Chapter 54 Chapter Twenty Nine

"In this case, Sanzao must be arrested as soon as possible." My thoughts then turned to the bathing place, and I could hardly bear Kono's long speech.The inspector was not in a hurry, and sat as if nothing happened.The same goes for Kono, it doesn't hurt to explain later tomorrow, but he chattered on and on, and probably planned to continue talking. "It is the most convenient way for Sanzao to dispose of the corpse. In addition to the coal stains on the back of the hand, the bloody dagger, and a large amount of stolen goods—in other words, Sanzao's appearance is inconsistent, and he is actually a bad guy in his bones—with so much evidence, we can only I think he is the murderer. Even though he cleaned the dressing room that morning, he didn't put the misplaced mat back in its original place, which can be regarded as one of the evidences. However, I don't quite understand the reason for the three killings, but those It’s hard to say that a person with a dementia has a motive that we can’t imagine. Maybe he can’t suppress his impulse for a while when he sees a drunk and charming woman. Or maybe his evil deeds were accidentally discovered by Changji, and Sanzao was afraid that she would expose him. , then recklessly committed the crime for a while. These are just speculations, but no matter what the motive is, the fact that Sanzao is the murderer cannot be doubted."

"So, do you mean that he burned Changji's body in the stove in the bathhouse?" The inspector looked in disbelief. "Other than that, there is no other possibility. Although the cruelty is unimaginable, that kind of person may inherit the cruel genes of many human ancestors. Not only that, he does not have the rationality to analyze the possibility of crime exposure And the inevitable consequences, so it is even more suspicious. Sanzao’s job is to boil bath water. Once the corpse needs to be destroyed, he will immediately think of the stove. This is a very natural reaction. Besides, in order to destroy the evidence, the murderer burned the corpse There are countless examples. The most famous is the case of Professor Webster, who killed his friend and burned his body in a laboratory furnace; Bluebeard Landrew also burned the bodies of numerous victims in a glass factory furnace and You should have heard of the stove in the country house. The bath stove here is a large industrial boiler with full firepower. Even if it cannot be burned at one time, it will take three or four days to divide the torso into several parts and burn them one by one. , it is not impossible. Fortunately, there is a strong southerly wind these few days (maybe he has not considered this at all because of his low IQ), and it is the dead of night, so he can be locked in a place where it is almost impossible for anyone to visit. In the room, complete the work without any scruples. Is my speculation too abrupt? Otherwise, how can I explain the smell of the crematorium smelled by the villagers on the other side?"

"However, the hotel has no smell at all, it's too strange." The inspector asked further with doubts, and I also felt that this statement could not fully convince me. "The time to burn the bodies must be midnight when everyone is already asleep. Even if there are some strange smells in the air, the strong wind before dawn can blow them away. And the ashes in the stove are always thrown into the lake, so No bones or other evidence will be left behind." This speculation is really bold.Indeed, the smell of the crematorium is an unshakable fact, but wouldn't it be too arbitrary for Kono to make such a judgment based on this evidence alone?Until later, I couldn't hide my doubts.However, regardless of this point, no matter how the body is disposed of, it is very clear that Sanzao is the murderer based on the facts that Kono found.

"Arrest Sanzao for interrogation immediately." After Kono's long speech came to an end, the inspector immediately got up. We walked along the courtyard to the firewood in the bath.It was already ten o'clock in the evening, and tonight was still a dark night with almost no stars, and the wind was howling.An ambiguous emotion flashed through my heart, whether it was fear or pity, and I couldn't restrain the excitement in my heart. When he came to the door of the wood burning place, although he was a country patrol, he was a law enforcement officer after all. He immediately assumed the posture of a traveler, quickly opened the door, and rushed inside.

"Sanzao!" The inspector uttered a deep and powerful cry, but his complete precautions were in vain. There was no figure of Sanzao inside, only an old handyman he knew sitting blankly in front of the blazing stove. "Sanzao? He hasn't been seen since dusk, and he didn't know where he went. He asked me to take care of the stove for him." The old man answered the inspection question with a look of surprise. Another commotion followed.The inspector called the police station at the foot of the mountain, and the bureau quickly formed a temporary search team to search back and forth on the street.Now the evidence of the three crimes is even more immovable.

A formal search was launched the next morning.In addition to streets, forests and streams have also carried out blanket investigations.In that case, Kono and I could not stay out of the matter and joined the search team separately.The commotion lasted until noon, and Sanzao was finally found. Walking up Wuliucho from the lakeside pavilion along the street, there is a narrow woodcutter road leading to the mountain road.From there a winding half-mile walk led to a deep valley above an unknown river.There is a steep plank road along the valley, and an inspector found some earth and rock collapses in the most dangerous part of the plank road.

At the bottom of the several-foot-high cliff, Sanzao, whom no one could find, lay lying in a pool of blood, with a large flat rock below.I'm afraid Sanzao walked up the plank road in the dark last night, slipped and slipped.The rocks were covered with black blood, and the sight was shocking.Is this a curse?The murderer died before he confessed. The police immediately found all kinds of stolen goods that Kono had seen in the tin box in the arms of the corpse.Obviously, Sanzao accidentally stumbled and fell to his death while fleeing. Then, the police began to move the corpses, the prosecutors inspected, and the villagers talked a lot, and the next day passed in panic.The firewood place in Sanzao's room seemed to have been searched carefully by the police, but unfortunately, there was still no sign of burning corpses in the end.

The case seemed to take a turn for the worse and came to an end.Although the victim's body was nowhere to be found, and the motive for the murder was still somewhat ambiguous, there is no evidence to deny that it was the murderous hands of San Zao.The death of Sanzao may be a relief to courts who have struggled with the case after a massive suitcase search proved fruitless.Several prosecutors quickly evacuated the small town at the foot of the mountain, and the police search also stopped without knowing it.In this way, the village by the lake returned to its usual calm. During this period, the Hupan Pavilion suffered the heaviest loss.All of a sudden, there was an endless stream of curious guests who came to visit the bathhouse where the homicide occurred, but soon there were rumors of Changji's ghost haunting and Sanzao's whispers floating in the air, which became more and more bizarre. Even the people who lived nearby were afraid of the lakeside pavilion, and no one even came to the pavilion for several days in a row.Today, several new hotels have been rebuilt near the lake, and the once beautiful lakeside pavilion is no longer the same and has completely declined.

Dear readers, the above is the superficial story of the Hupanting murder case. The rumors of the villagers by Lake A and the facts in the records of the police station in Town Y are probably not as good as what is written here.But the most important part of the story I'm telling is actually after that.Having said that, please don't feel bored. The most important part is not too much. If it is converted into manuscript paper, it can be explained in twenty or thirty pages. After the murder case was solved, we decided to leave this place of right and wrong immediately.Kono, who became more and more familiar with me after the murder, took the same train because he wanted to go in the same direction.Of course I was going back to City T, and Kono was scheduled to get off at the I station which was the previous stop.

We each carried a fairly large suitcase.Mine is a square suitcase with a peeping mirror in it, and Kono’s is an old-looking long horizontal bag. Although we are both wearing kimonos, thinking that we came out of the lakeside pavilion, such a scene always reminds me of those two. A suitcase gentleman. "I don't know what happened to the suitcase gentleman." I couldn't help telling Kono what was in my heart. "Who knows. They just left the village without being seen? In any case, there's no need to discuss those two anymore. They shouldn't have anything to do with the crime."

After speaking, the up train we took left the lakeside town with many memories.