Chapter 10 chapter Ten

This is Jimmy.The biggest news of Hopkins' life.Every other paper that appeared on the street that night carried horrific photographs of the frenzied crowd at Gordes Cemetery—gorgon-like heads, close-up, calling into the shot: disheveled Nemesis with swarming chaos With their big mouths, Fa and Jizhang crazily grabbed each other under resentment and thought they had reported it well.Of course, there was nothing more important today than Clay's funeral.They are very proud of their photographer. But it was not without reward for Hopkins to follow Grant from Wigmore Street to the East Office, from the East Office to Temple, and from Temple to the police yard.Even if he rested his legs on the street corner, it was not in vain to get a cronies to help him watch the gate of the police station and ask him to give a signal when he saw Grant leave.

It was not without gain to follow him all the way to Siover. "Murdered by the Clays!" blared the "Sentinel" posters, "Murdered by the Crays: Killer Arrested!" A throng crowded around the excited newsboys, while the rest of the papers were beating their hearts and feet.The reporter explained to an exasperated editor that Scotland Yard had said it would let them know as soon as news became available, but it didn't seem to be working.What do these people do with their money, the editors want to know? Sit comfortably and wait for someone to call, picking up the official garbage?What do they think they are?Horse racing betting calculator?But the big boss who signed Jimmy's paycheck was not stingy with him.Jimmy moved straight into the Ocean Hotel—the room was much bigger than Grant's.Grant has also booked a room here, but for the foreseeable future he will spend most of his time at the police station.Jimmy couldn't help but thank Christine.Clay's horoscope destined her to such a shocking end.

As for Grant, as he himself had expected, he was overwhelmed by the endless stream of information.By noon on Tuesday, people had seen Tistor from almost every corner of England and Wales, and by teatime news of his presence began to spread even in Scotland.He had been seen from a bridge fishing on a Yorkshire creek, and he pulled his hat suspiciously over his face as the whistleblower approached him.He was seen coming out of a cinema in Aberystwaite.It is said he rented a room in Lincolnshire and ran away without paying. (He often ran off without paying, Grant noticed.) Some say he asked for a boat in Lustov.

(There were half a dozen other places where he was said to have asked for a boat. There are too many young men who want to leave England without paying their landlady.) He was found dead in a swamp in Penrith on the ground. (The news occupied Grant for most of the afternoon.) He was said to have passed out in a London alley.He was in Hayes, Gladson, Luce, Tonbridge, Dorchester, Ashford, Luton, Asbury, Leicester, Chatham, East Grinstad, and four in London. I bought a hat in a shop.He also bought a pack of safety pins at Swann and at Edgar.He ate a crab sandwich at a fast food bar on Argyle Street and bread and cheese at a See's in Hayworth.He stole every conceivable thing, from every imaginable place—including a decanter from a glass and china shop in Croyton.When the whistleblower was asked what he thought Tistor was going to do with the water bottle, he said it would make a good weapon.

Three telephones kept ringing as though out of order, and messages poured in by mail, telegram, radio, and in-person visits.Ninety percent of them are useless, but the police will listen to them all: some will require further investigation before they can be determined to be useless.Looking at the piles of reports in front of him, Grant couldn't help but lose his self-control. "For one inattentiveness, the price to pay is really high," he said. "Look out, sir," Williams said. It could be worse. ""It could be worse!I would like to ask you to tell me, what other situation, in your opinion, would be more miserable than it is now? "

"Oh, well, at least no lunatics have turned themselves in to us and wasted our time." But the next morning the madman came. Grant looked up after carefully inspecting a dew-soaked coat that had just been brought in, just in time to see Williams closing the door mysteriously, and then walking up to him mysteriously. "What's the matter, Williams?" he asked, his voice sharp with anticipation. "Here comes the madman," Williams said. "what? " "The one who turned himself in, sir." There was a hint of guilt in Williams' voice now, as if he had brought bad luck on him for mentioning it yesterday.

Grant grunted. "Not at all unusual, sir. Interesting. Very stylish." "Looks or personality?" "Well, I mean the lady's dress, sir." "Miss! Is she a woman?" "Yes, a lady, sir." "Bring her in." Goosebumps all over his body from rage.How dare a woman who wants to be famous and crazy dare to waste his time, just to satisfy her perverted and despicable desires. Williams closed the door and summoned in a sleek figure. It's Judy.Cyrus. Without a word, she entered the room sullenly and deliberately.Even surprised to see it was her, Grant sensed a fierce rebellion beneath her well-groomed exterior.He was familiar with that kind of cynicism, and he was no stranger to her life experience.

He pulled out a chair without a sound.Grant can be very good at scaring people. "Well, officer," he said, "you don't have to stay here." After Williams had gone, he said to Judy, "Don't you think that's a little unfair, Miss Cyrus?" "Not quite fair?" "I have to work 23 hours in a 24-hour day for a very important job, and you have the nerve to waste my time by providing a false confession." "That's not true at all." "It's so fake that I really want to ask you out now, without saying a word." She stopped him from getting up to open the door. "You can't do that. I'll turn myself in to another police station and they'll tell me to come back to you. I did it, you know!"

"No, you didn't do it." "Why not? " "One of the reasons is that you are not near the scene at all." "How do you know where I am?" "You forget that, from the conversation on Saturday night, it was evident that you were at Miss Keats' house in Chelsea on Wednesday night." "I just went for a couple of cocktails. I left early because Lydia was going to a party by the river." "Even so, you still can't be on the beach near Siover at dawn the next morning." "It wouldn't be surprising if I was in the north of England the next morning. I drove down, if you want to know. You can go to my flat and ask. The girls I live with will tell you I didn't go back until noon on Thursday."

"Nor does it prove that your actions were connected to the murder." "But here's the thing: I drove into the canyon and hid in the woods until she came for a swim." "Then you must be wearing a man's overcoat?" "Yes, although I don't know how you know. It's cold to drive, and there is a coat of my brother's in the car, so I use it to wear." "Did you go to the beach with your coat on?" "Yes, it's shiveringly cold. I don't like swimming in the early morning." "Are you in the water?" "Of course. There's no way to drown her on shore, is there?"

"And you left your coat on shore?" "Oh, no," she said, with thoughtful sarcasm, "I was in the water." Grant took another breath.For a moment he did startle. "So you changed into your bathing suit and walked down the beach in your brother's coat—and then?" "She had swum a distance. I went into the water, swam to her and drowned her." "How to do it? " "She said: 'Hello, Judy. ' I said, 'Hello.' I gave her a little chin jab. My brother taught me how to jaw someone to make them gasp. Then I swam under her and grabbed her heels and pulled towards the bottom , until she drowned." "It's neat," said Grant. "You've figured it all out, haven't you? Have you invented a motive for yourself by the way?" "Oh, I just don't like her. I hate her, if you want to know. Her success, her looks and her complacency.She was always a source of trouble for me, and finally I couldn't stand it for a day. ""I see.So could you please explain, since you have completed such a flawless murder case, why did you come here calmly and cast yourself in the net? " "Because you got the wrong person." "You mean it's because we got Robert Tistor. That's the truth when you say that. Now that you've wasted a few minutes of my precious time, why not make it up to me and give yourself a break to tell me how much you know about Tistor. ""I do not know anything.Except that he is the least likely person in the world to kill.For any reason. " "Then you should know him well?" "No. I hardly knew him." "Aren't you—friends?" "No, and not a lover, if that's what you want to know. Bobby. Tistor doesn't know me at all, except for bringing me a cocktail." Grant's tone changed: "But you still try your best to exonerate him?" He said politely. She suddenly felt disgusted by such politeness: "If you killed someone, wouldn't you turn yourself in to save the one who took the blame for you?" "That depends on how ignorant I think the police are. You underestimate us, Miss Cyrus." "I think a lot of you are idiots. You caught an innocent man. You were too busy trying to kill him. And a perfect confession is in front of you, but you dismiss it. "Do you know, Miss Sellers, that there are always many things in a case that only the police know, not just by reading the newspapers.You are wrong in designing your story based on the narrative in the newspaper.There is one thing you don't know.There's one more thing you haven't thought of. " "What didn't I think of?" "Nobody knows where Christine Clay lives." "The murderer knows." "Yes. That's my point. Right now—sorry I'm busy." "So you don't believe a word I say." "No. I believe a lot. Like you were out all Wednesday night, maybe you went swimming, and you didn't come home until noon on Thursday. But none of this proves that you killed someone." She stood up with her inimitable languid gesture, and took out her lipstick. "Well," she said while applying lipstick, "since I didn't succeed in even this little newspaper opportunity, I think I can only continue to play my silly blonde lady for the rest of my life. Fortunately, I bought A round-trip ticket for the day." "You can't fool me," Grant said, and went to help her open the door with a disapproving smile on his face. "Well, so what if you're right, fuck you." She growled, "But you're wrong about him. And it's so wrong that you'll be infamous by the time this case is over. "She brushed past Williams, who was standing still, and the two officers, and disappeared. "Look," said Williams, "that's the first one. People are weird, aren't they, sir? If we say we're looking for a coat that's missing a button, someone will rip their coat off." Drop a button and bring it to us. Just for fun. As if things weren't difficult enough without their help. After all, she is not an ordinary character, what do you think, sir? ""I do not think so.What do you think, Williams? " "Musical role. Looking for a chance to get famous and boost her career. Ruthless diehard." "Neither. Legit drama role. Hate her career. Good-natured enough to sacrifice herself." Williams felt humiliated. "Of course, I haven't had a chance to talk to her." He remembered a reason. "No. Appearance is a good judge, Williams. I wish I could judge this case as well." He sat down, running his fingers through his hair. "What will you do, Williams, once you have successfully escaped from the Ocean Hotel?" Williams understood that now he should imagine himself Tisprit. "I'll get on a crowded bus and go somewhere else. I'll take the first bus I see. Get off in the crowd and walk away like I know where I'm going. It doesn't matter where I'm going. , I’ll pretend like I know where I’m going.” “And then?” "I might have to get on another bus and go somewhere less populated." "You avoid towns, don't you?" "Of course!" Williams replied in surprise. "Wouldn't it be weirder to walk around the deserted countryside alone?" "There are a lot of woods. In fact there are some woods in this area where a man can hide indefinitely. If he gets to a place like Ashdown Forest to the west, it may take a hundred men to find him." Ai Xutang has searched all over." Grant shook his head: "There is also the issue of board and lodging." "Sleeping in the open is fine. The weather has been warm recently." "He's been out for two days: if he'd escaped to the country, he'd be disheveled by now. But has he? Did you notice that no one reported that he went to buy razors? One possibility is that he went to Got a friend. I suspect—" His gaze shifted to the chair Judy had been sitting on earlier. "But no! She would never have risked so much for a mystery. There's no need for it." Williams secretly expected Grant to go to the hotel and get some sleep.He blamed himself for failing to catch the priest, but n blamed it too much.Even the best of men make mistakes, and everyone knew Grant would be fine.He has the backing of strong police support.Why should he mind falling ill over the mistakes that everyone can make?Of course, there were bound to be one or two fussers—people who wanted his job—but no one cared about that kind of people.Everyone knows what they are up to. Grant will be fine, everyone knows that.He would be foolish enough to torture himself for the occasional lapse.If a policeman's heart aches, Williams' heart aches for his boss. "You can throw this disgusting thing away," Grant said, pointing to Williams' coat. "It's a coat from at least twenty years ago, and the buttons fell off ten years ago. You know, Williams, there's one thing that keeps bugging me. He's at the beach with the coat on, and when he comes back Gone. He must have disposed of the coat somewhere along the road. The road wasn't very far after all. And he couldn't have traveled far in time. He was too eager to come back and cover up the mistake he made by running away.But until now we still haven't found the coat. There are two very shallow duck ponds, and we fished them all.There are also three small streams, which cannot even hide coins or float paper boats.Other big and small ditches, garden walls, and two miscellaneous forests can't be found anywhere.Nothing at all!Where did he hide?How would you deal with it? ""Burn it. " "It's too late. What's more, it's wet. Maybe it's wet." "Rolled into a small ball and stuffed in a tree: everyone looks for it on the ground anyway." "Williams, you are a born criminal. Tell Singer your idea, and tell him to try and test it out this afternoon. I'd rather find the overcoat than Tistor. In fact, I must find the overcoat!" "Speaking of razors, don't you think he might have a razor with him, sir?" "I didn't think about it. I didn't think he was that calm. But I didn't think at the time that he would have the guts to run away. All I could think about was suicide.Where are his things? "Singer has brought them all, and it's all in this box. " "See if his razor is there? You can tell if he's shaved." There is no razor in the box. "Well!" said Grant, "who would have guessed? 'You've really disappointed me, Inspector,' he said to me, already slipping the razor into his pocket and preparing to run away, when Under the watchful eye of Chief Inspector Dork. I was all wrong about this lad, Officer. All wrong. I thought he was one of those hysterical types from the first time I took him away from the coroner's court. Yes, a guy who acts on impulse. Then, after I found out about the will, I changed my mind.Still, he was a poor thing. "And now I find out he's planning an escape in front of me—and it's working! It's not Tistor, the scumbag, it's me!" Just the two of us will definitely let that cold-blooded beast be caught without a fight." Williams spoke passionately, not knowing that he wanted to kill Christine.The key figure in Clay's murderer's emergence is a goofy little woman in Kansas City who's unknown to everyone here.