owlsbooks Chapter 579 Crime Time
Chapter 579 Crime Time
After Inspector Lestrade briefly greeted Holmes, he began to get down to business.
"First of all, Mr. Norton Campbell did not allow servants to stay in the mansion after 12 o'clock at night for some personal reasons.
The servants didn't know the specific reason, they only knew that the master required them to finish their work before 12 o'clock, then go back to the servants' room, lock the door and rest, and come back here at 8 o'clock the next morning.
"So that means that there was no servant in the hall at the time, so no one knows the exact time of the crime?"
This is indeed a bit troublesome for Holmes. He can estimate the time of death based on the condition of the corpse.
But here lies the problem.
Mr. Campbell is still alive!
But someone will definitely ask, the person is still alive, can't you just ask him directly? But the problem is even bigger.
According to the information just sent from the hospital, Mr. Campbell seemed to have hit his head when he fell and is still unconscious, so there is no way to know when he met the murderer.
"No, in fact, I do know. It just so happened that a new servant worked too late. It was not until the housekeeper came to urge him that he hurried back to the servant's room.
However, he remembered that when he ran away just now, he seemed to have accidentally knocked over a vase and didn't have time to clean it up. So, he kept looking at the time on the wall and wondering whether he should sneak out to clean up the vase? Because if the master found out, he would definitely be fired.
But because of this, when he heard the loud noise and Norton Campbell fell off the railing, he was looking at the clock on the wall, which gave us the exact time, 1:32 midnight."
As Sheriff Lestrade spoke, he pointed to the new servant and confirmed again,
"Because I heard a loud noise, I ran out to check the result regardless of the rules, and found Mr. Campbell collapsed in the lobby on the first floor, right?"
"Yes, that's right, and we called the police right away."
"Have you found the murder weapon? The gun that fired the shot."
Holmes wanted to confirm where the murder weapon came from. Although there was no clear ban on guns, anyone could get a pistol through various means. For example, there was a pistol in the drawer of Holmes' Baker Street apartment.
However, to put it bluntly, this thing is exclusive to rich people. Civilians like those in slums definitely don't have pistols for a simple reason: they can't afford them.
"Of course we found it." Sheriff Lestrade pointed to the pistol lying in the lobby on the first floor. The gun body was made of gold. What could he say?
It is obvious at first glance that this is a pistol that suits Mr. Campbell's style, and it is indeed so.
"We checked with the servants and found that the pistol was indeed Mr. Campbell's.
That is to say, the murderer who broke in first stole Mr. Campbell's pistol.
Then he shot him when he was off guard, but coincidentally the bullet hit the pocket watch on Mr. Campbell's chest. It was not a fatal shot, but it still caused him to fall from the railing on the second floor.
Afterwards, the murderer may have seen the man fall down and thought that the other person was dead, and then he heard the footsteps of the servants rushing over, so he hurriedly dropped his pistol and ran away.
This is roughly what happened.”
Inspector Lestrade stated the police's current conclusions.
Before Holmes arrived here, the police rushed here immediately after receiving the alarm and deduced the general course of events from the servants.
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"Based on the current situation, this is indeed the reasoning, but the details depend on what the other servants say."
Although this was the case, Holmes felt that the words of the servants and the sheriff could not be regarded as 100% credible evidence. After all, right after the case happened, most people would be in a state of extreme tension and it would be easy for them to speak their imaginations as reality.
Just like before, Sherlock Holmes met a witness who said 1:15 was 2:10. That's right, he was too nervous and misread the minute hand and the hour hand.
Fortunately, after Holmes examined the body, he found that the time was one hour different from the time the witness said, so he guessed that he might have misread the minute hand and the hour hand.
Although this does not prove anything, it does show that even when countless people witness the incident, what the witness says cannot be absolutely trusted.
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Holmes smiled and glanced at everyone present. Then he said in his deep and charming voice:
"Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot ignore the fact that Mr. Campbell had previously commissioned me to investigate the threatening letter. This means that the person who sent the threatening letter is likely to have taken further action.
However, we cannot completely rule out the possibility that this was all staged by someone inside the mansion in order to mislead people into thinking that it was done by an outsider.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the originally quiet room suddenly exploded. When the servants in the mansion heard that Holmes actually suspected them, they all became excited and said that they were absolutely not involved in any such thing.
"How could you think so, Mr. Holmes?" cried a maid angrily.
"We are all loyal servants of Master Campbell and have always strictly followed his orders. No one has gone out after midnight. We can testify for each other!"
The other servants followed suit and started to defend themselves.
For a moment, the room was filled with noisy voices as people tried to prove their innocence.
"And if you have any doubts, you should doubt Jenny!" The speaker's voice rose eight degrees, and he seemed very dissatisfied with Holmes's suspicion.
"She is the only one besides Master Campbell who can continue to walk around the mansion at 12 o'clock in the middle of the night! Isn't this enough to prove the problem? She is the most suspicious one!"
This sentence was like a bolt from the blue, causing an uproar among the servants.
Everyone's eyes were focused on Miss Jenny. Her face turned pale as paper in an instant and her lips trembled slightly. It was obvious that she was frightened.
However, at this tense moment, Holmes stepped forward and said in a calm but firm tone:
"Everyone, please be patient. I understand how you feel right now. After all, everyone hopes to find the real murderer as soon as possible and clear their name. But we can't easily suspect someone based on just a few clues. This is not only unfair to the person being suspected, but will also lead our investigation off the right track."
He looked around and continued, "We are doing this to find the real murderer and to clear each of you of suspicion. So, please stay calm, actively cooperate with our investigation, and don't suspect each other without reason. Only in this way can we uncover the truth as soon as possible and get to the bottom of this case."
After that, Holmes organized the police to conduct routine questioning of the servants.
When Sheriff Lestrade wanted to question Miss Jenny, Holmes stopped him.
"No need, Miss Jenny. You don't look very happy... and I can provide an alibi for the other party."
"What?!" Inspector Lestrade couldn't believe his ears.
If he was not mistaken, this should be the first time Holmes and this lady named Jenny met each other, right? How could Holmes give him an alibi? !
But soon, Holmes made his reasoning and explanation. In fact, it is very simple. As long as you know a little bit of mathematics, you can figure it out.
"The theater's performance starts at 7 p.m. I have the theater's invitation letter, and the opening time on it can prove it.
It started at 7 o'clock, and all the performances took 2 hours in total, which means it ended at 9 o'clock in the evening.
After 9 o'clock, Mr. Campbell asked me to talk to him about the threatening letter. We talked for about an hour, which was 1 o'clock in the evening.
The Golden Rose Theatre is not far from Mr. Campbell's residence. It only takes 30 minutes to walk there.
If the other party is riding in a carriage, it will be even faster, just ten minutes.
In other words, the earliest time Mr. Campbell returned to the mansion was 10:10 p.m., and the latest was around 10:30 p.m.
During this period, he should have taken a shower after returning. After all, when I inspected the scene just now, I found some water stains in the bathroom that had not been cleaned up.
But of course, this was not something the servants could solve. After all, Mr. Campbell also asked them not to walk around the mansion after midnight.
After returning, the time for the servants to prepare the bath water, plus the time for taking a bath, there was only a short time left until midnight, so it was understandable that the servants did not have time to clean up.
They should be thankful that they could drain the bathtub in that short time."
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Hearing this, Sheriff Lestrade couldn't help but interrupted,
"Holmes, this cannot serve as Miss Jenny's alibi.
After all, even if she left the theater with Mr. Campbell, and they came back together, she had every chance to take his pistol while he was taking a shower, and then kill him by surprise.”
Holmes glared at Lestrade for suddenly interrupting him.
This guy is still so impatient. Can’t he wait for me to finish speaking?
"That's the point I want to make. After finishing the discussion and accepting the commission, I walked back to Baker Street. It was already late and it was difficult to get a carriage.
But I happened to meet Miss Jenny who was riding in a carriage to distribute bread to the children in the slums. I got on Miss Jenny's carriage and followed her all the way to the slums.
You have to know that the Golden Rose Theater is at least half an hour's drive from the nearest slum area. It was already 10:30 at this time, and Mr. Campbell was almost back.
It took Miss Jenny and I about another hour to distribute bread to the children. After we distributed the bread, we did not leave immediately.
Miss Jenny stayed and told stories to the children and played games with them, which took about another half an hour. It was already past midnight.
Besides, Miss Jenny first asked a carriage to take me back to Baker Street, and then took the carriage back here again, which was a very long detour. It was impossible for Miss Jenny to commit a crime.
Besides, it's easy to find evidence. If you go to the slum and ask every household, you should be able to find a lot of witnesses easily."
What Holmes said does make sense. Even though Miss Jenny left the slums at 12 o'clock, more than an hour before the incident, she first arranged for a carriage to take Holmes back to Baker Street, and then she continued to take the carriage back to the mansion.
It is important to note that although neither Baker Street nor this house is far from the Golden Rose Theatre, they are located one to the west and the other to the east, which means that the distance between the two is quite considerable when added together.
In this case, the journey should take more than an hour at any rate.
In other words, when Miss Jenny just arrived at the mansion, she happened to witness that thrilling scene.
That's why the beautiful lady was frightened and turned pale.
After all, if she had really witnessed Mr. Campbell falling from the railing with her own eyes, she would probably have been frightened out of her wits and at a loss.
But in this case, it should also prove that Miss Jenny is innocent.
After all, if that series of events was really as Holmes said, then Miss Jenny really had no time to commit the crime.