Chapter 9 fifth scene

Mrs. Abkel, still distraught, served Inspector Sam, Inspector Bruno, and Mr. Jerry Lane in the downstairs dining room, and it was a sour lunch.No one spoke for most of the meal, and there was a gloomy atmosphere. Mrs. Arbuckle's heavy footsteps in and out of the dining room, and the clang of the scrawny maid, Virginia, clumsily arranging glasses and plates on the table, were more disturbing. The conversation came and went.For a while it was only the voice of Mrs. Arbuckle, who complained loudly and indiscriminately about how messed up her kitchen was... There seemed to be a large group of police gentlemen feasting on the back of the house.But even Inspector Sam didn't say a word about her bad words, too busy chewing on the tough steak and thinking about heavier things.

"Okay," Bruno said suddenly after five minutes of silence, "that woman's target is Luisa—let's say a woman, because of the clues on her cheeks, it seems that the evidence of the crime is absolutely convincing. The old lady was not killed intentionally, she When the murderer woke up from poisoning, the murderer hit her on the head in a moment of desperation, but who could it be? I can't see any clues." "And the vanilla thing, what the hell does it mean?" Sam roared, throwing the knife and fork on the table in annoyance. "It's... weird. I have a feeling that once we solve this problem, we won't be far from the truth." Not far away."

"Hmm." Mr. Jerry Wren pondered, chewing very hard. "Conrad Hayter," murmured the inspector, "if it hadn't been for that cheek testimony..." "Forget it," Bruno said, "someone is trying to frame him." A detective came in with a sealed envelope: "Dr. Schelling's messenger just delivered this, sir." "Ah!" Ryan said, putting down the knife and fork in his hand, "it's a report, read it aloud, inspector." Sam tore open the envelope, "let's take a look." Regarding poison, Schelling said:

"All as we expected," murmured Sam. "Well, that clears up the shoe and poison pear theory. Mercuric dichloride, huh? Seems... let's go upstairs to the lab." Mr. Jerry Lane was stern and silent.The three of them hadn't finished their coffee, they pushed back their chairs and walked out of the restaurant.They met Mrs. Arbuckle outside the restaurant door, her face was sullen and unsmiling, and she was holding a plate with a glass of yellow milky drink in her hand.Ren glanced at his watch, it was exactly two thirty. On the way upstairs Wren took the letter from the inspector and read it again with painstaking effort.He returned it without any comments.

The bedroom floor was quiet.They paused at the landing of the stairs, and then the door of Miss Smith's room opened, and the nurse appeared with Louisa Kabian--despite the tragedy, the disturbance of the routine, the custom, the deaf The dumb and blind woman passed three men and went downstairs to the restaurant for her daily glass of eggnog.None of the three men spoke. Unless there is further notice, Louisa is currently arranged to live in Miss Smith's room... Both Captain Trevitt and Dr. Miriam have already left the house. Moxiu, Sam's subordinate, leaned against the closed door of the dead man's room with a solid body. He smoked quietly, keeping himself on guard. From his position, he could clearly see the doors of all the rooms on that floor.

The inspector yelled downstairs: "Pikesen!" Pickerson ran up the stairs. "You and Moxiu are guarding this floor, do you understand? Tell the others to rest, don't allow anyone to enter the old lady's bedroom, don't disturb anyone, just keep your eyes open." Pickerson nodded and went downstairs again. The inspector reached into his vest pocket and produced a latch key, the key to York Height's laboratory which he had found among the deceased's belongings.He weighed the key in his hand thoughtfully, then walked around the stairs to the door of the laboratory, followed by Bruno and Ryan.

He didn't open the door right away.Instead, he crouched down and squinted into the keyhole.With a snort, he took a small piece of wire from his pocket pocket and stuck it through the hole.He pushed in repeatedly, then began to circle, and finally, satisfied, he pulled the wire out to examine. — clean. He stood up, put away the wire, and looked suspicious: "Strange," he said, "I thought we would find wax in the gate town, so it proved that someone stole the wax model of the keyhole, and then copied a key." .But there's no wax in it." "That's not that important," Bruno said, "someone could have made a wax cast and cleaned the keyhole, or someone who poisoned 'loaned' Mrs Hatter's key and made a copy of it, and then she didn't notice, completely No matter what it is, we will never know, anyway, the old lady is dead."

"Well, well, Inspector," Wren said impatiently, "this won't help us, open the door." Sam put the key in the hole.The key and lock fit snugly, but he couldn't turn it, and the inside was rusted, as if it hadn't been used for a long time.A bead of sweat dripped from the tip of his nose, and he twisted his hand, and the lock snapped loose, then clicked, and Sam took the handle and pushed it, and the door rattled like a lock—and all the metal on it was rusted up. The door opened slowly, and the inspector was about to step into the threshold when Ren pressed the big gentleman's arm with one hand.

"Huh?" Sam asked. Ren pointed to the floor inside the door.It was an uncarpeted hardwood floor, with a uniform layer of dust on it, and he bent down and ran his fingers across the floor, and his fingers were covered with a layer of dirt. "Your raiders have never used this entrance, Inspector," he said. "The dust is untrodden, and from its thickness it must have been many weeks." "It wasn't like that when I looked at it two months ago—at least, it wasn't so dusty," Sam said, looking a bit disturbed. How strange it is to say that it is six feet away!"

They stood side by side on the porch, looking into the room.As the inspector said, the entire large space in front of the door has not been stepped on, and the dust is spread on the ground like a layer of dark brown silk threads.About six feet from the door, however, there was a pictorial scatter of dust, with footprints everywhere, as far as they could see into the interior of the room.But those feet were careful enough not to leave any clear marks. The spectacle of dust was striking, with hundreds of trample marks evident, but not a single footprint fully identifiable. "Whoever it is, it's very careful," Sam said. "Wait a minute, I'll go and see over the table, is there really not a single footprint to photograph."

He stepped in, imprinted the soles of his size twelve shoes on the untrodden dust, and walked carefully around the trodden area.He looked into the shadows. "It's unbelievable!" he muttered. "Not a single clear footprint, oh, come in—you can do nothing to spoil the situation." The prosecutor stepped into the laboratory curiously, but Ren stood firmly at the door and observed the room.The door of the room he was in was the only door in the room. The shape of the room was different from that of the dead man’s room adjacent to the east. The two windows were sealed with thick and hard iron grilles, and the grilles that allowed the sunlight to enter were separated from the room. The gaps between the fences are no more than three inches wide. Between the two windows, there is a simple white iron bed frame, and on the west wall and the wall facing the garden, near the west window, there is a wardrobe.Every piece of furniture was tidy, but dusty. To the right of the door was an old desk with a roll top, a small iron filing cabinet in the corner, and to the left was a wardrobe.Ren saw the wall to the west, which took up half of the wall, and it was a whole row of shelves with a lot of bottles and jars on it.Under the shelves were low cupboards with wide doors that were all closed. To the right of these shelves were two rectangular work tables, large and old, filled with dusty stills, rows of test tubes, spirit lamps, faucets, and oddly shaped electronic instruments—a mass of chemical equipment, Even for a layman like Ryan, it seems to be very complete.The two desks are parallel, and there is enough space between them for the scientist to work on both desks at the same time with just a slight turn. On the east wall to the right of the table, directly opposite the shelf, was a large fireplace identical to the adjoining chamber of the dead.At the back of the laboratory, on the east wall between the bed and the fireplace, there was a small, rough work bench that had been stained and burned by chemicals.There were also a few chairs scattered here and there, and a three-legged stool with a round top stood in front of the low cabinet, facing the middle shelf. Mr. Jerry Lane stepped in, closed the door, and crossed the room.Except for the six-foot-wide untrodden area he had walked, there was a jumble of footprints everywhere; it was self-evident that since the death of York Height and the first investigation by Inspector Sam; the laboratory had been visited regularly.Moreover, from the dust and the absence of even a clear footprint, it became more obvious that the assailant deliberately wiped away every clear footprint with his feet. "This has evidently been visited more than once," cried the inspector involuntarily, "but how did she get in?" He went to the window, grabbed the iron bars and shook them with all his might, they didn't budge, they were all embedded in the cement; Sam carefully checked the cement and the bars, hoping that a few might be pried open, but This proved in vain; then he examined the sills, both inside and outside of the window, which, though wide enough for a nimble man to pass, could not discern any footprints;Sam shook his head. He turned away from the window and walked toward the fireplace, where—as elsewhere in the room—there were many scuffing footprints.He looked at the fireplace thoughtfully. Although it was quite clean, it was also quite old.He hesitated, squatted down, bent down, and stuck his head into the fireplace. Sam let out a cry of satisfaction, and quickly retracted his head. "What? What's on it?" Bruno asked. "Stupid, didn't think of that!" exclaimed the inspector. "You know, you can look up the chimney and you can see the sky! And there are some old footnails in the brick walls—possibly from chimney sweeps." For footing. I'll bet you a dollar that this is..." His face darkened. "Is the passage for our lady to enter the laboratory, Inspector?" Ryan said gently, "Your expression is so honest, you can tell what you are thinking at a glance. You want to say, our supposed female criminal , enter through the chimney. This is too outrageous, inspector, if the male accomplice uses this method to enter, it is still possible." "A woman can do anything a man can do these days," Sam said, "and, besides, that idea is possible, perhaps with an accomplice." He glared at Bruno. Might be dragged into it again! Louisa Kabian may have touched a woman's face, but it was Conrad Hitter who hit Mrs Hatter on the head and left those footprints!" "That," said the prosecutor, "is what I was thinking, Sam, the moment Mr. Wren revealed his accomplice. Yes, I think we've got some direction..." "Gentlemen, gentlemen," said Wren, "don't get me out of it, please, I'm not revealing anything. I'm just pointing out a logical possibility. Ah—inspector, the chimney is wide enough for a grown male Climb up from the roof?" "You think I—hey, come and see for yourself, Mr. Wren, and you're not limping." Sam said in an unfriendly tone. "Inspector, I trust your opinion." "Of course, of course it's wide enough! I can just crawl in, and my shoulders are not what you call skinny." Ren nodded, and strolled over to the west wall to check the ledge.There are five shelves up and down, and each shelf is divided into three sections, so there are fifteen sections in total. More than that showed York Head's neat quirks.And all the bottles on the shelves were the same size, all the same width as the can, and all had the same labels.All labels have the name of the contents of the bottle neatly written in indelible ink, and many have affixed a strip of red paper stating that it is toxic, and each label includes, in addition to the name of the chemical, some chemical symbols, and a Numbering. "This guy is organized," Lane said. "Yes," Bruno said, "but it doesn't mean much to us." Ren shrugged: "Maybe not." He observed the shelves, and it was obvious that all the bottles and jars were arranged strictly according to their numbers, with bottle No. bottle number, and so on.The shelves were full—there was no gap between the jars; it was evident that before their eyes was a complete set of chemicals.There are twenty bottles and jars in each section, so there are as many as three hundred kinds in total. "Ah," Wren said, "here's an interesting thing." He pointed to a bottle near the center of the first section of the top floor.Marked above: HNO Comes with a poison red label.The bottle is filled with white crystalline flakes and is only half full.It wasn't the bottle itself, however, that seemed to interest Wren, but the dust on the bottom shelf of the bottle.That dust had been disturbed, and the bottle of strychnine had almost certainly been taken off the shelf some time ago. "Isn't the poison mixed in eggnog milk strychnine?" Ren asked. "That's right," said Sam. "I told you, we investigated the lab a few months ago after the poisoning, and that's when we found strychnine." "Was the bottle in the exact same position as we see it now?" "right." "The dust on the shelf where the bottle was then, as touched as it is now?" Sam leaned forward, looked at the dust on the shelf, and frowned: "Yeah, like that. There wasn't so much dust back then, but it was enough for me to remember. After reading it, I carefully put it away." The bottle was put back exactly where I found it." Ren turned back to look at the shelf.His eyes fell on the second floor from the top.On the edge of the shelf below bottle 69, there is a strange oval imprint that looks like a dirty or grimey finger print.The label on this bottle reads: The bottle contained a colorless liquid. "Strange," Ryan whispered in surprise, "do you remember the stain under this bottle of nitric acid, inspector?" Sam narrowed his eyes: "Yes, of course I remember, it was there two months ago." "Well, are there any fingerprints on the nitric acid bottle?" "No, the person who used it was wearing gloves, but we really haven't found any evidence of nitric acid being used. Perhaps Hayt used nitric acid in an experiment and he was wearing rubber gloves." "It still doesn't work..." Ren said coldly, "Explain how the stain came from." He browsed the shelves. "Mercuric dichloride?" asked the prosecutor. "If we can find here—Schelling's report that there is mercuric dichloride in pears..." "It cannot be denied that this laboratory is fully stocked," Ryan observed, "here, Mr. Bruno." He points to a bottle on the middle right, or third shelf. It was the eighth bottle on that shelf, and the label read: The liquid poison in the bottle was not full, and the bottom print on the shelf had been moved. Sam pinched the neck of the bottle and took it out, inspecting the bottle carefully: "No fingerprints. Gloves again." He shook the bottle, frowned, then put it back on the shelf, "Dichloro in pears That's where the mercuric acid comes from. It's an excellent device for poisoning criminals! The poisons that exist all over the world are readily available." "Well," said Bruno, "what poison did Schelling say Hayt had in his system when they brought him up from Lower Bay?" "Hydramide," Ryan replied, "here." The poison that York Height swallowed before jumping into the sea is in the marked bottle, which is placed on the top shelf on the right.It was like the other bottles they had checked, clearly marked as poisonous, and there was not much of the colorless liquid in it. Inspector Sam pointed out several fingerprints on the glass bottle: "The dust around where the bottle stands has not been disturbed." "Those fingerprints belong to York Hatter. We checked them when we investigated the first poisoning of the Cabiana woman." "But," Wren asked kindly, "how did you get Hatter's fingerprints, Inspector? He was buried before then, and I guess you couldn't get them while he was still in the morgue." His fingerprints?" "You don't care about a little clue, do you?" Sam grinned, "Yes, we can't get a fingerprint record from the corpse itself, because the muscles of his fingers are rotten, and the loops and threads on it are gone. .We had to come here and look for fingerprints on the furniture. We found quite a few, and they matched the fingerprints on the prussic acid bottle." "From the furniture, eh?" Wren murmured, "I see, I asked a stupid question, Inspector." "No doubt Hatter filled a can of hydrogen cyanide, or hydrogen cyanide, as Schelling called it, from this No. 57 bottle," said Bruno, "and went out to poison himself and drown himself. The bottle has not been seen since been touched." Mr. Jerry Lane seemed quite confused by those shelves. He looked and looked, and then went back to the fifth shelf for a long time. His eyes returned twice to the shelf where the fourth bottle—nitric acid—was. Smudges on the edges.He stood a little closer and looked at the edges of all the shelves. His face lit up quickly. On the second shelf, in the central paragraph, there was also an oval-shaped smudge similar to the previous one on the edge of the stamped bottle of sulfuric acid. "Two smudges," he said thoughtfully, his gray-green eyes shining with a light that hadn't been there before, "Inspector, when you first checked this laboratory, was the second smudge here?" "Which one?" Sam looked up. "No, is there something wrong?" "I think, Inspector," Wren remarked dryly, "that anything that wasn't here two months ago and is here now is worth noting." He lifted the bottle up carefully and saw the bottle on the shelf The dirty ring left at the bottom is clear.He raised his eyes quickly, and the joy on his face was gone, replaced by doubts, he stood speechless for a while, then shrugged, turned and left. He wandered around the room gloomily, deepening his gloom with every step.Those shelves attracted him like a magnet, and in the end, they pulled him back.He first checked the low cabinet under the five shelves, then opened the two wide low doors and looked inside... nothing interesting: cardboard boxes, tin cans.Many small packages of chemicals, test tubes, test tube racks, a small refrigerator, various scattered electronic equipment, various chemical supplies.He muttered impatiently at his cluelessness, and slammed the door shut. At last he went to look at the roll-top desk near the door.The roll cover was closed, he tried it, and the table cover rolled up. "You'd better look it up, Inspector," he suggested. Sam snorted: "I've checked, Mr. Wren. When Het's body was found off the coast of Sayo Point, we opened it and checked it. There was nothing related to the case inside. It was full of personal and scientific documents. , and some of Hitter's chemistry notes—his experiments, I suppose." Ren rolled up the entire table cover and looked around. The things on the table were in a mess. "I did it last time I checked," said the inspector. Ren shrugged, closed the desk, and walked to the iron filing cabinet next to him. "I've checked that one too," Sam said patiently, but Ryan still opened the unlocked iron drawer and rummaged through it until he found a neat stack behind a pile of experimental data folders. small index cards. "Oh, yes, that syringe," the D.A. murmured. Lane nodded. "There are twelve hypodermic syringes recorded on the index, Mr. Bruno. I suspect ... there are." He put down the index card and grabbed a large leather case in the back of the drawer.Bruno and Sam craned their necks from behind him. On the lid of the suitcase, there are two letters YH in gold stamping. Ryan opened the box.Inside, there is a row of grooves on the purple flannel, and eleven large and small syringes are neatly arranged in the grooves, and one of the grooves is empty. "Damn it," Sam said, "Sherling took that syringe away." "I don't think," said Wren, "that it's necessary to get that syringe back, Inspector, you remember the one we found on Mrs. Hatter's bed. It had a number on it, six, didn't you? York Hatter works Another example of orderliness." He touched the empty groove with his fingernail.All grooves have a small black strip with a white number printed on each strip.The syringes are arranged according to the number, and the empty groove is marked with a 6. "And the size of this groove," he went on, "is the size of the syringe, if I remember correctly. Yes, the syringe with the mercuric dichloride came out of this box, and Here," he said, stooping to pick up a small leather case, "is, if I'm not mistaken, a case for needles... yes, one needle is missing, since the index lists eighteen , there are only seventeen here. Alas!" He sighed, put the big and small boxes back to the back of the drawer, and then looked through the folders aimlessly.Notes, experiments, materials for original needs... In one of the separated compartments, there is a file folder that is empty. He closed the drawer of the filing cabinet.Sam standing somewhere behind suddenly exclaimed loudly, Bruno immediately rushed to the inspector's direction, and Ren also turned around quickly.Sam knelt in the dust, almost invisible behind one of the heavy work tables. "What?" Bruno yelled, as he and Ryan circled the table. "Find something?" "Huh," Sam muttered as he stood up, "it seemed like a mystery just now, but it's not anymore, look here." They looked in the direction of his finger and understood what surprised him. call.Between the two work tables, closer to the fireplace and farther from the ledge, were three neat little dots in the dust.They are arranged in a triangle with equal distances between the points.Ryan took a closer look, and the four o'clock itself was also covered with dust, but compared to the thick dust around it, it was just a layer of tulle. "Simple. At first I thought it was an important discovery. In fact, it was just a stool." "Ah, yes," Lane recalled, "I forgot, stool." The inspector grabbed the small three-legged stool placed on the floor in front of the middle of the ledge, put the three legs down against the three dots, and just covered the three dots: "That's right. It's that simple. The stool was placed on the Here, it was moved by someone, that’s all.” "It's nothing," Bruno said, disappointed. "Nothing happened." But Ryan seemed secretly pleased. He looked at the seat of the stool with familiar eyes, as if he had checked the stool when he stood in front of the shelf just now.The stools are also dusty, but the surface of the stool is messy, some places are dusty, some are not. "Ah—inspector," Wren whispered, "when you investigated this laboratory two months ago, was the stool in this place? I mean, since the first investigation, has the stool been Used or moved?" "If only I knew." "I think," Ren said softly, turned and left, "it's all right." "I'm glad you're satisfied," the prosecutor muttered, "I don't see why yet." Mr. Jerry Lane made no answer.He casually shook hands with Bruno and Sam, muttered a few words about returning to Hamlet, and left the laboratory.He came down looking tired, with a little slumped shoulders, took his hat and cane from the hall, and went out of the house. The inspector whispered, "He looks about the same as me, and he is in the fog of this case." He sent a criminal policeman to the roof to guard the chimney entrance, locked the door of the laboratory, and said goodbye to the prosecutor (later The latter leaves the house with a hopeless face and returns to his noisy office), and then goes downstairs as well. When the inspector came downstairs, Pickerson was standing on the second floor, twiddling his thumbs in frustration.