Chapter 156
The twisted scratches were turned 170 degrees clockwise, and the width was reduced by 70%, and the height was reduced by 10%, and two letters with unknown meanings were obtained. After being translated by the female detective, we can get Send a brief message.
"Next place."
Charlotte Holmes looked at the translation floating in her mind, and suddenly felt a little bit dumbfounded. Even she, who had always been indifferent to emotions and anger, at this moment, the corners of her mouth were inadvertently slightly upward.
Douglas and X211, whose pseudonym is Alvitt, stood next to the female detective. One of them was to fulfill the duties of an assistant, and the other was to learn from the great detective.
Both of them are not ordinary people, and their observation skills are very keen. Naturally, they also noticed the scratches under the stove, but neither of them found any useful clues at the first time. They only thought that they were the last words of the victim who had been destroyed by the murderer.
But it wasn't until they discovered that the female detective showed a fleeting smile while looking at the scratches that they began to doubt themselves - could there actually be clues to the murderer hidden behind these random scratches?
The two of them turned to focus on the scratches, but after looking left and right, they couldn't find any useful clues after thinking hard.
The scratch blade was balanced and powerful, and it was completely impossible to tell whether the person wielding the knife was left-handed or right-handed. Moreover, under the cover of scratches, the original appearance of the letters cannot be seen at all. Even if you try to guess the letters with similar shapes, you will not get the result.
Obviously, this cunning murderer first scrawled and modified a few strokes of the original last words of the deceased before making scratches, completely covering up the original intention of the deceased!
Douglas and Alvitt looked at each other, and invariably saw the same confusion in the eyes of the stranger in front of them - can't you see it too? Yeah, I can't see it either.
The female detective who got the answer she wanted stood up. She ignored the two young men who were already involved in brainstorming and walked straight out the door.
The logistics officer and detective assistant of the Anti-Suppression Bureau immediately followed behind and chased out, leaving only the Scotland Yard detective alone.
Douglas actually wanted to ask the female detective what clues you found? But his inner pride and self-esteem did not allow him to admit defeat in detective work, even if he knew in his heart that the other party's detective skills were far better than his own - but if he just waited for other people's investigation results every time instead of taking action himself If you use your brain to think, no matter how sensitive your brain is, it will get rusty sooner or later.
He decided to stay at the scene first and deduce the clues that the female detective had already deduced in a split second.
Miss Charlotte had already left in her carriage, and Douglas could finally take out his pipe, light the tobacco in the bowl, take a deep breath and let the pungent smoke circulate in his lungs before exhaling it, perhaps nicotine. The effect lifted his spirits slightly.
The smoke rising from his mouth confused the detective's eyes. He couldn't help but squint his eyes slightly, and saw that the seemingly chaotic scratches seemed to begin to change their appearance, and the horizontal strokes and strokes fell on the In the blurred field of vision... it looks like the scrawls of a drunken person, or the scribblings of a child when he first went to school, drawing Arabic numerals into pictographic patterns.
Those are the sharp elephant ears, the big geese that are about to spread their wings and fly, and the small snakes that are meandering and swimming!
"3, 2, 5? What does this mean? Is it a crime notice left by the murderer?"
Douglas was puzzled and racked his brains but could not deduce the answer. At this moment, he deeply felt that his knowledge reserve was scarce. Sure enough, he was still too ignorant. He really needed to read more books to enrich his knowledge.
"Well - forget it, I'd better go back and read this week's "Illustrated London News" first. The illustrations in it are both vivid and vivid. It is the most suitable source of knowledge for me at the moment!"
………………
Charlotte Holmes had already followed the information from the daily report of the Anti-Suppression Bureau and headed to the place where the second case occurred - Burton Harbor, two blocks away.
This is actually a private port belonging to Ottavio Burton and will not be open to the public at all. Even Scotland Yard does not know that a murder occurred here last night, and the deceased was Jack, who had a high status in the Burton brothers.
At this time, the iron gates entering and exiting the port area were tightly locked, and several guards with bulging waists and armed with guns were on guard near the door. They looked at every passerby who tried to approach with fierce eyes. Their eyes were like a group of hungry people. The jackal is watching the young white rabbit. It seems that as long as the strangers dare to approach the port, they will immediately open their bloody mouths and show their sharp claws, so that the intruders can see with their own eyes how their brains are stuffed into their intestines!
Therefore, the female detective did not approach rashly - after all, according to the information from the Intelligence Team of the Anti-Suppression Bureau, all the cases that occurred here last night were caused by the murderer using a sniper rifle at the port.
She does not need to enter the port area directly, she only needs to conduct a little reconnaissance at the surrounding commanding heights.
So the female detective began to investigate the buildings in the distance one by one. When she arrived at the rooftop of the fourth slum apartment building, she finally found a suspicious trace on the railing wall along the rooftop.
There had been a blizzard last night, and now there was a thin layer of unmelted snow on the rooftop.
But Charlotte had just been to other buildings in the area, and she could tell at a glance that the snow here was less flat than in other places. It looked like someone had been there when the snowflakes fell. has occurred here, preventing the normal accumulation of snowflakes.
And most importantly, she found faint traces of iron ropes rubbing against the wall of the stairwell on the rooftop. It was obvious that someone had recently tied the iron ropes here and quickly dropped them from the rooftop to the ground by rappelling... This is true. Very much like Watson's style.
The female detective got closer and carefully observed the wall of the stairwell. There was a long gray-black mark on the dark red masonry surface, which was the mark left by metal scratches.
Charlotte kept circling around the outside of the stairwell, and then stopped at the corner. She stared intently at the gray and black horizontal mark in front of her eyes, and shouted to Alvitt without looking back: " lamp."
This Anti-Suppression Bureau officer, who has been working as a detective assistant for three months, is already very familiar with Miss Holmes's style and carries many necessary small items with him. When he heard the female detective's question, he quickly picked up the items he carried with him. He took out a small lantern from his backpack, lit it, and delivered it to the other party.
Charlotte took the lantern and pointed the bright yellow light at the wall in front of her. She saw that inside this obvious gray-black mark, there were also extremely inconspicuous tiny scratches hidden inside. Those were three random graffiti. Such confusing symbols, but after her translation, she was able to come up with the following explanation.
"Sunday, Holborn, old drunkard."
Charlotte smiled silently as she looked at the message that only she and Watson could understand.