Chapter 10 Section 5

"After the death of Yuichiro Mizushima, the first thing to bear is the distribution of the estate." Mayor Hino said, sitting leisurely on the sofa, holding a glass of brandy. We are at the mayor's house.When sending Xiaolu home, I reported the incident to the mayor by the way.He had heard about it from the chief of police. "Anyway, those brothers in his family are notoriously at odds." The mayor shook the cup in his hand slightly, with a smile on his lips, "They are half-brothers. Neither mother is married, I lived in a single-parent family with my mother since I was a child. They were brought in after the building of this mansion, but they were both adults at that time.”

"It turns out that they are strangers." "Exactly. Getting them to get along well is easy to say, but it's actually very difficult. Besides, Mizushima is a rich man, so it's strange if there are no disputes." The mayor finished speaking in the tone of a bystander and moistened his lips with wine.Then, he pursed his lips and shook his head slowly. "However, Mizushima died. It's really speechless. It's said that life is like climbing a mountain, and you have to be careful every step. It's true. For him, life ended so abruptly." "It's okay if you call the curtain call yourself."

Hearing me say this, the mayor put the glass on the marble table and leaned forward a little. "Oh, from what Xiaolu said, you think it was homicide?" "But there's one more problem that needs to be solved for it to prove." "It's the mystery of the secret room. I heard from Xiaolu, it's amazing!" The mayor looked very interested, picking up a cigarette, "This is really a good time. It's not a coincidence that you can encounter this incident, it's Miracles. Please use your ingenuity to surprise me a lot.” "But it would be presumptuous for me to investigate this if no one has commissioned it."

"I entrust you. I entrusted you with the matter of stealing and digging pits earlier. It doesn't matter if you delay it later." "Ah..." Seeing the mayor so excited, I was a little overwhelmed. I have always cared about Little Green.She was silent all the way, as if frightened by seeing the dead body.Now she seemed to be in her own room. "The mystery of the secret room..." the mayor asked, "how is it? Can it be solved?" "It's not clear yet." "I heard from Xiaolu that you are very confident." "There should be a way."

"It's really reassuring." The mayor seemed very satisfied.He leisurely exhaled a smoke ring.The gray smoke ring rose straight up, and only slowly dispersed near the chandelier. "A talent like you should have solved many similar cases, right?" "A few times." The Blizzard Mountain Villa, the old building on the isolated island... all kinds of scenes revived in memory.This is not my memory, but Detective Tianxia Yi's. "Can those experiences come in handy? Since they are all secret rooms, there should be something in common." "Can't do that." I took a sip of the brandy, which had a hint of the country of Charente.

"Are there many kinds of secret rooms?" the mayor asked. "There are thousands of differences," I replied. "If you generalize, they can be roughly divided into seven categories." "Please tell me about it." The mayor crossed his feet and leaned easily on the sofa. "The first type is not a homicide, but because it coincides with an accidental incident, it looks like a homicide." "That's why. Take this incident as an example. The deceased committed suicide. An accident turned the place of suicide into a secret room." "That's right. But the furniture itself doesn't move, so this possibility can be ruled out. In the second case, even though it was homicide, it was not directly done by the murderer, but the victim was forced to commit suicide or an accident. Mizushima Impossible to move furniture by yourself, that doesn't explain either."

"What about the third type?" "The third way is to design a mechanism in the room, and the mechanism will automatically achieve the purpose of killing." "Isn't that the case?" "No. There is no doubt that Mizushima was shot in the head by a gun in his own hand. No mechanism was found on the pistol." "Tell me about the fourth possibility." "The fourth type is slightly similar to the first type, that is, suicide disguised as homicide. The deceased set up a trap with his own life in order to frame someone. However, due to poor planning, the suicide site accidentally became a secret room .”

"That's impossible. Pretending to be a homicide and framing others, why do you deliberately put a bookshelf to block the door?" "You're right. The fifth possibility is that the victim is already dead, but the victim is not aware of it or has been disguised to make it appear that he is alive." "Does this explain the Chamber of Secrets?" "Yes. For example, this trick: On a snowy night, in a certain other room of the mansion, the murderer used a silencer and other devices to shoot and kill the other party. Then, set up a mechanism so that the tape recorder would automatically turn on after a certain period of time, and the murderer would act as if nothing had happened. Go back and chat with everyone. Soon, the tape in the tape recorder started to rotate. When the people who heard the gunshots and screams rushed out, heavy snow had covered the murderer's footprints. After arriving at the other house, they found that the person had been killed. The murderer took advantage of the When you are in a hurry, take back the tape recorder."

Before I could finish my sentence, the mayor clapped his hands, smoking a cigarette. "Ah, it's really wonderful! Is this also the case you have solved?" "No, I adapted it from other cases. Also a very common ruse." "The sixth is the complete opposite. That is to say, the murderer makes the witnesses have an illusion: the victim in the room is dead. Then he rushes into the room and kills the victim." "Can't this type be applied to this incident?" "Probably not. Mizushima was indeed dead when we knocked down the bookshelf. I found the body at that time, and judging from the scene, it wasn't just killed."

"And what about the last seventh type?" "This type is intuitively easy to understand. Modifying doors, windows, chimneys, etc. to create an appearance that at first glance it is impossible to get in and out. Using wires and metal objects outside the house to pull the trigger inside the house also falls into this type. " "Indeed, the type is easy to imagine. Moving the bookshelf from the outside is certainly impossible." "It's possible if the bookshelf is empty. But the bookshelf in Mizushima's room is full of books." I thought of encyclopedic dictionaries lined up on bookshelves without any gaps.

The mayor hummed. "There are so many types, but none of them can be applied. What's going on?" "It's bound to fit, we just don't know which one. That's where the killer's ingenuity lies." "That's the point of the incident, right?" "yes." "It's also a point of view for your reasoning." The mayor said with a smile, as if enjoying it. "There should be some clues." I finished, taking a swig of brandy.Aromatic wine seems to stimulate my brain cells. "Does the moving of furniture have anything to do with the secret room?" "Absolutely," I asserted. "It wasn't done on a whim or drunk. The murderer must have had a reason for it." "Anyway, I can't remember." The mayor raised his hand and waved it. Bookshelves and other furniture against the walls came to mind.What does that mean?I fell into deep thought, and for a moment, silence surrounded us. "Then...how?" The mayor changed his tone, and his eyes seemed to suggest something, "If he killed him, would the murderer be one of the four children?" "I don't know yet. Although..." I kept my mouth shut. "What's wrong?" "If that's the case, it's too..." "too……" I decided to say it out loud. "The motive is too simple." "yes?" "What is a mother of four doing?" "died." "They all died?" "Yes. This is just a rumor..." the mayor lowered his voice, and a strange smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, "I heard that Mizushima likes the sick type." Hey, it's really speechless. "Did you die young because you had to raise your child alone and became sick from overwork?" "You know it very well." I sighed and ran through my hair. "So, although the four children are all Mizushima's own flesh and blood, they have resentment towards Mizushima, right?" "It is said to be so." "And Mizushima is dead. They can still inherit the inheritance." "The amount is huge." I scratched my hair again.Probably seeing dandruff falling off, the mayor was a little upset. "It's so clichéd that I can recite it by heart. It is rare to see such a common motive as coveting the inheritance and avenging the mother. Although this sentence is strange, it is trite and disappointing. The mother of four died. Same, it’s perfunctory, and people will scold you.” "Being scolded?" The mayor held a cigarette between two fingers, his eyes widened. "Who will be scolded?" "This..." I was at a loss for words. Yes, who will be scolded?Whose eyes do I care about?Why should a motive so common as to be banal disturb me so much? "In short, I will be scolded by people who know about this incident. Such a rich and powerful family will lose the head of the family because of this kind of thing. It's like this." I said so, but I was denying myself in my heart - that's not what it means.I'm more concerned with something else, I just don't know what. The mayor didn't understand my confusion and nodded vigorously. "Yes. However, the richer the family, the more ugly and complicated the family relationship is. This is very common." After speaking, the mayor picked up another cigarette, but there was no flame, so he had to reach out to put it away. Matchbox on the side. "yes." The mayor pushed the matchbox away and was about to take out a match when his hand slipped and the matchbox fell to the ground. "Ah, it's broken." He hurriedly leaned over, ready to pick up matches.Fortunately, the matchbox was only half-opened and didn't tumble around when it fell, so the matches didn't fall out. A scene suddenly appeared in my mind, and I saw the important information hidden in it. After the brain cells were running for tens of seconds, a vague idea that came to my mind gradually became clear. "So it is," I said to the mayor, "I seem to know the answer, the answer to the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets."