Chapter 2417 The Fox and the She-Wolf (Part 2)

In English, supernatural (surpernature) and unnatural (non-nature) are not only two words, but also express two meanings.

People of Padma's age may not know that there was a famous theft in the 1970s. There are not many surviving works of Johannes Vermeer. After all, he was not famous when he died. Not many people asked him to buy paintings, and he himself had very high requirements for the paints of the paintings, such as "Girl with a Pearl Earring" , the girl's hair band is made of lapis lazuli, this expensive paint is not something a poor painter can afford.

This resulted in not many of his works, and luckily so, so when "Girl with the Guitar" was recovered it suffered no damage other than a bit of damp.

The painting was originally placed in a museum in London. Later it was stolen and the police could not find it. However, the police warned all the art dealers in London that if anyone came to sell the painting, they would call the police immediately. It seemed that they planned to use this method to block the thieves. market.

The buyers of world-famous paintings are not limited to this city or the country. It is also possible that the "Girl Playing the Guitar" had already been hung on the wall of an old castle when the police warned the London art dealer. Two days later, the police did not receive any report. At the same time, news leaked out that the famous painting was stolen and the public condemned the museum for its management negligence.

At this time, the police received a call from a woman who said that she had watched the news, but she was not here to complain, but to provide clues. As long as the police walked along the back door of the Theft Museum and walked to the end along a small pond, They should be able to find what they want.

The first reaction of the police when they received the call was that it was a lunatic or a prankster. But shortly after the police hung up the phone, they received a threatening letter, saying that they were the ones who stole the painting, and asked the police to agree to their request, otherwise the famous painting would be destroyed.

At this moment, the police remembered the phone call, and sent people to search along the road she said, and finally found the famous painting, which was tied to a tombstone in the church cemetery near the pond.

The caller was Nella Jones, a psychic who not only helped the police recover the stolen painting, but also assisted in the investigation of a serial murder and found the Yorkshire "Jack the Ripper".

Nella did not witness the murder, but she saw the location of the crime and the physical characteristics of the victim. She had black hair. During that time, the police stepped up patrols in that area, and as a result, a suspicious person was indeed caught. After he arrived at the police station, he confessed to his crime. Since then, Nella has become an important "informant". The police often use Nella's "supernatural power" to solve cases, and it is not announced until after Nella retires.

The other is to witness or participate in the theft, but pretend to be a psychic, tell the location of the stolen goods, and the whole process will inevitably ring bells, make smoke, train birds to hold letter cards or tarot cards. " means, which fall under the category of offenses under the Witchcraft Act, punishable by a fine or imprisonment without hard labour, or both.

Before the Witchcraft Act, "witches" were killed simply because they were witches, and the charges included some outrageous and impossible crimes, Gorrady being accused of putting a needle in a baby bottle. Three years after the Salem witch incident, a witch trial also took place in Scotland. A little girl saw her maid stealing milk and reported it to her mother. Then the maid cursed her and hoped that the devil would kill her. souls dragged into hell.

Not long after, the little girl met a woman who was recognized as a witch. The next day, the little girl had a fever, convulsions, and looked on the verge of death. Then the maid was regarded as an accomplice of the witch. 35 people were summoned and 7 people were sentenced to death. , and one of them hanged himself in prison.

The witches must be exterminated, not one can be let go. However, there was no religious inquisition in Scotland at that time, and everything was tried by the Presbyterian Church. Before that, with the permission of the king, the church was no longer responsible for witchcraft trials.

In view of people's belief in magic, ignorance and superstition, the British Parliament passed the "Witchcraft Act". There will be burning, beheading, etc.

The law backfired during its implementation, with witchcraft charges not decreasing, but increasing. If there is no "dead soul" plot, William Coke is an unfortunate man. His first wife died in dystocia, and he had a long-term relationship with his wife's sister, but he tried his best to resist this relationship and even moved out of London.

But this kind of emotion is "natural", and he was with Fanny again in the end. If it weren't for the severe infectious disease such as smallpox, his wife would not have been killed.

Now it was going in the direction of premeditated murder, although it was often the husband who killed the wife, but Georgiana had seen William Coke, and he really didn't look like a murderer.

A murderer will not write on his forehead that he is a murderer, let alone a serial murderer, although a serial killer must commit at least 3 murders.

Why did he do that? The poor relatives felt that he was trying to plot his wife's 150 pounds of property. They left a will in favor of each other, and the relatives could only get a small amount.

It may also be a divorce. After the divorce, Mr. Kirk will distribute part of the property to his wife, but they seem to be in such a good relationship, why do they want to divorce?

These speculations are based on a chain of inferences based on Mr. Corker's guilt. To make a piece of evidence inadmissible means to keep it as far as possible out of the reach of fact-finders. For example, the testimony of Nella, although she provided a direction for the investigation, she could not be included in the chain of evidence, because the evidence based on psychics is inadmissible. If the psychic testimony was inadmissible, the wife-murder charge against William Coke would not stand.

Once the evidence is admitted, the admissibility of the evidence does not need to be questioned. The admission of the evidence is judged in a "one or nothing" way, that is to say, either Cork is acquitted, and he can counter-accuse false accusations, Or he would die, and a very dishonorable one at that.

The Witchcraft Act accuses someone of being a wizard or a witch. Cork is not a wizard. It is suspected that a clergyman named Thomas was involved in the case. He is now missing. And you don't have to use witchcraft to get smallpox, as long as you know the transmission route of smallpox, it is possible to cause infection.

This involves the "vital" procedural justice. Procedural justice is not only the fairness of the refereeing process, but also the legitimacy of evidence collection. Torture and extortion of confessions like Gorledi will inevitably interfere with justice. The basis for implementing procedural justice is investigation Evidence collection, the process of investigation and evidence collection must be legal, and illegal evidence collection has established clear exclusion rules, even though that evidence is the key evidence.

In order to become "ironclad evidence", in addition to the legal collection channels, the strength of the evidence is also required. In the British legal system, judgments are made based on logic and empirical rules. Therefore, there are few formal rules for evidence evaluation in the Anglo-American evidence law.

The admission of evidence in civil law is regulated by rigid legal rules, but this rigid rule will bring many bad consequences to the probative force of evidence. The entry threshold of British evidence law is relatively low, because the factual evidence to be proved is scarce, as long as Inferences that are logically possible can be used as a test standard. There are no key witnesses or corpses in the Fonny case, so how to collect evidence?

There is another way. The body of ex-wife Elizabeth is still there. If William Coke really poisoned his wife, the coffin can be opened for an autopsy. However, with the current poison testing methods, if the type of poison cannot be detected, the relevant personnel will also be held responsible. This is not the 21st century, where DNA can be used to identify criminals.

The murder scene also needs to be investigated, but some experienced killers will clean up fingerprints, body fluids, etc. Moreover, even if Elizabeth's death is found to be murder, it cannot be connected with Fanny's murder and the murderer is William Coke, because it is also possible that the younger sister Fanny poisoned her sister because she wanted to be with her brother-in-law.

What surprised Pomona the most was that this case was actually related to the Louisiana Acquisition. William Corker saw the secret talks between Prime Minister Addington and Sir Baring. Say, why go to Richmond Park, far away from the city center and off the beaten track.

The news that William Coke witnessed the whole thing must not be leaked, or someone could legally murder him with a lawsuit against him.

There are many ways to do this, the simplest is to use the testimony of a psychic, but if this is the first, anyone can call the police in the future and direct them to the cemetery to find stolen goods. The police cannot ignore such "clues", and it is even possible that the next time the stolen goods will be hidden is not the cemetery, but under the queen's bed.

On the way to the square, Georgiana had been explaining the "Witchcraft Act" to Padma. She spoke the whole process in English, and the other girls didn't understand it. As for Padma...she seemed to understand it.

Originally, she wanted to assign homework and ask Padma to write a paper or something, but when she saw the scene outside the car window, she immediately dismissed the idea.

"Do you think we can get out of this place alive?" Padma looked at the crowded crowd in the square, and said out of fear or excitement.

"Check your wand," Georgiana replied sullenly.

Not long after, the carriage stopped under the red carpet, and then a Brussels member opened the door, roaring like an air wave surging in.

"Ready?" Georgiana asked.

"Okay." Padma said, touching her wand in her gauntlet.

Then Georgiana got out of the carriage and stepped onto the red carpet with the support of the congressman. The people around were even more excited to see her appear.

Except for the absence of the spotlight, everything is similar to that of a celebrity walking the red carpet, but Georgiana's eyes are fixed on the relief of the Louis XIV Palace in the distance.

The palace is flanked by guilds, decorated with foxes on the left, representing shrewd merchants, and on the right, the she-wolf who raised the founder of Rome, who in his time was the resident of archers.

She hates being a "target".

At this moment the mayor of Brussels appeared, and he asked Georgiana to go ahead according to the etiquette of ladies first, and the niece of the bishop of Ghent walked behind them, holding the clothes for Julien, covered with a piece of golden silk, and following them. Behind them, they walked towards Julien's fountain together.