red moscow

Chapter 2595

Sokov stood up, walked up to the fake captain, took out a cigarette from his pocket and handed it to him, and asked politely: "Do you smoke?"

"Of course, it would be great if you could give me one."

When the fake captain took out a cigarette from the cigarette box and put it in his mouth, Sokov lit it for him personally and asked casually: "The name you just said must be a fake name. Can you tell me your real name?"

The fake captain took a deep puff of his cigarette, blew out a smoke ring, and said slowly: "My real name is Andrei Miakov."

When the director of the bureau saw Sokov approaching and handing a cigarette to the fake captain, he couldn't help but frown. He felt that Sokov's actions were a bit unnecessary and he couldn't ask anything new. But when he saw that the other party actually said his real name, he couldn't help but feel a little surprised.

Sokov then asked, "Have you ever been a soldier?"

"No." Andrei Miakov shook his head and said, "Not long after my family was evacuated to Nizhny Novgorod, my parents died of illness. Then I was arrested for theft and sent to Siberia for labor reform. I had no chance to join the army."

"Oh, so that's how it is." Sokov nodded and continued, "Then tell me the details of your burglary."

Andrei Miakov cooperated very well and said: "I usually never stay in one place for more than a month."

"Never more than a month?" The sheriff asked immediately after hearing him say that: "Why?"

"The reason is very simple." Andrei Miakov shrugged and said, "When I rent a house, I always tell the other party that because my allowance has not been paid yet, the rent will be paid in a month. And those landlords, seeing that I am a soldier, all readily agreed to my proposal."

"Then tell me the details of your burglary."

Andrei Miakov said: "I usually invite neighbors to my home when I am about to complete a month of living here..."

"I asked you about the details of your burglary, but you told me that you would invite the neighbors to your house before you had lived there for a full month." The sheriff said angrily, "Don't you understand my question?"

"Comrade Sheriff, don't be angry." Sokov felt that Andrei Miakov must have his own intentions in inviting neighbors to his home, so he quickly raised his hand to stop the sheriff, and then said to Andrei Miakov: "Andrei, continue."

Andrei Miakov went on to say: "During the dinner, I will continue to look for topics to deepen my relationship with the neighbors and learn more about the specific circumstances of their families, so as to decide which family to start with."

The sheriff was very anxious when he saw that Andrei Miakov was reluctant to talk about the specific details of the theft. He planned to interrupt him, but when he saw Sokov standing next to him, he could only swallow the words and continue listening to the other party's story.

"After choosing the target, how do you proceed?" asked Sokov.

"After I get to know my neighbors' hobbies through dinner parties, I will take the initiative to tell them: In order to enhance our friendship, I plan to treat everyone to a movie." Andrei Miakov said: "If someone doesn't want to watch a movie, I will suggest watching a play or opera instead. There is always a form of entertainment that everyone likes."

Sokov had roughly understood the purpose of Andrei Miakov's actions when he heard this, and he couldn't help but secretly praise him: He did a great job, inviting the neighbors to watch a movie, a play or an opera to lure the tiger away from the mountain. When everyone was watching a movie or a play in the theater, he sneaked back and sneaked into the empty room to steal, so that he could do it without anyone noticing.

Sure enough, Andrei Miakov confirmed Sokov's guess in the following narration: "I usually find an excuse to sneak out of the theater while they are watching a movie or a play, sneak back to where I live, pry open their door locks, and look for valuables in their homes."

"Aren't you worried that your neighbors will call the police when they find their homes have been robbed?" Sokov looked at Andrei Miakov and asked, "Once the police question you, your identity will be exposed."

"I have thought about this problem." Andrei Miakov said, "So before I invite my neighbors to watch a movie or a play at the theater, I will buy three tickets in advance and let Victoria and her children wait for me at the station before the movie ends. In this way, we can successfully escape from this dangerous place before the neighbors come to their senses."

"You did a great job." Sokov waited for him to finish, then said in an approving tone, "If it were during war, you might have been an excellent scout." After that, he raised his hand and patted the other person on the shoulder, then turned around and walked back to his seat.

"Tell me about it." After Sokov returned to his seat, the sheriff looked at Andrei Miakov and asked, "How many crimes have you committed?"

"I have committed three crimes since September this year." Andrei Miakov replied: "If I hadn't been caught by you today, I would have treated my neighbors to dinner tonight, treated them to a movie tomorrow, and then left the city by car."

Upon hearing this, the director of the bureau instinctively turned his head to look at Sokov and said with emotion: "Comrade General, if you hadn't discovered his flaw today, I estimate that someone would report to the police tomorrow that their home had been robbed. I think those families should be grateful to you."

"It's just a coincidence." Sokov waved his hand and said to the director of the bureau, "Don't tell the truth to the neighbors. Just say that you accidentally discovered that Andrei Miakov was a fake soldier while chasing a criminal."

"clear."

The sheriff waited until Sokov and the director of the bureau finished speaking, then asked cautiously, "What should we do next?"

"Lock him up first." The director of the bureau ordered.

After the police took Andrei Miakov away, the director of the bureau asked Sokov, "Comrade General, do you have any ideas?"

"Comrade Director." Sokov had just taken the initiative to chat with Andrei Miakov, and he did have some thoughts in his mind. When he heard the director of the bureau ask about this, he replied, "Although this man is a liar, a thief, and has never been a soldier, I think in some ways he is a rare talent. Please inform the people guarding the cell not to embarrass him. Maybe he will be useful someday."

Although the director of the bureau did not know what Sokov was going to do with Andrei Miakov, he still answered very straightforwardly: "Okay, Comrade General, I will tell the prison authorities not to embarrass this person."

Just as Sokov was about to leave, the sheriff suddenly said, "Comrade General, Ms. Victoria has arrived. Do you want to participate in her interrogation?"

Sokov was about to ask who Victoria was, but suddenly he thought of Andrei Miakov. The person the sheriff was talking about should be the one who pretended to be Andrei Miakov's wife, so he nodded and said, "Then bring her in."

Soon, a young woman in ordinary clothes was brought in by the police.

"Please take a seat!" The sheriff asked the other party to sit down and asked directly: "What's your name?" "Victoria!"

"Do you know why we called you here?"

"do not know."

While the sheriff was questioning, Sokov was secretly observing the woman's expression. He saw that her tone was confused when she answered the questions. It was obvious that she didn't understand why the police brought her here.

"Andrei Miakov, do you know him?"

Victoria thought about it, then shook her head and said, "I don't know."

"It's the captain you live with." The sheriff said straight to the point without beating around the bush: "After our investigation, we found that the man is not a soldier at all, but a liar and a thief. So far, he has become a suspect in many theft cases. We called you here just to find out how much you know about him?"

"I met him on the train." Victoria lowered her head and whispered, "He said he was an officer who had just returned from the battlefield in the Far East and wanted to find a place to settle down. I happened to be looking for such a place, so I chose to live with him."

"Did he ever show you his military ID or any other valid identification?" the sheriff asked.

Victoria shook her head and said, "No, I have never seen any of his ID. Every time we went to rent a house, he would come forward. He would tell the landlord that since the military allowance had not yet been issued, he would need to wait a month before paying the rent, and hoped that the landlord would understand him."

"What did the landlords say?" asked the sheriff.

"The landlord looked at the military uniform he wore and the medals on his chest and naturally trusted him very much." Victoria said: "In this way, we settled down in Nizhny Novgorod and had our own home. When we had lived there for almost a month, he suddenly told me that he wanted to treat the neighbors to a meal to thank them for taking care of us, and hoped that I could advance the fee and pay it back when he had money.

I thought that since we all lived together, I would definitely help him if he encountered difficulties. Moreover, he used this money to treat his neighbors and build good relations with them, which would be very helpful for our future life.”

"The next day after each dinner party, does he also invite his neighbors to watch a movie, a play, or an opera?" the sheriff continued to ask.

"Yes, that's right, Comrade Policeman." Victoria nodded and said, "I thought that watching movies and plays wouldn't cost much, so I agreed to his arrangement."

"and then?"

"But when we were on our way to the theater, he quietly told me that he needed to leave after the movie started to do something, and hoped that I would find a chance to leave and take the children to a nearby station to wait for him. He had already bought tickets to other cities."

"Do you know why he did that?"

Victoria shook her head first, then nodded and said in a panic: "When I left for the first time, I didn't think about it at all. I thought something had happened. But when I left the second city, I found something wrong."

"What's wrong?"

"Just think about it. Last time he invited neighbors to dinner in Nizhny Lovegorod, and the next day he invited people to see a movie. He was absent in the middle of the movie and asked me to leave the theater with the children and wait for him at the station. I felt something was wrong. When I got on the train, I opened the suitcase he brought with him and saw the silver candlesticks, silver tableware and some gold and silver jewelry inside. Then I realized that he was a thief."

"It would be too arbitrary to judge him as a thief simply by the contents of the box," said the sheriff.

"No, no, no, this is the conclusion I came to after careful observation." Victoria continued, "I saw the silver candlesticks and silver tableware in the box. They all belonged to my female neighbor. I had seen them when I was a guest at her house. Especially those gold and silver jewelry, I had seen my female neighbor wearing them. It was based on these details that I felt that there must be something wrong with the captain."

"Did you verify your judgment later?" Sokov interrupted.

Victoria looked at Sokov. Although she didn't know his identity, she nodded and said truthfully, "When we arrived in the third city, I saw him use the same excuse to get the landlord to agree to let him pay the rent a month later. I thought he must have some conspiracy. So when he arranged for the neighbors to go to the theater to watch a movie again, I saw him leave the theater and secretly followed him out, just to find out if he was going back to where we live."

"And then?" the sheriff looked up at Victoria and asked, "Did he go back to where you live?"

"Yes, he went back," Victoria said. "I saw him go into the house where we lived, but there was no light in our room."

"Not turning on the light doesn't mean anything." The director of the bureau deliberately said in a nonchalant tone: "Maybe he just wants to go home and take a nap, so it's normal not to turn on the light."

"Comrade police officer," Victoria looked at the director of the bureau and said, "If the lights in my house had not been on, the possibility you mentioned would indeed exist. But the next moment, I saw the lights in my neighbor's house were on, and from the swaying figure on the curtains, it was undoubtedly him.

So when we met again at the station, I asked him point blank if he had just gone to the neighbor's house to steal something.

"How did he answer?"

"He said he wasn't stealing, but because he was short of money recently, he had to borrow some things from his neighbors to make a living. When he has more money in the future, he will pay his neighbors back double."

The sheriff laughed and asked, "Do you believe what he said?"

"I don't believe it." Victoria answered simply. She explained to everyone, "I work in the town's coffee shop in the hope that I can earn enough to support myself and my child, so that I can choose to leave him. I don't want my child to have a stepfather who is a thief and a liar when he grows up."

"We have arrested him," the sheriff said to Victoria. "Now you are completely free."

Unexpectedly, as soon as the sheriff finished speaking, Victoria's eyes widened in surprise: "What, he has been arrested by you, when did this happen?"

Sokov was a little confused when he heard Victoria say that. He thought, didn't the policeman who brought you here tell you that the fake captain had been arrested by us, and asked you to come here just to verify some circumstances?