Chapter 18 Chapter Sixteen Z

Looking back now, I see that things were inevitable from the beginning.I thought about it over and over again, but never saw it.And for the old gentleman, the case was getting trickier.He had never been able to forgive himself before, and made a big mistake by letting Alan Deo test in the detention center without impartial witnesses.But now, he was sitting in his own car, driven by Dromeo to follow Hume's car, and drove fast into the darkness down the mountain.With his head hanging on his chest, he thought bitterly that he should have foreseen all this and prevented Dr. Fawcett's death in advance.

"Honestly," he said without emotion, "I shouldn't have come here at all. According to the facts, Fawcett's death was already doomed, and I'm the most blind fool..." He didn't speak again, and we couldn't find words of comfort.I was very sad, and my father was in a cloud of sadness.Father Muir didn't follow, and the final blow proved too much for him, and we left him in his little sitting room, staring sadly at his Bible. So we drove up the darkened driveway again, saw the brightly lit mansion, filled with state troopers and cops, and crossed thresholds that seemed destined to be stepping stones for murderer and victim.

At first glance, everything looks pretty much the same as it did when we first visited a few months ago.The same group of gloomy detectives surrounded the stout Chief Kenyon, and the deceased was also found on the first floor... But Dr. Ella Fawcett was not killed in the Senator's study. We found his curled body on the carpet in the consulting room, just a few feet from the desk.And the night before, I had just seen him sitting at the same desk, studying the wooden box that might be the middle of a small pocket suitcase.His short, smooth black beard protruded from his blue chin, and he lay on his back with his limbs sprawled, staring at the ceiling with dazed eyes.If it weren't for the stiff limbs that looked twisted and restless, otherwise, that posture would really be like the mummy of an Egyptian pharaoh waiting for eternity.From his left breast protruded what looked like the round handle of a knife, which I recognized as a sort of surgical knife.

I leaned weakly against my father, feeling his comforting grip on my arm.History repeated itself, I felt sick, my vision was blurred, and I saw many familiar faces talking.The little medical examiner, Dr. Bull, squatted beside the stiff body, examining with nimble fingers; Kenyon stared at the ceiling, frowning.Also, leaning against the desk stood Rufus Cotton, John Hume's political guardian, his bald pink head drenched with sweat, his old eyes full of wicked wisdom bewildered and panicked. "Rufus," the prosecutor called, "what happened? Did you find the body?" "Yes, I, I—" the old politician tremblingly wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief, "I—called here on a whim, John, without prior appointment, and I intend to discuss with Dr. Fawcett— —er, something. You know, something about the election. Don't look at me that way, John! He was dead when I found him, as you see now."

Hume stared at Rufus Cotton in pain for a while, and then murmured, "Well, Rufus, I can't play favoritism in this matter. When did you find him?" "Oh, John, please don't..." "When did you find him?" "At twelve twenty-five, John . . . the house was quiet, and of course I called Kenyon right away—" "Did you touch anything?" the father asked. "Absolutely not." He seemed overwhelmed, lost his old self-confidence, and leaned heavily on the desk, avoiding John Hume's gaze. Mr. Jerry Lane searched every corner of the room with his eyes, then stopped beside Dr. Bull, and bent slightly, "You must be the forensic doctor, right? Doctor, how long has this man been dead?"

Dr. Bull grinned and said with a smile: "Another corpse, eh? It should be a few minutes after eleven o'clock, around ten o'clock." "Did he die instantly?" Dr. Bull glanced up at him. "Oh, it's hard to say. It may have been a few minutes." The old gentleman looked at him and said, "Thank you." Then he stood up straight and walked towards the desk, searching for things on the desk expressionlessly. Kenyon growled, "Hume, we talked to the servants, and Fawcett sent them all out earlier tonight. Interesting? Exactly like his brother."

Dr. Bull stood up and closed his black handbag. "Okay," he said briskly, "there is no doubt that the standard murder weapon is a lancet, which in medical terms is called a surgical scalpel. Operate." "It was," said Mr. Wren thoughtfully, "from this box on the desk." Dr. Bull shrugged, as if to agree.On the desk was a rubber case with a cluttered pile of oddly shaped surgical tools that looked like Dr. Fawcett was about to put them in an electric sterilizer next to the desk, which, in fact, was still steaming. Dr. Bull hurried over and turned it off.There was a sudden silence in the room: I found that it was a well-equipped consulting room, with an examination table on the other side of the room, a giant fluoroscopy screen, an X-ray machine, and various other equipment that I can't name.Next to the rubber case on the desk lay a black handbag, much like Dr. Bull's, stamped neatly: "Ella Fawcett, MD."

"There is only one wound," Dr. Bull continued, carefully observing the murder weapon he had just pulled out from the corpse during the inspection. The knife is inconspicuous, but it works quite well, and you can see that it caused a lot of bleeding." He kicked in the direction of the corpse, and we saw a large irregular-shaped blood stain on the gray-brown carpet next to the corpse. The blood probably spurted from the wound, ran over the doctor's clothes, and dripped onto the carpet. "Actually, the blade grazed a rib. The wound was terrible, yes." "But—" Hume said impatiently. At the same time, Mr. Wren's eyes lit up, and he knelt beside the corpse, raising the dead man's right hand to observe carefully.

He looked up. "What's this?" he asked. "Dr. Bull, did you see that?" The forensic doctor glanced calmly: "Oh, that! But it's nothing particularly important. If you're suspicious, I can tell you that there is no wound on it." We see three spots of blood on Dr. Fawcett's right wrist, roughly oval in shape, very close to each other.The forensic doctor reminded us: "Attention, just above the artery." "Yes, I noticed," Mr. Wren said lightly, "doctor, from a medical professional point of view, it's nothing, but it's actually very important."

I touched the old gentleman's arm. "Mr. Wren," I called, "looks like the fingerprints left by the murderer who checked the victim's pulse after the murder." "Smart, Patience." He smiled. "That's exactly what I thought. Why would he do that?" "To be sure that Senator Fawcett is dead," I said timidly, uncertainly. "Well, of course," interposed the prosecutor, "what's so strange about that? Kenyon, let's get to work. Do you know how to do an autopsy, Dr. Bull? Be careful and make sure you don't miss anything."

I cast a final glance at Dr. Fawcett's dead face, and Dr. Bull took a sheet over the body and waited for the WWD truck.The expression on that face was not scary, just indifferent, and a little surprised. The fingerprinting police started to work, Kenyon swaggered up and down, giving orders from time to time, John Hume took Rufus Cotton aside, and then Jerry Lane let out a low exclamation, Everyone looked up suddenly, his back was facing the table, and he was holding something in his hand, which he had obviously just found among the piles of papers. It was the wooden box that I saw Dr. Fawcett look at fiercely last night. "Ha!" said Mr. Wren. "Very well, I knew I'd be here. Well, Patience, what's your opinion?" Like the first one we found earlier, it was a sawn-off wooden box, but this time both ends were sawn off, apparently the middle of the wooden box.On the surface it was the same as the first one, with two gilt capital letters printed on it. But this time it's JA. "HE the first time," I murmured, "JA now. Mr. Wren, I admit, I don't understand at all." "That's ridiculous," cried Hume angrily, looking over his father's shoulder, "who the hell is 'he' (HE)? And JA—" "In German, it means Yes." I whispered hopelessly. Hume snorted: "Now, everything makes sense, doesn't it?" "Patiens, my dear," said the old gentleman, "this clue is of great importance, and queer, queer!" He scanned the room quickly for something, and then, with a flash of eyes, hurried towards a corner where a little On the shelf, there is a thick and large dictionary.Hume and my father stared at him dumbfounded, but I realized what he wanted to do, and my mind was struggling and thinking about HEJA. ... It must be connected, because the separation of two sets of letters has no meaning at all, so it must be a word, Heja, but I am sure that there is no such a word. Mr. Wren slowly went to the dictionary. "Sure enough," he said softly, "as I expected." He pursed his lips, paced back and forth in front of the corpse, his eyes were puzzling. "We can fit the two parts of the box together according to the shape," he whispered. "I think . . . it's a pity we don't have the first part." "Who said there is no such thing?" Kenyon sneered, and I watched him take out the first piece from his pocket in surprise, "I suddenly thought that it might be useful. Dig it out." He handed it to the old gentleman with a nonchalant expression. Mr. Wren grabbed it eagerly, walked to the desk, and put the two pieces of the box together in place.It is now perfectly clear that it was a shrunken wooden box, with a small metal clasp, and the letters lined up to form the word: Heja.It suddenly dawned on me: These four letters obviously cannot make up a complete word, there must be other letters, because if you want to paint the words on the box, it must be painted in the center, but we see that a is located in the center of the box. The box in the center, so the gilt letters are off center if there are no other letters. Mr. Wren whispered: "Look, after putting it together, it is only a short of a complete wooden box model. I just checked the dictionary and confirmed my suspicion. In the English dictionary, there is only one word that starts with heja. " "Impossible!" Hume said quickly, "I've never heard of it." "It doesn't have to be a meaningful word," Mr. Wren said, smiling gently. "I repeat, there is only one word in the English dictionary that begins with heja, but it is not English at all, but an Anglicized word." "What is it?" I asked slowly. "Hejaz." We all blinked like he was uttering some utter nonsense incantations, and then Hume snarled, "Well, sir, let that be the word, what the hell does it mean?" "Hijaz," the old gentleman replied calmly, "is a region in Arabia. Coincidentally, the capital of Hijaz is Mecca." Hume said desperately, "And then, Mr. Wren? This is absolutely absurd and meaningless. Arabia! Mecca!" "Mr. Hume, is it meaningless? No, two people died because of it," Mr. Wren said blankly. "I admit that if you interpret it literally as an Arab, it is indeed whimsical. But I don't think it's necessary to think in that direction. I have a very particular idea—" He trailed off, and added softly: "Mr. Hume, you know, our work is not done." "Not finished yet?" Father's eyebrows were frowned, "You mean, there will be another murder case?" The old gentleman crossed his hands behind his back, "It seems so, doesn't it? Before the victim of the first homicide was killed, he received the box from HE; then the victim of the second homicide received the box from JA before he was killed. -" "So, someone's going to get the last piece of the box and get killed, huh?" Kenyon laughed with a wry voice. "Not necessarily." Mr. Wren sighed, "If the past pattern is meaningful, then obviously there will be a third person who will receive the last piece of the box, which will have a Z painted on it, and this person will be killed. In other words, there will be a murder of Z." He smiled, "But I think that in this case, we should not trust the past pattern, the important thing is," his voice turned into a high-pitched voice, "There is The 'third' man involved, who was the last member of the trio in both the cases of Senator Fawcett and Dr. Fawcett!" "How did you figure it out?" asked the father. "Very simple. Why was the box sawn in three in the first place? Apparently it was intended to be given to three people." "The third is Deo," said Kenyon. "What do you mean 'send'? The last bit is for him." "Oh, Kenyon, that's sheer nonsense," said Mr. Wren mildly. "No, not Deo." That's all he said about the box.From the faces of Commissioner Kenyon and John Hume, I know that they don't believe Mr. Wren's explanation of the box, even the father is suspicious. Mr. Wren's lips tightened, and he suddenly said, "Where is the letter, gentlemen, where is the letter?" "What the hell is this—" Kenyon cursed, his thick lips parted. "Quick, quick, everyone, we're wasting time, do you realize?" Kenyon shook his head wordlessly, took out a small piece of paper from his pocket, and handed it to the old gentleman. "Found it on the desk," he muttered uneasily, "how did you know there was such a thing?" It was the note I had seen on Dr. Fawcett's desk the night before, next to the box in the middle. "Ha!" Hume cried, snatching the note from Mr. Wren's hand, "Kenyon, what does this mean? Why didn't you mention it to me?" He pursed his lips: "Anyway, we back to reality." The note was written in ink, in ordinary handwriting, and the paper was dirty, as if many people had passed through it. Hume read the contents of the note aloud: "Venla Fawcett!" yelled the D.A. Guard-" "Find out if it's Fawcett's handwriting," said my father, while Mr. Wren looked on morosely. A sample of Dr. Fawcett's handwriting was obtained, and although no handwriting expert was present, a little comparison was sufficient to establish that the note was indeed in Dr. Fawcett's own hand. "Betrayed," said Commissioner Kenyon dully, "it seems so obvious, Hume, that I was about to tell you about it, that Dow took the money, killed Fawcett, and fled. " "And," said my father sarcastically, "I guess he left the note on purpose so that people would find out." The sarcasm didn't work on Kenyon.But the lingering worry expression returned to Hume's face again. Kenyon went on boasting, "Hume, before you came, I called the bank and asked about it. I would never waste time, and the result was fantastic. Dr. Fawcett drew twenty-five thousand from his account yesterday morning. A thousand yuan comes out, but the money is not in the house." "You mean 'yesterday' morning?" Mr. Wren exclaimed suddenly. "Kenyon, are you sure?" "Listen," growled Kenyon, "I said yesterday was yesterday—" "Ah, that's of the utmost importance," murmured the old gentleman, whose face so radiant as I'd ever seen him, his eyes twinkle and the youthful rosiness return to his cheeks, "of course you mean' Wednesday' morning, not Thursday morning?" "Damn it, yes," said Kenyon, bored. "That's not quite right," murmured Hume. "The note said O was going to escape on Wednesday, not today, Thursday. Strange, very strange." "Look at the reverse side of the note," suggested Mr. Wren softly, with a sharp eye for seeing things the rest of us missed. Hume hastily turned the note over. On it was another letter, this time in pencil and block capitals—the same one we had found in Senator Fawcett's murder. The strip reads: "Ah!" Hume breathed a sigh of relief, "This way the matter is clear. Deo secretly sent this piece of paper out of Algonquin Prison and wrote it on the same note that Fawcett gave him. Seater proves the credibility of this note. It doesn't matter why he postponed it-maybe something happened in the prison that made him decide to wait an extra day; or maybe he was nervous and stage fright and needed an extra day to gather Courage. Is that what you mean, Mr. Wren, when you say it was important for Dr. Fawcett to bring up the money on Wednesday?" "Not at all," said Mr. Wren. Hume stared at him, then shrugged. "Well, there is no doubt that the case is clear. Dow will not escape the fate of the electric chair this time." He smiled confidently, and his original doubts seemed to be swept away. And Kong: "Mr. Lane, do you still think Deo is innocent?" The old gentleman sighed, "I can't find any evidence here to shake my conviction of Dow's innocence." Then he added, as if understanding, "And everything points to another blameworthy man .” "Who?" My father and I yelled at the same time. "I'm not—not quite sure."