Chapter 8 7. Prison Gate Boat

The incident happened between nine and ten in the morning at the Bairan Bridge. In the chilly autumn morning, on the river, the busy cruise ships in summer have disappeared, only cargo ships occasionally pass through the bridge hole one by two, gliding lonely on the calm water.Occasionally, the well-known local public steamboat approached with a toot, and then gradually moved away after a circle of ripples. Interestingly, people who walk across the White Beard Bridge, unless there is a particularly urgent matter, will stop on the bridge for a while, leaning on the railing and looking down at the river, as if lost in thought.It’s already past summer now, so watching the river can’t be said to enjoy the cool air.So, is there any attractive power hidden in the darkness of the vortex of the river under the bridge piles?

On the same morning, as usual, several men and women leaned on the railings on both sides of the bridge, looking at the river from far to near.Suddenly, two or three people facing upstream spotted a strange object. In more than ten days, the timing will enter December, and there is a crazy man swimming in the Sumida River in late autumn.At first it looked like a piece of wood floating on the water, but when one got closer one could see that it was a human head, and on closer inspection it was not a young man but a bearded, A man of quite some age. "Wow, what a strong and healthy grandpa. It's so cold, it's a good thing he dared to swim in the water." A young man pushing a bicycle and wearing khaki pants couldn't help but look at the salesman in a suit next to him. Say.

"That's right, but it's a bit early for the winter swimming season. What are you doing? According to his age, he's probably a martial arts master of some kind, but he doesn't seem to have seen him in the newspaper." The salesman continued to stare suspiciously. Looking at the old swimmer. The unusually keen onlookers and discussions aroused the curiosity of the people on the other side of the railing and other passers-by, and they quickly surrounded them, so there were a lot more people facing the upstream railing. The old man, who only showed his head and was struggling to swim, soon came to the water surface only half a town away from the bridge, approaching one by one with the help of the current.There are more and more people watching the excitement on the bridge. From a distance, the black head on the bridge looks like a hill.

"It's not quite right, is there such a swimmer? Is it too quiet? Is this a special style of swimming that doesn't cause splashes?" The salesman couldn't help expressing his inner doubts, and the onlookers also echoed. The words "Yeah" and "It's weird" came and went one after another. "Look!" someone cried, "look at that face, so pale, how can he not blink? It's a dead man!" "Nonsense, how can there be such a drowning ghost? If you drown, your whole body will float up." Another person retorted. A rare swimmer indeed.He was submerged up to the chin and motionless.He followed the water, quietly approaching like a ghost.Having said that, no one has ever seen a drowned body like this, face up, swimming like it was standing up, drifting with the current.

This question was quickly resolved.As the swimmer approached the bridge ten or five times, people were able to look down from directly above, and finally saw clearly the secrets under the water that could not be seen from a distance.What is under the nose is not an ordinary drowned ghost, but a lifeless swimmer. Readers should have already guessed what it is, and are very impatient with the author's rambling description, right?That's right, as everyone guessed, it was the head of Tokujiro Fukuda who mysteriously disappeared from the bedroom two days ago. So, how did the heavy head float steadily on the water?Looking down from the bridge, the head is tied with a rope to a slender boat-shaped plank below, and the plank sinks crookedly under the water surface, looming.In other words, the weight of the head caused the boat-shaped wooden plank to sink in the water, and Fukuda's head floated downstream in the boat.

The astonishment of the audience is self-evident, so I won't repeat it here.They have never seen or heard of such a hell-like human-headed ship, and the exclamation of "Wow" in the crowd can be heard endlessly. Seeing the black heads on the bridge, the inspection instinct of the Qiaotou Police Station felt that something was wrong. The surrounding atmosphere was a bit strange, and he had been mixed in with the crowd from the very beginning.Of course he didn't recognize Futian, but since it was a human head that floated over, he couldn't ignore it.Not only that, he even speculated that this was the beginning of a major crime, and he was very excited, and immediately asked the boatman of the cargo ship who happened to sail nearby to pick up the strange boat with human heads.

The wooden board on which the head was tied was obviously a model of a small boat, which looked like a bow.I don't know if it means the name of the ship, but the words "Prison Gate Boat" are written in thick handwriting on the wooden board. Ahhh, the prison gate boat, what a frightening name, it replaced the well-known prison gate platform where people beheaded for public display, and the heads moved along the water.Needless to say, the murderer must have a deep hatred for Fukuda, and he came up with the idea to inflict the greatest insult on the deceased. This is really the most terrifying lynching.

This incident was reported to the Metropolitan Police Department through the district police station, and it was soon found out that it was Fukuda Tokujiro's head. The murderer's defiant and lawless actions caused the Bo Yue police department to suffer great humiliation again and again, and the devil police department Bo Yue couldn't hold back anymore.He bet on his own reputation, and immediately organized a criminal police search team, determined to find out the murderer even if he dug three feet into the ground.He also took the lead in investigating and questioning the two banks upstream of the White Beard Bridge as if passing through a sieve, as well as the cargo ships and ferries that were suspected to be moored in that area at the time, but he still found nothing.

There are almost no bridges in the upper reaches of the Bairan Bridge, and the river course is almost at right angles, with many blind spots that cannot be seen by sight.Therefore, if you want to put a weird item in the water without anyone noticing, it can be said that it is the most suitable place.Not only that, but there are also many tributaries and fjords such as the Ayase River. The search area is very wide. Relying on limited police force to conduct an aimless search among them is simply looking for a needle in a haystack. Surrounding the strange stories of the murderer, the strangeness of the prison gate boat, and the rumors that the popular and wise detective was kidnapped.For newspaper editors, this is undoubtedly the most hyped subject.The social edition was completely overwhelmed by the Futian murder case, and the sensational effect it caused was getting stronger day by day.