novelsite Chapter 624 Corpse.
Chapter 624 Corpse.
Unfortunately, however, Holmes seemed to have no time to communicate with Jose Badem at the moment, for no other reason than that he had encountered another case.
"Please, Mr. Holmes! I beg you to lend me a hand!" the man begged bitterly.
Holmes did not respond. He really did not know what to say.
After all, anyone who goes out early in the morning and is surprised to see a person lying on the street in front of his house would feel stunned and at a loss.
What's worse is that the incident was discovered by no one else but Miss Violetta and Mr. Miles who came to visit.
When they arrived at Holmes's house, they were shocked by something strange on the street, so they knocked on the door and informed Holmes of the situation.
After the three of them worked together to move the person into Baker Street, Holmes found a business card from him.
His business card listed titles such as "MA, Ph.D.". Holmes found a round-trip ticket to MacArthur Glendon in northern England in his pocket, and deduced that he had traveled overnight and the case must be extremely urgent.
But no matter how urgent the situation was, he had to wait until he woke up first. There was no other choice, so Holmes had to use the nectar that Andrew had given him before to wake the man up first.
When the man slowly woke up from his coma, his eyes were a little confused, but he soon regained consciousness. He introduced himself briefly in a low and gentle voice: "I am Dr. Huxtable, the headmaster of Abbey School."
Dr. Huxtable then explained in detail what had happened.
It turned out that the young Lord Satyr, the only son of the Duke of Holderness, had suddenly disappeared from their school.
What is even more surprising is that along with Lord Satir, the school's German teacher, Siddig, also disappeared.
Dr. Huxtable frowned and continued, "In order to cover up this scandal, the Duke delayed reporting the case to the police for three full days. This undoubtedly brought great difficulties to our investigation."
However, now the Duke finally realizes the seriousness of the matter, and he decides to offer a reward of 6000 pounds for the whereabouts of Lord Satyr and Siddig.
This huge reward undoubtedly attracted the attention of many people and made the case even more confusing.
Holmes pointed out astutely: "The honor of the nobility often needs to be repaired with money."
"Not all nobles." At this moment, Miles, who had been listening nearby, made a rebuttal.
Valletta, who was standing next to him, gently pulled his arm and said to Holmes, as if a little embarrassed, "Can we go with you? It sounds really interesting."
Dr. Huxtable's eyes then turned to the two men who had stood quietly in the room throughout.
One of them was a beautiful lady with golden hair as dazzling as the sun. She was wearing an elegant long dress and exquisite gloves on her hands. She exuded a noble and elegant temperament.
The other man is also blond, tall and handsome, giving people a sense of shrewdness and capability.
Dr. Huxtable smiled and asked politely, "I'm very sorry, Mr. Holmes, could you introduce these two people?"
Holmes raised the corner of his mouth slightly and replied slowly: "They are two people who can help us." The implication of this sentence was obviously that he agreed to Valletta and Miles' request to go together.
However, Valletta did not seem satisfied with this. She immediately said, "There are three of them."
It turned out that she was planning to bring another person with her. For such a proposal, Holmes not only did not hesitate at all, but also readily agreed. After all, one more person means more strength.
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Standing among the bustling crowd at the train station, Holmes couldn't help feeling a little regretful.
He had been expecting that the person who would come would be a non-human character who was closer to humans, such as Miss Jenny or Mr. Campbell, but he never expected that the person who would appear before him would be the demon Antonio.
Antonio's appearance was completely unexpected to Holmes. He was wearing an ordinary suit. If Holmes had not known his true identity, it would have been difficult for him to associate this ordinary man with the devil.
Antonio's long hair almost reached the ground, but at this moment he cleverly tied it up and hid it under a hat, making him look more low-key.
However, although Antonio's appearance was carefully disguised, Holmes was still able to capture a subtle evil in his deep eyes.
This demon was obviously well prepared; every movement and expression of his seemed so natural and appropriate, as if he was just an ordinary handsome man with long hair.
However, now that things have come to this, Holmes cannot let the other party turn back. After all, they have come all the way here, and he can't just send them back like that.
Look at Dr. Huxtable again, he looks so anxious that he is almost going crazy.
As soon as the train arrived at the station, he dragged Holmes onto the train like a hungry tiger, as if he was unwilling to waste even a second.
Fortunately, Antonio on the train was quite obedient. He just quietly tilted his head toward the window, staring at the passing scenery outside the window, and there was no other unnecessary action.
Miss Violetta and Mr. Miles were quieter by comparison.
Miss Violetta was knitting a scarf, and her concentration seemed as if everything around her had nothing to do with her;
Mr. Miles, holding a book, immersed in the world of words, also ignored the noise from the outside world.
The behavior of these two people was no different from that of ordinary train passengers.
On the way, Dr. Huxtable had some free time to tell Holmes how they discovered that the Duke's only son was missing.
At 1900 a.m. on Tuesday, May 5, 15, the warden of the Abbey School conducted a routine inspection of the student dormitories and discovered that Lord Salter's bed had been used but no one was there, and his clothes, books and other personal belongings were still neatly arranged.
This anomaly immediately alerted the warden, because as a child of nobility, Salter had never left his bedroom without permission.
The school immediately called the roll call and found that the German teacher Hediger was also missing. His room happened to be located just above Salter.
Later, people found an opened letter hidden under Lord Saltell's pillow. The envelope was printed with the Duke's family emblem, and the handwriting imitated the Duke's vigorous style. The content claimed that "my mother is seriously ill in France and I need to leave school overnight to visit her."
The school initially speculated that the two might have gone away together, but there was an obvious contradiction:
Salter was only 10 years old and had no connection with Hedig. Hedig did not speak French and could not help him go to France.
Blackdegg's bicycle (a Temple brand) was missing, and Salter had never owned a bicycle, so the two were unable to leave the school quickly by riding.
The principal advocated calling the police at the time, but was stopped by the Duke of Holderness because he was worried that such a scandal might affect his dignity as a noble. It was three days later that he entrusted Dr. Huxtable to ask Holmes for help.
Hearing Dr. Huxtable say this, Mr. Miles, who had been reading silently beside him, whispered, "Damn aristocratic arrogance."
Although the voice was very low, they were all sitting in the same carriage and it was hard not to hear it. However, Holmes did not say anything about it because it was undeniable that Mr. Miles was telling the truth. In fact, he wanted to scold him, but after all, it was his client's business, so Holmes couldn't open his mouth to reprimand him.
Seeing that the atmosphere was a little awkward, Miss Valletta suggested a game.
Violetta, Miles, Antonio and Holmes each wrote a big secret, a small secret and a lie on a piece of paper, then mixed them together. Finally, Dr. Huxtable read them out one by one.
Originally, they shouldn't play this kind of game when there is a case, but they know too little about the situation on the train. They have to go to the scene to conduct investigation. Moreover, there is still a long distance before reaching the destination. It is good to play some small games in advance to kill time.
But it was originally just an ordinary little game, but when Dr. Huxtable read them out one by one, he found it extremely terrifying.
Because the 12 slips of paper read:
He has been a prostitute, killed people, got married, betrayed his family, fell in love with a murderer, slept with a princess, treated his father like a dog, thought about jumping off a building, liked the smell of blood, dumped corpses, hated his wife, and cooked human flesh.
After hearing this, everyone was speechless and quickly changed the subject.
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Holmes asked Dr. Huxtable,
"Has Lord Salter no bicycle?"
The answer was negative. It was precisely because the other party did not have a bicycle that the school suspected that it was the German teacher Hedeig who took the other party away. Otherwise, it was impossible for two people to disappear at the same time, and disappear so quickly.
But this is also unreasonable, because they all knew that Hedige's bicycle could only seat one person, and they didn't know how he left school with Salger.
It seems that this is just a meaningless question. Let's wait until we arrive at the scene before conducting an investigation.
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After finally arriving at the destination, Holmes first met with the Duke of Holderness.
When Holmes asked whether the letter found under Salter's pillow was written by him, the Duke said with certainty that it was definitely not written by him.
Although he didn't know why there was the emblem of their ducal family on the letter, he was very sure that he definitely did not write that letter.
Since the Duke of Holderness had no useful clues, Holmes could only go to the Abbey School to see if there was anything meaningful.
However, what Holmes did not expect was that when he arrived at the school, Miss Valletta was standing at the outer wall of the dormitory, staring intently at a certain place.
"Look, the vines outside the window have obvious signs of climbing." Miss Violetta pointed to the window on the third floor and said in a firm tone.
Holmes took a closer look and found that, as she had said, the vines had been broken in some places, and the marks of the breakage were still fresh. But unfortunately, no footprints were found under the window.
It is said that it was because of a heavy rain on the night when Salter disappeared, which washed away all the footprints. It would be extremely difficult to find footprints in such a situation.
As Holmes was looking around, he suddenly asked, "Where are Mr. Antonio and Mr. Miles?"
Miss Violetta replied, "Antonio said he smelled a strange smell."
Before she finished her words, Mr. Miles came over in a hurry and shouted excitedly, "It seems we found the German teacher!"
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Miles's shout called Holmes and the police officers who were still investigating in the school over, but when they followed Miles to where the teacher was...
Indeed, they found the teacher and his body.
The body was located in a swampy area on the Lower Gir Moor.
It was obvious that the German teacher had been murdered, as there were obvious signs of a blow on the back of his head. The surrounding area was full of gorse bushes, which served as a perfect cover for the body and also masked the stench of the body. In addition, few people usually pass by in swamps, so he had not been discovered for such a long time.
Although the police now obviously have a lot of work to deal with, some confused police still asked Antonio: "How did you find out?"
This is indeed a reasonable question, as it is really tricky for the body to be abandoned in such a place.
Not to mention that the surrounding flowers block the view, making the corpse difficult to detect easily, the fragrance of the flowers alone is enough to cover up the stench of the corpse, making it difficult for people to notice anything unusual.
In addition, this is a swamp area and few people would pass by. It can almost be said that even if the corpse has rotted and stinked, or even turned into bones, no one would necessarily discover its existence.
However, this gentleman named Antonio was able to notice the incident so quickly, as if he knew in advance that the body would be dumped here.
But Antonio only said,
"I just have a keen nose and I smelled it."