Wu Xiang looked around and saw that someone climbed over the wall from the Zhenbo Garden next door and entered the Shanshan Guild Hall! He first climbed up a big tree in Zhenbo Garden, and then easily climbed over the courtyard wall, which was more than ten feet high. When he got down the wall, he used the protruding lintel of the small door as a step. That's why half a footprint was left.
Li Zhenguo said: "No wonder we searched Nanjianzi Lane and couldn't find the murderer! It turns out he ran away from here long ago!"
Wu Xiang said: "This doesn't make sense. If he climbed over the wall from here and escaped into the guild hall, then who locked the back door? If there is a murderer locking the door outside, then why is there someone else? Why would you kill Wang Xiuzhu if someone stayed behind after escaping? This doesn’t make sense.”
Lao Qi said: "It doesn't matter. You can lock the door inside."
This was unbelievable to the three policemen. Wu Xiang had seen the Australian lock embedded in the door panel. It could indeed lock the door in both directions, but how could the padlock be locked from the outside and people get in again? Could it be that he was jumping over the firewall?
"You will know when you get to the place." Lao Qi said, "There is a door on the door."
Wu Xiang didn't care if there was a door on his door or not, he said: "Open the door here first."
Lao Qi didn't dare to disobey, so he opened the door with the key. When he pushed the door open, he saw a small courtyard inside. Although it had not been repaired for many years, the courtyard was overgrown with weeds and the paint was peeling. Elegance in detail.
The courtyard was not big, so Lao Qi led them through a moon cave door and entered the garden. The garden was in a state of desolation. Not only were weeds and trees everywhere, but most of the building rockeries in the garden had collapsed. There was only one path that was barely passable.
The sun is high in the sky, and if I were on the street, I would still be sweating. As soon as I entered the garden, although the wind was calm and the trees were still, I felt a chill coming through my bones. The ground is covered with rotten leaves and grass. The trees in the garden are all over 50 or 60 years old, and their shade can almost cover the sky and the sun. The flower tree that was originally planted in the vat has already squeezed the vat, and the black tree trunk covered with green moss is full of gorgeous flowers, which is indescribably weird.
The old man did not dare to look around and just led the way - he said that he had not come from the guild hall for several months.
"This place, even strong men wouldn't dare to cross it once it gets dark - it's not clean."
Wu Xiang was not in the mood to listen to his chatter. He could already see many traces of human disturbance on the path: trampled weeds, fallen branches... Obviously, someone passed by here not long ago.
After passing through the deserted garden, they came to a courtyard wall. Lao Qi said, "This is it."
The courtyard gate has long since decayed and fallen. When you walk through it, you can see dead leaves everywhere in the courtyard. Yi Zhuang seems to have been rebuilt from the original flower hall. Half of the roofs of the wing rooms on both sides have collapsed, and the roof tiles are covered with weeds. Under the slanting sun, there are groups of bats flying in the air, and the broken wooden partition doors with peeling paint are half covered. Half closed, it creaked when the wind blew it.
Although everyone was brave, they couldn't help but beat their hearts when they saw this scene, and they bravely pushed the door open and came in.
Stepping into the main hall, I saw seven or eight black coffins parked inside, placed on benches, covered with cobweb dust. In front of the coffin are wooden tablets, each with the name of the spiritual master written on it. Some of them are so old that the handwriting has become blurred. The smell in the house was pungent and gloomy, but there was no rancid smell: the coffin was filled with lime paper bags as usual, and in the more sophisticated homes there were fine ashes of fragrant wood, and the outside was covered with linen and lacquer that had been applied seven or eight times, making it airtight. .
"The door on the back wall is at the back of this courtyard." Lao Qi didn't want to stay here for a long time, so he wanted to lead them to the back.
However, Li Zhenguo stopped him: "Don't go, that's wrong." He pointed to the ground.
On the dusty ground, there were clear traces of footprints, leading all the way to a coffin.
Lao Qi screamed and fainted immediately. This shocked the policeman, and Li Ziyu quickly picked him up and pinched him, finally waking him up. Li Zhenguo said: "Old Qi, why are you scared? It's obvious that someone has come in!"
Wu Xiang nodded and said, "Go over and have a look."
They carefully avoided the footprints on the ground and came to the coffin. Wu Xiang walked around the coffin a few times, and immediately discovered that there were cracks in the coffin lid and body, and there were obvious signs of wear and tear on the paint surface in several places - someone had opened the coffin!
He asked Lao Qi to come over and take a look. He was shocked when he saw it. The wooden nails on the coffin lid had broken, and it had obviously been pried open by someone.
This is a big deal. Although the coffin has not yet been buried, opening the coffin privately is equivalent to robbing a grave. In the past that was a felony. If the bereaved family has a certain degree of power, they will never give up.
If a quarrel breaks out, I, a handyman in charge of the yizhuang, will probably lose my job! He was so anxious that he almost cried. He said anxiously: "What, what's going on! I haven't left this key for a moment!"
Wu Xiang comforted him and said: "Old relative, don't be anxious. For now, the only way is to open the coffin and take a look before making a decision. Don't worry: as long as you cooperate with our work, the police will definitely clear your name!" "
Lao Qi, who was already at a loss for what to do, quickly said: "But it's up to a few chaplains to make the decision."
"Old Li, Xiao Li, let's join hands together and let's open the coffin." Wu Xiang said, "Old Qi, come and help me."
Although Lao Qi was unwilling in his heart, he had no choice but to listen to the police.
The four people worked hard together, and after hearing a few "creaks", the coffin lid was lifted. Several people took a closer look inside, and Lao Qi called out again: "Oh my God." Then he rolled his eyes.
This time, none of the three policemen paid attention to him. Inside the coffin was an object wrapped in oilcloth - something similar to a human figure. There were specks of blood on it. Li Ziyu couldn't help shouting: "This is it!"
That's right, inside the coffin was the headless corpse that he and Zhao Gui had discovered during last night's rainy night patrol and then disappeared!
The truth was revealed at this time. The missing headless body was moved into Yizhuang by the murderer while they were returning to look for him, and was hidden in the coffin.
The coffins in the yizhuang are used by relatively wealthy people. They are large in size and can accommodate two corpses without any problem. Unless the coffins in the Yi Zhuang are to be shipped or buried, no one cares about them for months and years. Even if it is exposed one day and time passes, it will really become an unsolved case.
Although there is a lot of noise when corpses are hidden in open coffins, Zhenbo Garden is known as a "haunted house". Even if there are any strange noises late at night, ordinary people would not dare to come and investigate.
Li Zhenguo was secretly surprised, this murderer is really not simple! This person can carry a headless corpse quietly into a "haunted house" that has been abandoned for a long time on a dark rainy night, calmly open the coffin and hide the body, and then quietly leave and hide in Widow Wang's home. When he discovered the police's search in the morning, he killed Widow Wang who might be his accomplice without hesitation, calmly arranged a suicide scene, and then used the Shanshan Guild Hall as a passage to quietly escape from the dragnet set by the police. It can be called courageous and knowledgeable.
Now that the body has been found, Wu Xiang immediately sent Li Ziyu to report to the city bureau, and also asked the city bureau to send police and police officers. Conduct a comprehensive on-site investigation of Zhenbo Garden and Wang Xiuzhu’s home.
As for how the murderer locked the back door and entered Zhenbo Garden, it is not difficult at all. It turns out that there is a small door dug into the back door of Zhenbo Garden, and there is a small latch on the door. People can enter with their heads down. As long as the small door is opened in advance, you can lock the door outside, return to the garden, and then bolt the small door. It does not affect opening the lock outside.
The explorers not only found the headless corpse from the coffin, but also found a discarded knife - a butcher knife used to cut pork. There is a name on the handle of the knife, which is the "Fu Changyu" pig shop in Scissor Lane. Forensics personnel compared the marks on the body's wounds and concluded that they were the knife used to cut off the head.
Although the local police station did not receive a report, Zhuxing lost a knife. It was not a big deal, so it was normal that no report was made. For the sake of safety, Li Zhenguo sent Zhao Gui to ask if the butcher knife had been lost.
Zhao Gui came back soon and said that the bank had indeed lost a butcher knife a few days ago. Because it was not worth much, it was not made public.
There are two sets of footprints extracted from the ground of Yizhuang. One set belongs to the same person as the footprints found on the small door of the back passage, and the other set should be women's footprints judging from the size. After comparison with Wang Xiuzhu's footprints, it can be seen that Wang Xiuzhu was also one of the participants in the murder.
The surveyors found fresh blood stains covered by soil in the wing of Wang Xiuzhu's house, and found small splashes of blood on the walls and wooden doors, confirming that this was the scene of the crime and beheading. He also dug out fragments of unburned satin fabric from the hearth of the earthen stove. Two shoe soles that were not burned were also found.
The on-site investigation ended in the early morning of the second day after the incident. Wu Xiang took Li Zhenguo and others back to the city bureau and immediately held a case analysis meeting.
Based on further on-site investigation, they initially concluded the incident process: the murderer conspired with Wang Xiuzhu to kill the victim at Wang Xiuzhu's home and cut off the victim's head. They stripped off the victim's clothes, stuffed them into the furnace and burned them. He also stuns his old enemy with incense, steals a stick and an oilcloth, wraps the body in the oilcloth and carries it to the back door of Zhenbo Garden where the murderer has already set foot.
Unfortunately, during the transportation, they saw a policeman patrolling with a lantern, and in a hurry, he abandoned the body and ran away. However, the patrolman found the body and left, giving them a chance. The murderer used the key left by Wang Xiuzhu's late husband to open the back door according to the original plan, and transported the body to Yizhuang and hid it according to the original plan.
Then they returned to Wang's house. The next morning, I found that the street was blocked and the police were conducting an investigation. The murderer believed that it was not too late and must escape as soon as possible. Before escaping, he killed Wang Xiuzhu and arranged it as a "suicide" in order to silence her. Then he found the key and escaped quietly through the back door of Zhenbo Garden and the Shanshan Guild Hall. (To be continued.)
