Chapter 2 first quarter

In the distance, the bell of the temple rang. The old man Sakagami got up when he heard the bell.His activities after getting up are very regular. He always uses the electric stove to make coffee first, and then reads the morning newspaper while drinking coffee.But just flipped through the pages, and immediately threw the newspaper aside again.The old man Sakagami thought that there was nothing worth reading in the recent newspaper news.Politicians, scholars, men of letters, trade unions, novelists, he distrusted them all.Because of distrust, I have no intention of understanding the activities of these people.

Then he walked into the small courtyard. In the courtyard, the morning light is dim, and the night has not yet cleared up the darkness of its own house. A group of magpies can no longer bear the trouble of the night, and start to make noise on the old elm tree in the neighboring courtyard. The old man Sakagami stood in a corner of the courtyard, looking at "Kofengzhuang" with some melancholy.The shabby, plastered two-story apartment was sleeping like a long-haired poodle.The old man on the board muttered: "Humph, it's not even as good as a dog, but maybe it's like a wrecked ship washed ashore in a storm!" The termite erosion is very serious.The old man Sakagami thought to himself; "From the edge of the floor to the pillars, there must be quite a few places that are rotten."

The clamor of the magpies grew louder.Because this area is located in Kita-Osan on the edge of Setagaya District, with lush greenery and many temples, there are especially many magpies, which is annoying. His wife left him and died.Old man Sakagami always loses his temper no matter what.He was also angry with the magpies this morning because of the termites: these magpies are useless unless they eat the termites! The old man Sakagami stared at the old elm tree.The frightened magpie fluttered away.The old man Sakagami breathed a sigh of relief, and looked at "Kofengzhuang" again.

His eyes stopped on the room at the corner of the first floor, and he suddenly wondered: Why haven't the curtains been opened yet?There lived a middle-aged bachelor named An Gao Kyouji.I heard that An Gao was originally a fisherman, so he usually got up very early.As far as the old man Sakagami could remember, he had never seen curtains hanging up until now.However, let this kind of thing go!Although the old man Sakagami was the landlord, he never talked to anyone easily.His credo was to be indifferent to everything but the rent.Whether it is living in or moving out, all are left to their own devices.Therefore, a single courtyard was built in his own residence.However, at this moment, the old man Sakagami remembered that he hadn't handed over the rent receipt to An Gao, so he took the receipt and turned to the main entrance.

No one agreed. Turning the doorknob, it turned out that the door was unlocked.The old man Sakagami looked inside.This suite has two rooms of 14 square meters and 7 square meters.An Gaogong'er faced the ceiling, already dead beside the sink in the small room.I don't know where it was injured, but a pool of blood was formed under the head, and the blood had already congealed. "Don't panic!" The old man Sakagami warned himself.In fact, there was no need to warn him. For some reason, he was very calm.Satisfied with his composure, the old man Sakagami walked towards the single-covered courtyard.

"How is it? Nakaoka." Veteran scout Tokuda Wuhei saw his colleague as soon as he got off the patrol car, so he greeted him as usual.He was wearing a coat with grease stains on the collar.Because of the fat, the neck is very short.He twisted his stubby neck and looked up at the young, tall Chiki Nakaoka. "Still the same." Nakaoka also answered in a muffled voice as usual.Then he looked up to observe the old elm trees beside the road.The group of magpies became more noisy when they noticed that there was a murder in Guangfengzhuang. "It seems that the on-site identification has ended."

Tokuda got through the blocking rope and said. Standing in the room with his shoulders shrugged, Sergeant Takata of the police station in charge saw Tokuda and Nakaoka coming from the headquarters, and said solemnly: "Obviously, it was homicide." "It looks very similar!" Tokuda agreed, then squatted down on the head of the corpse, sniffing his nose like a dog.There is a smell of bitter almonds.This is the characteristic smell of cyanic acid.The victim was about forty years old, and there was a black and red scar from the right cheek to the jaw, which made the face of the deceased even more miserable and terrifying.

"The name of the deceased was Kyouji Anko, middle-aged, male, single. There was a visitor last night, because there were signs that the two had drank whiskey together in the large room next to it. Only one fingerprint was found to be different from that of the deceased , in the neck of the square bottle of poisoned whiskey." Tall, stout, and burly Takata looked down at the short Tokuda, explaining to him.However, Nakaoka, who was standing beside him with his hands in his jacket pockets, only glanced at him slightly. "What about the fingerprints on the glass and elsewhere?"

Tokuda walked into the fourteen square meter room and asked. "Clean and clean. Not just the glass, but the table to the doorknob—everywhere the murderer can be expected to have touched it. But there is only one spot left on the neck of the bottle. What a negligence!" The voice was very solemn, as if he had a well-thought-out plan. "It's really a blessing." Tokuda nodded his stubby head. "The estimated time of death was last night, that is, between seven and nine o'clock in the afternoon on the eighteenth of February. From the fact that the poison was dissolved in the whiskey, it seems that the poison was not potassium cyanate, but possibly cyanic acid. The victim was When he was sleeping, a guest came and gave him a drink of whiskey with cyanic acid in it. In order to ask for help, An Gao got up, hit his head on the sink, and died. The prisoner wiped his fingerprints and left. But the cyanic acid There is often a loud groan when poisoned, but neither the tenant on the second floor nor anyone else heard the sound. If there was a sound, it was only the tenant next door. But the tenant next door, although booked at the beginning of this month signed a lease, but it is said that he has not moved in because of business trips. After a little inspection, it is empty. It is the situation."

Takata thought to himself that since the murderer's fingerprints had been found, the case could be solved without the support of the First Division of the General Bureau's Reconnaissance.And, if possible, he certainly wished to do so.The veteran Tokuda was already an acquaintance, so he was always easy to talk to.It's just that the Nakaoka policeman who met for the first time has been standing silently.For some reason, Gao Tian always felt that he was not harmonious enough.He was probably just in his early thirties, tall and tall, and his upright appearance didn't look like a policeman, which made people feel very out of place.

Nakaoka was expressionless, and even listened to Takada's solemn tone coldly and casually, and kept observing the room.A small cupboard, a table, a kerosene stove, and three hangers on the wall were the only pieces of very crude furniture.A thin mattress was spread against the wall adjacent to the next door.From the slightly disordered sheets, it can be seen that the visitor has also been lying here.It seemed that the character of the victim was quite neurotic. The shape of the folded quilt and the way of laying the sheets gave people an indescribable sense of rigidity.A small cockroach was lying on the wall, which seemed to show An Gao's loneliness.Nakaoka thought, maybe An Gao is a fugitive. "Meet the landlord!" Urged by Tokuda, Nakaoka went outside the house. In the courtyard the elderly coroner was smoking.Small circles of smoke float in the blue sky. "The victim's eye sockets and entire face seemed to be a bit dark..." Nakaoka said. "Yes, it may be caused by the scarring. Otherwise, judging from this man's face, it may be due to his obsession with womanizing!" The coroner showed a relaxed smile. "You actually..." Tokuda looked at the autopsy palace suspiciously. "There are so many magpies!" Nakaoka turned his gaze from the coroner to the sky and muttered to himself. "This is a kind of harmful bird that pecks at small birds. It is not afraid of public nuisance, but it just keeps on filling its sphere of influence." Tokuda walked towards the landlord's courtyard. The old man Sakagami, the landlord of Kofengzhuang, showed a nonchalant expression, and greeted the two of them at the gate. "You are so calm!" Tokuda said this after being let into a sunny room. "However, you said, it's not a big deal to die. According to my son, about 60,000 people die in Tokyo every month." "That's right. Please tell me more about the situation!" Although the old man on Sakagami put on a very indifferent expression, Tokuda still saw a curious look behind the old man's eyes. "Okay! Don't you drink coffee? No, it's nothing. That's all it takes..." The old man Sakagami poured the instant coffee into the water, put it in the electric stove, and turned the knob. "Oh, your cooking utensils are really good!" "Where is it, I don't like this kind of thing." The old man Sakagami frowned, "However, there are too many cockroaches, and they always crawl around. If you don't pay attention, they will climb into the vegetable pot, which is too dangerous. But With this toy, you can rest assured." "Yeah, that's really reassuring." "But don't be careless. I forgot when it was. Once, when I opened the lid, cockroaches crawled in, and it turned out to be a pot of braised cockroaches!" "Hey, do cockroaches die too?" "I see that you are really not good at saying this. This is an electric furnace! Of course you must die!" The old man's face became cheerful. "Okay, let's get down to business. When An Gao moved in, it was at the end of January..." The old man took down the coffee and entertained them. It could be seen from his actions that he seemed very happy. Kyouji Anko was introduced by the housing agency in front of Chitose Osan Station, and moved here on January 27 this year.Old man Sakagami's creed is that he never refuses anyone, and he is not interested in anything except the rent, so he never asks about the occupations of the tenants or their inside information.There is a scar on An Gao's face, which always makes people feel that he is scary, but to the old man Sakagami, it doesn't matter. The four guest rooms on the second floor were full of people, and the Angao room on the first floor and the next room were also occupied.However, the next two sets of guest rooms have been vacant for half a year.Because the branches of the elms and beeches in the neighboring yard block the sun, no one has been renting it. "I heard that the tenant next door is on a business trip, has the rent been paid?" Tokuda asked a question. "It's a man named Hirai Seiji. The lease was signed on February 5, and three months' rent has already been paid. I think he will move in soon. As for his appearance, it is useless to ask. He has never been here. I didn’t even see him when the lease was booked. It was all commissioned agencies. All I care about at the moment are termites.” "What happened to the termites?" Tokuda thought to himself: What is the old man going to say? "Termites have emptied the house! I'm worried that the floor planks and pillars have already been rotted. I said, Mr. Police, it doesn't matter if Kyoji Anko's house is demolished in a few days, right?" "Demolition?..." Tokuda glanced at Nakaoka's face. "It's an unlucky house anyway. I want to split the floor joists, the posts, and the paneling to see what the decay is like." The old man Sakagami thought it was a good idea.If it is found that the termites are severely damaged after disassembly, simply take this opportunity to flip the cover. "Of course it is your freedom to demolish the house, but there has been a case in this house, so although we don't necessarily insist that you wait until the case is solved, please contact me in advance." "Ok!" The old man Sakagami hurriedly nodded in agreement. "I want to see the room next door again, please go too!" Be cautious, this is Tokuda's consistent approach. The old man Sakagami took out the key silently.Tokuda was different from the sheriff in charge of commanding the scene, he spoke without an orderly tone.Coupled with his faded top, it seemed a bit shabby.For this type of person, the old man Sakagami has a good impression. The next room was exactly the same as Kyoji Anko's room, except that the closet and the sink were in the opposite direction.The luggage hadn't been moved yet, and in the empty room of 14 square meters, there was only a brand new electric heating stove.Tokuda thought about it.The electric furnace has been moved, which means that Seiji Hirai must have lived here. There is a picture of a coquettish beauty pasted under the partition wall between An Gao Gonger's room and this room. "This is left by the previous bachelor. It happened to be next to the pillow. Maybe I admired it while lying down. Since it was pasted with paste, I didn't touch it. This photo is not bad." The old man Sakagami explained Say. "Have the keys been handed over?" "Of course!" The old man Sakagami replied.At this time, he was tapping on the pillar in the corner, listening to the sound. "What's the matter? Nakaoka." Tokuda looked around the room and asked Nakaoka who was squatting motionless in front of the picture. "The cockroach is dead..." The voice was very low, as if talking to himself. "cockroach……" Tokuda inspected it, and found some tea-brown insects on the wall below the picture. After careful inspection, he realized that they were a few shriveled cockroach larvae. "strangeness……" Nakaoka whispered to himself again.He recalled the cockroach lying on the wall next to An Gao's mattress, which was the opposite side of this wall.Nakaoka didn't know exactly what made him feel strange.But separated by a wall, on one side is the room where the murder took place, with live cockroaches lying on the wall; while on the other side is an unoccupied room, with shriveled cockroach carcasses piled up beside the wall—Nakaoka felt that this not only indicated the life and death, but also symbolizes light and darkness. "Strange? What's strange?" Tokuda asked. "Ah, nothing." Nakaoka shook his head. "Don't scare anyone! But there are a lot of cockroaches." "Where are you, if there are really wooden houses that don't grow cockroaches, I would really like to see them! Compared with termites, cockroaches are kind of cute. - But what's the matter? You say that, but It's true, they all piled up and died together in such a strange place..." The old man Sakagami looked at it and lowered his head in thought. "I cleaned the house when it was vacated, and there were no dead cockroaches! It doesn't look like it was swept into a pile, but it really looks like a graveyard for cockroaches..." "Did you really not have these dead cockroaches when you cleaned it?" Nakaoka was still staring at the dead cockroach and asked. "Of course I do. I'm always careful. There's no such grave." "The graveyard of cockroaches..." Nakaoka muttered and stood up.After standing up, he turned up the collar of his jacket.He felt an indescribable uneasiness hovering on the boundary line between light and darkness.He buried the uneasy feeling in his jacket collar.Nakaoka looked around the room along the walls.There were no cockroach carcasses anywhere else. Originally, as long as it is not poisoned, cockroaches will not die easily.Nakaoka repeated the word "cemetery" that the old man Sakagami said, and turned his eyes to that place again.Presumably, if it was on that side of the wall, the position of the cockroach corpse was equivalent to the position of Anko Kyouji's pillow when he slept.

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