Chapter 510: Lingering Soul

If you want to talk about Duanmuhuai's mood at the moment, then Lorena's speech can explain the problem.

"Hey? Something happened again??"

Listen, this "again" is very spiritual.

Moreover, this time there is no need to investigate whether it was done by some cultists, the reason is very simple, the victim's body was found at the back of the cabin, and a strange circular magic circle was drawn with his body as the center——Yes, This is what the cultists do!

Still my own reputation is not obvious...

Looking at the corpse in front of him, Duanmu Huai sighed silently. This cultist really has nothing to do to find trouble for himself. He originally went to Wudu for the case of Jack the Ripper. As a result, before we got there, we encountered two cases on the road.

If he was famous, wouldn't those guys just turn around and run away after seeing him? What else is there... Uh, it doesn't seem right?

After all, there are many similar cases in Detective Conan.

Forget it, it's useless to think about it now.

Thinking of this, Duanmu Huai withdrew his thoughts, and looked at the corpse in front of him—the one who was killed was Williams Ford, a passenger on the "Full Moon and Stars". At this moment, there are two women standing beside him, one of them is wearing a white coat, the doctor of the airship, Rose Barnett, and the other...

"Who are you?"

Duanmuhuai looked at another woman who was holding a notebook and standing next to Williams' body. She was not dressed like a noble lady, but more like a soldier. And judging from her expression, she doesn't look like someone who is very familiar with Williams.

"I'm Dot Fisher, the bodyguard hired by Williams."

The other party's answer is very straightforward.

"You're the bodyguard? So what happened when he was killed?"

"That's not clear to me."

The bodyguard spread his hands helplessly.

"After I got up in the morning, I went to the dining room to get breakfast for Williams. After I returned to the cabin, Williams disappeared. I was about to look for him, when I heard screams coming from here, and then waited for me to rush to the cabin. Come here and find out what happened.”

"oh……………"

Duanmuhuai nodded, then looked at the doctor.

"What did you find, doctor?"

Hearing Duanmuhuai's inquiry, doctor Rose quickly gave her own answer.

"The victim's throat was cut open, which is the cause of death. From the angle and direction of the wound tear, it can be seen that the victim was facing the murderer at that time."

"Facing? Then there are traces of violent confrontation on the body?"

"No."

"That is to say, the victim faced the murderer and cut his throat with a knife, but he didn't resist at all?"

Hearing this, Duanmu Huai frowned.

"I also think it's weird, but that's it. Of course, all I have to say is that the blood is very strange."

As he spoke, the doctor pointed to the blood stains on the body of the deceased.

"His blood was almost black and more clotted than normal blood."

"So there is no way to confirm the time of death from this point?"

"If it's an ordinary corpse, it's fine, but this corpse..."

Rose looked at the body, then shrugged.

"Sorry, I may not be able to help you much. If you want to conduct a test, there is no necessary equipment here. You have to wait until the Wudu Police Station to conduct further inspections."

At this moment, the captain also came to the murder scene, checked the situation, and then sighed.

"Everyone, please gather next, after all, I want to make this matter clear."

Everyone didn't care about this, and after locking the door, they came to the viewing platform. At this time, everyone, including the captain and passengers, had basically arrived.

As for the case, it is now very clear.

The victim was Williams Ford, who was killed in the smoking room, cut his throat with a knife, and then the murderer drew an evil circle with his blood around the deceased.

The question now is when the deceased died.

Although logically speaking, a general autopsy can reduce the time of death within a certain range through information such as the degree of stiffness of the corpse and blood coagulation, but Dr. Rose also said that the degree of blood coagulation of the deceased far exceeds that of ordinary blood. There is no way to use common sense to judge the time of death.

Then, in turn, first determine when the dead body went to the smoking room.

According to what everyone said, the captain, the navigator Bart, and a passenger, Arthur, were smoking in the smoking room in the morning. At that time, they didn't see the body——it's even more impossible to say whether there was a body hidden in it. After all, what is the smoking room? There is no decoration at all, it is just a clean and empty room, only a few ashtrays are placed by the wall, and there is no place to hide the body.

So to speak, in the two hours between 5am and 7am someone took Williams (or his dead body) into the smoking room and slit his throat and then used his blood Draws a magic circle.

Leaving aside killing people, it takes at least half an hour to draw a magic circle.

At least as far as current intelligence is concerned, the facts that can be confirmed are as follows.

First, at about five o'clock, the captain Carter and the navigator Bart came to the smoking room because they were sleepy on night duty and wanted to smoke a cigarette to refresh themselves. After smoking for a while, the captain and navigator went to work, and according to Arthur himself, he also went back to his room to rest after smoking.

Then at six o'clock, Williams' bodyguard Dott went out to get Williams breakfast-her statement was confirmed by Ethel who was setting up the tableware in the restaurant at the time. When Dott spent about 20 minutes preparing breakfast and returned to his room, Williams was no longer there.

Then another passenger, Fred Winston, went to the smoking room to smoke, and then found the body, and then screamed loudly.

It's about seven o'clock.

If the bodyguard Dott's confession is correct, then after she left the cabin, Williams for some reason left his room, came to the smoking room, and was killed.

Of course, the premise is that her confession is correct. After all, because the doctor is unable to determine the correct time of death of the victim, there is another possibility, that is, the bodyguard Dot is the murderer. She killed her employer. , and then deliberately went out to get breakfast as an excuse to create his own alibi, and then dragged Williams' body to the smoking room next door after returning...

In any case, at least one thing is certain.

Williams was alive when he boarded the airship, and everyone saw that.

In other words... He was killed on the airship.

Then there is only one truth, and the culprit is among us!

Well, yes, very simple reasoning.

After all, this is different from the previous trains. If you insist, the people in the train can climb out of the carriage through some means. But the airship is different. At an altitude of tens of thousands of meters, the entire cabin is sealed. Who can get out?

And the space of the airship is also fixed. At the front is a large rectangular viewing platform and dining room, with sofas and coffee tables on both sides of the window, and several dining tables in the middle for dining. There are two doors at the back of the viewing platform. The door in the center leads directly to the corridor. The corridor is a straight line without forks. On the right side of the corridor are seven guest rooms, on the right side are three guest rooms with crew lounge, crew sleeping quarters and cargo store.

As for the two doors at the end of the corridor, they lead to the infirmary and the engine room. Of course, outsiders are strictly prohibited from entering and leaving here. Only when the airship is in trouble, the captain will open the door for maintenance.

If you want to draw a schematic diagram, then the basics are as follows.

Observation deck—passenger room 1—passenger room 2—passenger room 3—passenger room 4—passenger room 5—passenger room 6—passenger room 7—engine compartment.

Observation deck—crew lounge—crew bedroom—holding—smoking room—guest room 8—guest room 9—guest room 10—infirmary.

The seven guest rooms on side A belonged to Duanmuhuai, Lorena, four students from the Royal Master's College, and the discoverer of the body, Fred Winston.

As for the three guest rooms on the other side, they belonged to the deceased Williams Ford, his bodyguard Dot Fisher, and Arthur Lanshere.

When the incident happened, almost all the passengers were resting in their rooms, only the flight attendants on the airship were busy, the captain was in charge of observing the course, and the navigator was in the crew lounge. According to her, there were only two other people who had been to the viewing platform besides her. One was Arthur Lanshere. He appeared on the viewing platform earlier than her and never left. Then It was Dot, the bodyguard who came to fetch breakfast for Williams.

But right now, everyone was sitting in the viewing platform, each forming a circle, watching others anxiously. There were no idiots present, and they had thought of everything Duanmu Huai could think of. Although it's not sure who the murderer is, at least... it's better to stay away from strangers you don't know.

"Boom boom boom!!"

However, not long after, there was a sound of hurried footsteps, and then everyone saw the captain walking in with a tense expression.

"captain!!"

Seeing the captain appear, the maid Ethel who was sitting in the corner stood up hastily.

"How is it going?"

"Radio unavailable."

However, the news brought by the captain made everyone's hearts sink.

"What's going on? Could it be the weather?"

"No, this..."

Facing the questioning, the captain hesitated for a while, but finally chose to tell the truth.

"The radio appears to have been sabotaged."

"What?!"

Hearing this, the others couldn't sit still, and even Duanmu Huai frowned.

Now, things are interesting.

"What can we do now?"

"Wait, what should we do then!"

Now, everyone couldn't help but panic.

This is actually understandable, after all, the situation in front of him is more dangerous than the train or the Blizzard Villa.

To put it bluntly on the train, if you feel unsafe, you can force the driver to stop, then leave the train by yourself and go to the wilderness to survive. The same goes for Blizzard Mountain Villa, you can indeed stay in the cottage and wait to die, or you can choose to go out in the snow and find a place to dig a hole yourself to hide.

Although the chance of surviving is not high, at least there are.

But now on the airship, the Atlantic Ocean is below, and there is an altitude of 10,000 meters in the middle, what can you do?

Are you jumping out to feed the fish? Or jump out and feed the fish? Or jump out and feed the fish?

But if you don’t feed the fish, do you have any other choice?

"Mr. Detective, can you solve the case?"

At this moment, the young man thought of Duanmuhuai again, and rushed over to ask, while Duanmuhuai thought for a moment and shrugged his shoulders.

"At present, there are no clues at the scene of the crime. Unless I carefully examine the body and search the room, I can't tell."

Indeed, as Duanmuhuai said, there were no clues left in the smoking room at the scene of the crime, except for the corpse and the weird magic circle, there were only a few cigarette butts.

He's not Sherlock Holmes, he can tell one, two, three, four, five just by the cigarette butt.

There is no murder weapon, and the murderer himself did not leave any clues, so how to find out?

He is the god of destruction, the god of pleasure, but not the god of reasoning.

It's not his business!

In fact, Duanmuhuai prefers to be reckless—that is, wait for the other party to jump out on his own initiative, and then slap him to death.

Just like beating a fly, it is very troublesome to find the fly yourself, it is better to wait for the fly to buzz and fly, and then you can lock the position immediately and then start.

"Hmph, after talking for a long time, don't you just have no skills?"

At this moment, Arthur not far away sneered——because he had an alibi, he was the most embarrassing person in this group. After all, when the victim was killed, he had been watching The viewing platform, so he got away early, and now he seems quite arrogant.

"Besides, maybe you killed the person, after all, you look like a murderer."

"snort!"

Hearing this, Duanmuhuai's complexion sank, and he stared at him fiercely. Seeing Duanmuhuai staring at him, Arthur wanted to say something, but after feeling Duanmuhuai's gaze, he The whole person didn't lift up in one breath, only felt his heart twitch suddenly, and the next moment, accompanied by the icy cold burst from the back of the spine, the whole person was so frightened that his legs went limp and he collapsed to the ground.

"You, what do you want to do?"

"If I were a murderer, I would be the first to kill you, a cheap and arrogant idiot."

Duanmuhuai glared at Arthur again, and then withdrew his gaze, but this time Arthur didn't dare to speak anymore, he collapsed tremblingly on the floor, staring at Duanmuhuai with wide-eyed horror, but said nothing Can't tell.

At this time, the doctor Rose also stood up.

"This gentleman didn't kill people, I'm sure."

"Why, why?"

"It's very simple."

Dr. Rose looked at the other questioner and explained.

"According to the results of my autopsy, the murderer cut his throat directly in front of the victim. From the perspective of the wound, the height of the victim is almost the same as that of the victim, and this gentleman..."

While talking, Rose looked at Duanmu Huai speechlessly.

"If he wants to do this, I'm afraid he will have to squat."

“……………………”

Everyone looked at Duanmuhuai, then at Dr. Rose, and gestured... Well, it seems to be the reason.

"Furthermore, I also saw that weird magic circle. It was drawn by people with blood on their fingers. Judging from the radius and size of the pattern, it is the size of a finger of a normal adult man...so...... "

Well, understandable.

And hearing this, Lorena also raised her hand curiously.

"You mean the murderer was a grown male?"

"Normal adult male."

Out of the rigor of a doctor, Dr. Rose still added a sentence, and then look at Duan Muhuai --- it is self-evident who this sentence is aimed at.

In this way, according to Dr. Rose, at least Duanmuhuai, Arthur, Lorena, the maid Ethel, the bodyguard Dot and the two girls from the Master's College can be excluded.

Then the rest are the other two male students of the master's college, the captain and the navigator, and the discoverer of the body, Fred Winston.