Chapter 2 first headmaster crucified

The incident took place at first in West Virginia, on a T-road half a mile from the small village of Agyo—one was from New Cumbarland to the Main Street in Bowtown, and the other was a branch road to Agyo. When Ellery Quinn became familiar with the terrain, she immediately realized the importance of this geography.Moreover, he found many clues at a glance, but those clues were all contradictory, making it impossible for him to summarize them into a coherent way.Therefore, he had no choice but to take a step back and analyze and consider carefully.Why did Ellery Quinn, the internationally renowned detective, park her rickety car on a dusty road in West Virginia at 2 a.m. on a cold December afternoon , And then stand alone blankly?This matter may need to be explained.There are actually many important factors lurking for such an unusual thing to happen.One—and especially worth mentioning—was Ellery's father, Sergeant Quinn, who had given up his vacation to investigate an incident that did not fall under his jurisdiction.He came to Chicago for a national conference of police officers.Due to the terrible public security situation in the area, the Chicago police officer invited police officers from major cities across the country to listen to the complaints about the rampant gangsters in his jurisdiction.

However, Ellery, who came with his father, heard about this horrific and enigmatic crime when Officer Quinn left the hotel and rushed to the Chicago police headquarters. The eye-catching name "T-shape murder case".And there are a number of places in the newspaper records that are of interest to Ellery's detectives.For example, on Christmas morning, Andrew Pang's head was beheaded and crucified.So Ellery pulled his father out of the cigarette-smoky conference hall and headed east in the race car.Although this car is second-hand, it still runs fast. Police Officer Quinn is a father who is obedient to his son, but at the moment, he is very angry.Because he realized that many heart-stopping things would happen one after another.After they set off from Chicago, they passed through cities between Illinois and Ohio such as Duredo, Sandusky, Cleveland, Ravenna and Lisbon along the way.And all this part of the trip, there's been an eerie silence between Ellery's murmurs and the rumble of the sports car's engine.

Arroyo is a small village of only two hundred people.When they noticed, the car had already passed Arroyo and came to a T-junction. There is a road sign nailed with a crossbar at the T-junction. They stopped the car and took a closer look. It turned out that they had reached the end of Arroyo Town, and the direction at right angles to it was from New Kumbaran to the signpost. city ​​highway.One side of the road sign points to Biaocheng in the northeast, and the other side points to New Kumbaran in the southwest. Officer Quinn began to complain: "This is outrageous, you brought me to this backcountry for such a stupid murder...I really don't understand you—" Ellery turned off the engine and walked to the car Front.There was no one on the road.Ellery stood under the blue West Virginia sky, looking out at the mountains in the distance.He stepped hard on the hard soil under his feet, making some noises.The cold wind was bitingly blowing the skirt of Ellery's coat, and on the road sign standing in front of him, it seemed that the image of the headless corpse of Arroyo Primary School principal Andulu Pang was nailed on it.

The signposts, which used to be white, are now a dirty slate gray.The signpost was six feet tall, about the same height as Ellery.And when Ellery looked at it from a distance, it was like a giant T standing there like a left and right crossbar with outstretched arms.Only then did he understand why the reporter of the UP newspaper called this murder case with the letter T. First, the road sign was T-shaped, and second, the road sign also happened to stand at the intersection of the T-shape.And just now Ellery's car passed by the victim's house hundreds of feet away, and the door was also painted with blood to imply a T letter.

Ellery sighed deeply and took off his hat.He didn't do this to mourn the victim, but he was sweating profusely despite being in the cold wind.So he took out his handkerchief, wiped his forehead, and wondered in his heart, who would commit such a cruel murder?Even corpses... When he saw news reports about corpses, he kept them in his mind.This is a special report written by a well-known Chicago reporter who is good at describing brutal social crimes—— This Christmas, the most tragic murder in history took place.The headless body of Andrew Pang (forty-six years old), the primary school principal in Arroyo, a small desolate village in West Virginia, was found nailed to a deserted place not far from the village on Christmas morning. T-junction road sign.

The four-inch iron nails passed through the victim's open palms, and then were nailed to the wind and rain-beaten crossbar.Two large iron nails were also nailed to his ankles, which were fixed to the bottom of the signpost.In the underarms, two large iron nails were also nailed to support the corpse.Since the victim's head had been chopped off, the body presented a large T-shape. Both the road signs themselves and the intersections of the roads are T-shaped.And on the gate of the victim's house not far from here, the murderer also wrote a big T with the blood of the deceased.Why would a crazy murderer represent a T-shape with a dead body?

Why is Christmas time chosen?And the murderer dragged the body to a T-shaped road sign three hundred feet away from the victim's home. What does the T-word really mean? The local police were very troubled by the case.Because although An Dulu is usually weird, he has never had any grudges with others.Although he has no enemies, he has no friends either.And the only person he was close to, Klimt, a dull man who served him, was also missing at the time.So the local prosecutor speculated that Klimt may have become the victim of the most insane murderer in the history of American crime... There are many other reports of the same situation, from which we can find the living conditions of the murdered primary school principal in the lonely farm in Arroyo, and some trivial information such as the dynamics of Andrew and Klimt recently collected by the police.This was provided by the local prosecutor.

Ellery took off his glasses, wiped them, put them back on, and carefully studied the clues of this horrific murder with keen eyes. At the front end of the left and right brackets of the road signs, you can also find the nail holes left by the police after pulling out the big nails.Rust-like brown spots surround each nail hole.Extending down from these tendril-like tendrils of brown, blood flowed from Andrew's nailed hands.Two other nail holes, not stained with blood, can be found at the protrusion where the cross-bar intersects the pillar.These two nail holes should be nailed under the two armpits to support the corpse.The dry blood that soaked from the top of the pillar to the bottom should be the trace of the blood that flowed from the wound after the victim was beheaded.Near the bottom of the central pillar, two traces of nailing can be found. Obviously, this is where the iron nails on the ankles are located, and there is a lot of blood soaked from here to the ground.

Ellery returned to the car with a serious expression on his face.Officer Quinn still had a resentful expression on his face, his huge body was leaning against the back of the chair and waiting.Layers of old woolen scarves were wrapped around his neck, and his angry red nose was like a signal about to burst into danger. "Hey! Let's go! I'm freezing." "Aren't you interested at all?" Ellery asked Officer Quinn as he sat in the driver's seat. "Not interested at all!" "Liar." Ellery started the engine and chuckled.In an instant, the car was galloping forward like a hound, returned to the road it had just come from, and galloped in the direction of Arroyo.

Officer Quinn felt his life was in danger, but he still pretended to sit calmly in his seat. "How can you let go of such a bizarre thing," Ellery said in a voice louder than the sound of an engine. "To use a human as a cross at Christmas. It's unreasonable!" "Hmm!" Queen Quinn replied. "I'm getting more and more interested in this murder," Ellery said. "Okay, please concentrate on driving!" My father suddenly protested impatiently.The car drove forward, "If you are interested, what can you do?" Officer Quinn scolded his son with wide eyes, "Come back to New York with me."

Soon arrived at the small village of Arroyo. Ellery parked in front of a log cabin. "Hey!" the father said to his son angrily, "Even the police here can't find any clues, but you came here from the murder scene. Isn't that stupid?" The police officer shook his head, "Then we should Where do we start the investigation?" the police officer said to himself again. "I didn't think you were really curious at all," Ellery said, getting out of the car and onto the sidewalk. "Excuse me." He asked a man in blue overalls sweeping the street. "Is this Arroyo's police station?" The man said blankly: "Why do you ask such a boring thing? Just look at the signboard and you will know... Go away, I don't know why." There are a bunch of buildings gathered there.Looking around from the cabin, it's like being in the west of the old wasteland.Next door is a grocery store with an old gas pump in front and a small garage behind it.In front of the wooden house, you can see the handwritten signboard in bold characters: Arroyo Village Office The two walked into the wooden house, and in the room with "Police" written on the door, they finally saw someone dozing off at the desk.The man was fat, with a red face and yellow teeth. Officer Quinn snorted twice, waking up the dozing man.He lifted his heavy eyelids, scratched his head, and said in a hoarse voice, "Who are you looking for?" "We're looking for Arroyo's Landon Police." The dozing man rubbed his eyes, looked at it for a while, and then said slowly, "I am." Ellery then pretended to point to his father: "This is Officer Richard Quinn, who was sent by the New York Police Headquarters to investigate the murder here." "What! New York?..." Policeman Lu Deng's eyes suddenly lit up. "That's right." Ellery kicked his father's leather shoes, and then said, "Okay, officer, start asking!" Quinn nodded proudly, and then went straight to the sofa inside and sat down.Ellery took out the cigar box and offered Constable Luden a cigarette. "Can you tell me all about the murder?" Hearing this, Policeman Ludeng opened his sleepy eyes and said, "Is it Andrew Pang's murder? It's strange, why did the police from New York come here? What do you want to investigate?" When his eyes met the police officer's sharp eyes When their eyes met, their sleepy eyes immediately woke up, "Okay, what do you want to ask?" "Who was the first to find the body?" "It's Grandpa Peter. He lives in the mountains nearby and lives by himself." "Isn't there another farmer?" "It's Mike Okins. He's got two or three acres of fields near Beacon. He drove up to Arroyo early that morning--wait a minute, it's Monday--so it was It was Friday morning—it was Christmas, and it wasn’t long before dawn. Grandpa Peter was coming up to Arroyo—he used to come down the hill. Okins met Grandpa Peter and they hitchhiked to Arroyo together. When they When I came to the fork and was about to turn in the direction of Arroyo——I saw the body of Andrew Pang on the road sign, as stiff as frozen mutton." "We've seen that signpost," Ellery interrupted. "In the past few days, there have been nearly a hundred people in the village, and they drove there specially to see it." Lu Deng said unhappy, "I was busy directing traffic, and I was sweating. Grandpa Peter and Okins were greatly affected. Big fright, they were almost frightened to death..." "Indeed," said Sergeant Quinn. "Didn't they touch the body?" Ellery asked. Lu Deng shook his half-white head vigorously and said, "They didn't even dare to touch them, and immediately ran to the village as if being chased by a demon, and woke me up from my sleep." "What time was it then?" Police officer Lu Deng's face began to turn red: "It's eight o'clock—it's like this, the night before, I went to Madou Olis's house and got drunk, so I overslept—" "Have you and Mr. Oris rushed over immediately?" "Yes. Olis and I—as you know, he is our village head—and four other young men will rush over immediately. Alas! Andulu's murder is really cruel." Lu Deng Start by saying, "I've never seen anything more brutal in my life. And it's blasphemous at Christmas. Let me just say it's all because that Andrew is an atheist." "What?" Officer Quinn asked immediately, his red nose protruding from the scarf. "What do you mean? He's an atheist?" "No, actually I don't know too well." Luden began to say with an unhappy face, "I usually go to church occasionally, but that fellow Andrew never goes. The pastor also to him—forget it, say so Most of it is nonsense." "That's a point worth noting," said Ellery, coming up to his father. "That's interesting. Maybe it's religious bigotry, Dad." "That's right! Everyone said that too." Lu Deng said, "But I'm not very clear. Anyway, you must think that I, who patrols the village every day, should be very clear about everything. But for this matter, I There is no way." Lu Deng's voice was a little vague, "It should not be just a religious issue, there must be other reasons." "Are there any suspicious persons in the village?" "The lunatics who do that kind of thing are definitely not from our village. Besides, I said that Andrew and the villagers will not have any feuds." "Has anyone come from other places recently?" "There wasn't a single one...and that day the village chief, me and the strong men judged the size of the deceased's body, the clothes on his body, the books in his arms, etc. to confirm that the deceased was Andulu Pang, so the corpse was lifted from the pillar. Take it down. But on the way back to the village, I passed Andrew's house..." "How?" Ellery asked seriously. "It looks like something happened." Police officer Luden replied rudely, biting his cigar, "There are traces of a fierce battle left at the scene. The chairs are tilted here and there, and there are bloodstains everywhere, and the door of the entrance is like a newspaper. It was the same as the report, with a big T written on it, and there was no trace of Klimt at the same time.” "That's a manservant." Officer Quinn said, "He's not here? Did you take anything with you?" "No." Lu Deng said while scratching his head, "Actually, we don't know much about the situation there. I'll deal with the aftermath according to the judge's instructions. As for the search of Klimt—" he said slowly Slowly closing one eye, "It's the same as when other officers came to investigate. In fact, I can't help it." He hastily added this sentence. "No news from Klimt so far?" Ellery asked. "My knowledge is limited, but probably not yet. But a warrant has been issued. The body was sent to Wilton City Hall twelve kilometers away from here for management. Andrew's home was also sealed up by the prosecutor. Now The State Police and the Khankoku County District Attorney are in charge of this murder." Ellery was musing, and Officer Quinn fidgeted in his chair.Constable Luden kept looking at the glasses on Ellery's nose. "Besides, the head was chopped off." Ellery said to himself, "Strange, it must have been chopped off by an axe, too?" "Yes, we found that ax in Andrew's house. It was a tool used by Klimt, but there were no fingerprints on it." "But where did the head go?" Lu Deng shook his head: "There's not even a shadow. Probably the killer took it away as a souvenir!" "Dad, are you free?" Ellery put on his hat, "Mr. Luden, thank you for the information you provided." Ellery extended his hand and gently shook hands with Police Officer Luden.At this time, smiles appeared on each other's faces.Constable Lu Deng was also in a happy mood and sent the two of them to the door.