Tang Dynasty detective

Chapter 6 The Murderer

Li Canghai collected his thoughts, and said, "I believe everyone wants to know the whole story of this case, who is the murderer, and what grievances do they have with the deceased? But before that, we need to clarify a few suspicious points."

"First, the murderer's motive for killing. Second, how did the murderer get in. Third, how did the murderer get out. If these three things are resolved, the truth of the case will be revealed."

No one spoke, everyone looked at him, trying to see what tricks he could come up with.

Li Canghai stretched out a finger and said, "Let's talk about the first point, the murderer's motive. Everyone regards me as the murderer because I was at the scene of the crime, but have you ever thought that when I first arrived in Xiaoyang Village, I even I didn't know there was a temple in this village, let alone your customs."

"Oh, what customs do they have here?" Huang Mang asked with a gloomy face.

Li Canghai ignored him, but looked at the old village chief, and asked, "Do all the women here have to go to the temple for a night before they get married, in order to pray for the blessings of the gods?"

The old village chief was a little stunned, not knowing what this had to do with the murder, but he nodded honestly.

"This is the crux of the whole case. You can imagine why the murderer chooses when the deceased is praying for blessings? Because, at that time, there was only the bride in the entire mountain temple." Li Canghai said.

"What do you want to say? Are you trying to absolve yourself of the crime?" Huang Mang stared with bull's eyes, quite angry at Li Canghai's rudeness.

Li Canghai shook his head: "I am not exonerating myself. Those who know this custom and know that the deceased is married must be from the village."

"It's nonsense, it's nonsense, you must be framing the villagers on purpose because you can't find the murderer!" The old village head shouted tremblingly with anger on his face.

Li Canghai glanced at Di Huai, Di Huai stroked his chin to stop the old village chief's words, and signaled Li Canghai to continue.

Huang Mang, who was sitting on the side, seemed to feel that his face had been trampled on the ground. He said with a slumped face, "You have been talking for a long time, but you didn't reveal the murderer's motive. If you dare to play tricks on me, I will kill you."

Li Canghai is not the kind of person who is threatened, he snorted, and without looking at him, he continued: "The murderer's motive is the key to this case, I'm afraid everyone won't believe me if I tell it now, I'll talk about it later. Now, let's talk about the second doubt, how did the murderer get in."

"Based on the customs of the village, women pray for blessings in the mountain temple before they get married. The gate must be locked from the outside, implying that blessings are locked. Everyone knows that the gate was indeed locked that night, and there was no sign of damage. The key to open the gate is also It has been on the body of Da Niu who was guarding that night."

"Are you doubting that Da Niu can't succeed?" The village elder asked angrily.

"Village elder, please listen to me?" Li Canghai's voice suddenly rose a lot. To this pedantic old man, since last night when he led the villagers to sacrifice to the mountain god, Li Canghai has not been polite to him at all.

He didn't bother to see the village elder's reaction, and continued, "I have inspected the scene with Mr. Di, and from the situation at the scene, we can make a rough judgment on the murderer."

"First of all, the murderer is a male, taller than six feet, with a strong build, engaged in technical labor, extremely strong psychological endurance, and a slight split personality."

"It's nonsense, you said it so clearly, I think you are the murderer, right? How do you know that the murderer is a man, and how do you know the height of the murderer? As for what...personality...cracking? I think it's all made up by you. Right?" Huang Mang frowned and said coldly.

"Master Captain, the deceased was humiliated that night. It seems obvious about this, right? As for other aspects, I will speak slowly."

He led the crowd into the temple, and said: "Everyone should remember that the head of the deceased was beheaded, and the body was inserted effortlessly on the steel fork held by the statue, which shows that the murderer was taller than the deceased. The murderer placed the deceased On the altar, the murder weapon was used to cut off the neck of the deceased, and it was only used once, which means that the murderer did not hesitate to strike, which is enough to show that the murderer has a strong psychological endurance. As for the split personality... It means that the murderer did not hesitate at all. At that time, there were two different faces from the usual ones."

"Cang Hai, you want to say that the murderer is usually well disguised?" Di Huai seemed to understand what he meant, and questioned.

Li Canghai nodded and said, "Although it's not very accurate, it's about the same. It can be seen from the scene of the crime that there are very few clues left at the scene, which is enough to explain a problem. The murderer is very cautious. According to me The research on this kind of person, this kind of person is often ordinary-looking, not good at speech, and was bullied for a long time when he was young, which made him psychologically distorted in the process of growing up."

"Look here, everyone. This is the trace left by the murder weapon when the deceased was beheaded. From this, it can be seen that the murderer and the deceased seem to have a deep hatred."

Everyone stretched their necks, looked at the deep knife marks on the altar, and couldn't help but gasp. What kind of hatred would be used to chop off a person's head with such great strength?
Huang Mang frowned, and said coldly: "After talking for a long time, you didn't say how the murderer got in."

"Don't be impatient, Captain, I'll talk about it." Li Canghai paused, and then said: "The method for the murderer to come in is very simple. He walked in through the gate swaggeringly."

"How is this possible? Daniel and the little carpenter were guarding the door that night. If someone came, they would not have noticed." The village elder retorted.

"They were guarding the door. However, some accidents happened during the period. They all slept for a while, and the murderer took advantage of this time to get the key from Daniel, opened the door, and swaggered into the temple .” Li Canghai said in a deep voice.

"It's that simple?" Everyone seemed a little unbelievable.

"It's not easy at all, because everything has been carefully designed." Li Canghai said seriously.

"What do you mean?" Huang Mang asked with a frown.

"As I said, the murderer is a very cautious person, and at the same time has a strong sense of revenge. As far as I know, the original watchman is not the big cow and the little carpenter, but two other people. But on that day, Those two people were unwell at the same time, so they replaced Daniel and Carpenter temporarily, this was the murderer's first plan."

Li Canghai glanced at the crowd lightly, and then said: "After the deceased enters the temple, put Daniel to sleep and take his key. This is the second step of the plan."

"But how did the murderer make Daniel fall asleep? Could it be that the murderer knew Daniel? Little carpenter, did you really not see any suspicious person that night?" Di Huai asked suddenly after pondering for a while.

The little carpenter shook his head blankly, and said in a low voice, "Return...Return to my lord, no."

"What's going on here?" Di Huai asked after thinking for a long time but couldn't think of a reason.

"Daniu has a habit, that is, he likes to smoke cigarettes. In fact, it is very simple to make him fall asleep, all you need to do is add fragrance to the shredded tobacco he smokes." As he spoke, Li Canghai took out the cigarette that was pinned on his back. Pipe, said: "Your Excellency, you can order someone to carefully examine the shredded tobacco left in the pipe, so that you can tell the truth of what I said."

Di Huai looked at the pipe in his hand, frowned and said: "The murderer is able to put incense in his pipe, it is very likely that the murderer knows him, and even has a good relationship, otherwise people will not let him go so easily." Fascinated by the fragrance."

"My lord is right. The murderer did know him. The murderer took advantage of his relationship to put incense in his pipe, but he used the wrong dose, which made Daniel wake up early and saw the murderer in action. .”

"You said Daniel saw the murderer? Did he say who the murderer was?" Everyone was astonished, and Di Huai's jaw almost dropped.

No one expected that there would be witnesses to this murder!
Li Canghai sighed, shook his head and said: "Unfortunately, Daniel inhaled too much mist, which led to hallucinations. Although he saw the murderer committing the crime, he thought it was a ghost."

"What kind of fragrance can make people hallucinate?" Huang Mang asked with a frown.

"This is it." Li Canghai took out a tree root the size of a fist from his bosom, and said, "This is a peculiar kind of agarwood, called 'Galanchen', an extremely rare spice that can help people calm down. However, Jialan Shen has a characteristic, that is, when it burns together with sandalwood, it will produce a small amount of ecstasy. If the dosage is too much, it will cause hallucinations and become delirious."

This knowledge comes entirely from his fused memory. It turns out that although that man is a useless scholar, he has read a lot of classics.

"Brother Li, isn't this the piece that the little carpenter gave you?" Di Feng looked at the piece of aloes, and suddenly said in surprise, "Could it be... Could it be that the little carpenter is the murderer?"

As soon as this remark came out, everyone was in an uproar.

"How is this possible? How could the little carpenter be the murderer?"

"That's right, I think he can't find the murderer, so he's talking nonsense here!"

……

Everyone whispered, but the little carpenter stood on the spot dumbfounded, staring at Li Canghai in a daze, wondering why he suddenly suspected that he was the murderer.

Everyone retreated automatically. Although they didn't believe what Li Canghai said, they still distanced themselves from the little carpenter.

"I have to say, you concealed it very well. Did you admit it yourself, or should I say it for you?" Li Canghai said lightly.

"I... I didn't kill anyone! It wasn't me... It wasn't me!" The little carpenter gasped and looked at the crowd as if asking for help, hoping that someone could speak for him.

However, he looked around, and no one planned to speak.

"Actually, I knew you were the murderer a long time ago. It's just that there was no evidence, so I didn't expose you. Your biggest failure is that you overestimate yourself. You thought you were perfect, but you didn't expect to leave many clues. "Li Canghai walked around him, and said calmly: "From the time I got the pipe, I found that the fragrance left in the pipe was the same as the one I inhaled in the temple. Zongxiang is a specialty of this place, and I didn’t know that this kind of fragrance is only available to you until I continued to eat it and went from house to house to look for it.”

Only then did Di Feng suddenly realize that he finally knew why Li Canghai risked being bitten by dogs and went door-to-door to eat and drink. It turned out that it was to investigate this kind of fragrance.

"I think you also accidentally discovered that 'Galan Shen' mixed with sandalwood can produce misty fragrance? I went to all the houses, and only yours has this residual fragrance, so I found a reason and asked you if there is any fragrance. I don't have this kind of agarwood. I just didn't expect that you would hand over the agarwood to me so happily, and it would save me a lot of trouble." Li Canghai patted the agarwood in his hand and shrugged his shoulders.

The little carpenter looked terrified, and his eyes were full of bewilderment.

"Male, six feet three inches tall, strong and strong, engaged in carpentry, good at using knives and axes, and has a strong psychological endurance. Unfortunately, you meet all of these criteria."

"I, I don't know what you're talking about." The little carpenter bit his lip and said tremblingly.

"Oh? Then let me describe it to you. You put 'garanchen' and sandalwood in the candles in the temple in advance, and after the villagers sent the dead into the temple, you stunned Da Niu again. You took the key from Daniel, walked into the temple and committed the crime, right?" Li Canghai stared at him and said.

"No, Brother Li, that makes sense!" Di Feng tilted his head and thought for a while, then said, "If he came in to kill people, how did he get out afterwards? The doors and windows were closed at that time, and the only skylight was only about a foot in size. Can't he climb up with his body?"

Everyone looked at Li Canghai, waiting for him to answer this question that everyone couldn't figure out.

"That's right, this is the weirdest point of doubt in this case." Li Canghai walked slowly to the wall with his hands behind his back, and said to Di Feng, "Speaking of which, you told me all of this."

"Me?" Di Feng pointed to his nose, suddenly confused.

"That's right, it's the black line on the wall. I also wondered what the black line on the wall was for? It wasn't until I found a hole under the window and the black line behind the door that I thought The key to get through it." Li Cang closed the gate, pointed to an unclear black line and said, "Look here, everyone, this long line runs from the window to the latch, Di Feng, bring the latch."

Di Feng hurriedly handed him a new latch made according to the size of the previous latch.

Li Canghai took out an ink fountain from his bosom, shook it to the little carpenter and said, "I'm sorry, I took one as a souvenir when I left."

The little carpenter stared at the ink fountain, his expression changed instantly.

Li Canghai asked Di Feng to go outside the house, pulled out the ink string from the hole in the window, and then pulled it along the black line on the wall to the latch.

He inserted the new bolt through the right bolt hole, and then threaded the ink cord through the left bolt hole, tying the end of the bolt.

In this way, the left and right latch holes and the ink line were exactly in a straight line, Li Canghai greeted Di Feng outside the house, and saw the ink string pulling the door bolt through the left latch hole little by little.

Everyone opened their eyes wide and covered their mouths in surprise, because they found that the door latch was successfully pulled closer to the left latch hole.

At this time, the ink rope suddenly shook a few times, then it was untied from the door latch, and was pulled out with a swipe.

Only then did everyone realize that, just like that, they were all locked up from inside!

(End of this chapter)