knew there were "special models" in this bag of gold coins?

John's head was buzzing, and he almost wanted to ask Jason what it meant?Mix a surprise in plain gold?

The detective straightened up, then sat back down in frustration.

He bet that the evil god couldn't tell the difference between these gold coins, thinking they were all the same.

"Detective Martin, there is one thing I have to tell you." John swallowed back the curse words of the gold coins, and changed his words, "It is very likely that Ball has been paying to the first-class car from last night to this morning. Passengers are selling these antique coins."

"what?"

Detective Martin was shocked.

Because the information he received was that Bauer was going to sell gold coins at the Venice auction house.

"...He can't wait, or he doesn't want to waste time, he just wants to get rid of these gold coins as soon as possible."

In fact, John suspected that the banker was afraid of the curse. There was one more thing that John didn’t understand. People who bought antique coins had accidents. How could the banker himself be alive and kicking until he boarded the Orient Express and appeared in front of Jason?

"We need to reclaim these gold coins. No more accidents can happen. We can't...can't let that gang of robbers continue to create murders." John said to Detective Martin with great difficulty.

If the gold coins can be identified as stolen goods and the banker is forced to refund the passengers' money, there is still room for redemption.

Otherwise, after the train arrives at the station, the crowd will disperse and there will be no compensation, and the passengers will not admit that they bought antique gold coins on the train, so what should we do?The evil god will not work voluntarily for the safety of human beings.

John thought with a headache, would it be too difficult for his family to steal the gold coins back?

With a dark face, John left the dining car with Detective Martin.

At this time, the chef and the waiter came over holding a silver plate high, and there was someone pushing a food delivery cart behind.

All the passengers turned their heads to look at the food on the plate.

It's a lobster as long as an arm.

The strong aroma of butter gratin permeated the whole car.

Jason: "..."

Gemil: "..."

Looking at this big lobster with its head intact, I feel very delicate.

How should I put it, it's like a person who is tired of eating potatoes and doesn't want to eat them anymore, and suddenly finds that the ants have added several kinds of odorants to make it into a luxurious delicacy that every ant admires from the bottom of their hearts... It's not impossible , but a huge question arises in my heart, are potatoes worth it?

Gemil suspects that the one on the table is not a lobster, but some kind of human food that looks very similar to a lobster.

The chef made a thick soup with lobster tails, and brought a bottle of white wine from Burgundy, France, to accompany the meal.

The chef can only speak French, Jason understands half of it, he is responsible for nodding.

Gemil only understood the reserved pride of the human chef and the expressions of admiration from the others, as if he thought that this kind of just the right heat is very rare, and the ingredients are also very rare.

The second dish was also brought to the table, yes, impromptu requisitioning the empty tables in the back (the lobster plate was too big).

Special round hole iron plate, ten grilled snails that are still sizzling.

It has a strong creamy and wine flavor, and the chef sprinkles fennel and pepper on the spot.

"Shellfish?" Gemil asked Jason in a low voice.

"It's not... well, more or less, a land shellfish?" Jensen was thankful that he at least knew about snails.

The menu is at the fingertips of Gemil.

Although they can eat more food, in order not to scare humans, these two dishes are enough for lunch today and cannot be added.

"Travel like a human." Jensen reminded Gemil, and reminded himself at the same time.

The sommelier opens the bottle with his own hands, pours out some for them to taste, and puts it on the table after confirmation.

This kind of wine can be drunk directly without sobering up, but neither Jason nor Gemil understands this detail. There are various types of human odorants, which may be more than the number of celestial bodies in the solar system.Although I can't figure out the human's bragging and praise for wine, there is nothing wrong with trying it.

Let Jensen nod, smile, pay, and be done.

The chef got compliments and tips from the guests, and happily left with the waiter.

"Human tastes are really strange."

Gemil didn't take off his mask, he temporarily made the people around him ignore his existence, the hand holding the fork turned into a black shadow, and quickly swallowed the lobster and snails on the fork.

Jason was more human than him, bringing the fork to his mouth, chewing slowly.

At this moment, there was a loud noise in the dining car.

The American car dealer covered his neck and rolled his eyes.

He overturned all the dinner plates on the ground, made a strange sound from his throat, tears were streaming down his face, and his expression was panic.

"He's choking!"

Miss Vanessa stood up and screamed.

Some people avoided in panic, and some tried to pat the car dealer on the shoulder.

But none of these actions worked. The car dealer's face became more and more red. He desperately wanted to cough, but he could only make a strange noise.

He fell powerlessly to the ground, and he was about to die.

In the confusion, Jason kicked the car dealer.

"puff."

The American car dealer spat out a small piece of sheep bone, and then began to wheeze like a broken bellows.

There was blood on the bones, the blood from his own throat being cut.

"Is there a doctor? Is there a doctor on this train?"

"Yes, in the second-class compartment..."

Not long after, a short and stout man rushed over, led by the conductor, carrying a medical kit.

At this moment, John also came. Seeing the mess, he subconsciously went to find Jason, only to find that the chaos happened next to that table, but the two evil gods were sitting in front of the glowing red lobster plate, savoring leisurely. wine.

John: "..."

Before the detective had time to clean up his mood, he saw the doctor who was treating the American car dealer again in a blink of an eye.

"Doctor Abel? Why are you here?" John was shocked.

Abel raised his head, he stared at John in confusion for a while, and then suddenly realized: "It's you, that detective from England? God, I haven't seen him since the Black Lagoon tsunami!"

"Why are you on this train?"

"I'm going to Venice to give a speech. The scientific journals invited me. Have you forgotten the miracle of surviving the shipwreck I created with a hot air balloon? The Venetians take the tsunami disaster very seriously, and their attitude is much better than that of the French." Dr. Abel could not see Jason next to him, he said happily to John.

"Doctor, let's see this gentleman first!" the conductor reminded anxiously.

Dr. Abel quickly lowered his head and said, "Oh, he's fine, he just hurt his throat, and maybe his trachea is also a little bit damaged. You can't eat hot food these days, and don't drink alcohol." The doctor picked up the lamb chop bone on the ground , I wondered how such a big bone got stuck in it.

"Of course, as a doctor, I still have to tell this gentleman to be more careful when eating, and stop being so careless."

But John knows that this has nothing to do with eating, it should be the curse of gold coins that has worked.

He was hesitating whether to tell Dr. Abel the truth. Detective Martin had already come over and announced loudly to the people in the whole car: "This is not an accident. I suspect that someone wants to murder this gentleman."

"what?"

Everyone looked at him in shock.

Even the American auto dealer lying on the ground was surprised.

"This, this is impossible, stuck by the bone, what kind of murder method is this?" the conductor asked angrily.

"Because he's not the first person to choke to death for buying antique gold coins." Detective Martin said loudly, "Although I don't know how this is done, but once it was accidental, twice or three times it must be a deliberate murder." !"

Everyone: "..."

Dr. Abel raised his hand and said, "Wait, this gentleman is not dead yet."

"That's his luck, the murderer will definitely do it again!" Detective Martin said angrily.

He and John went to the banker Bauer just now, but this guy hid in the box, denied that there was a problem with the origin of the gold coins, and refused to open the door, which made Detective Martin very annoyed.

"A group of vicious thieves are tracking these gold coins. For all those who bought gold coins, you should ask Bauer for a refund immediately, otherwise your lives will be in danger!"

John stared blankly at Detective Martin's warning.

Dr. Abel approached the detective and asked in a low voice, "Is he crazy?"

"No, except that the bandit group is fake, the others are real. Those gold coins have a curse." John replied, which is why he didn't stop Detective Martin. No matter what, at least the passengers on the train can't die.

"Curse? How is it possible?" Dr. Abel said in amazement.

John: "..."

He forgot that the doctor no longer had the memory of the truth about Black Lagoon Town.

The current Dr. Abel is the doctor who firmly believes in science.

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The author has something to say:

John: I'm so hard

It won't move

----

Gemil: Traveling like a human being means that a homicide occurs during the trip and then the case is solved

Jason: ...

It's not, but that's how it's written in the novels.