Episode 55: The Mysterious Gift Case - Where Did It Come From?

  "Right! Wang Yong might have stood at the door and thrown the gift onto the table!" Brother Chang hastily checked the floor by the door.

  "The gift is placed upright in the center of the table, I think it's unlikely to be thrown in, but it's possible to stand at the door and use a longer fork to pick up the bow on the gift and bring it in, then withdraw the fork. What do you think, Brother Chang? Can you check the marks on the gift box to verify this inference? Brother Chang? Brother... Chang?"

  I turned around to look, and Brother Chang was no longer at the door. I searched for him all the way down and found that he had already crouched down and gone downstairs along the corridor. Seeing me coming, Brother Chang pointed to the entrance of the mansion and said: "Here is the junction where the cement floor turns into a wooden floor board, and the footprints are the clearest. Look, these are our footprints, and those are the footprints of Dr. Gu and Dr. Li. Judging from the degree of coverage and blurriness, they left before you, and until now, no one has come back. That is to say, none of the people living here had the time to commit the crime, which is strange..."

  "Are there any strange footprints? For example, express delivery?"

  "It's weird if there isn't one... Could it be that we didn't enter from the front door after all...... Wait a minute, I'll go get the equipment."

  Chang Ge is also the kind of person who gets enthusiastic when there's a case and must solve the mystery, he came back quickly, after collecting evidence and using luminol, it was confirmed that except for mine and Chang Ge's footprints, there were no other footprints around my room.

  We opened Wang Yong's room and there were no suspicious footprints at the door of Wang Yong's room or between the two rooms.

  Either he came in through the door or he came in through the window.

  "I'm going to check the window!" Brother Chang "Ah~~" rushed to the window and took out fingerprint powder!

  I stood in Wang Yong's empty room, feeling a bit dazed. In the middle of the room used to be a small punching bag, one of those water-drop-shaped mini ones that were really fun to hit. I had never seen anyone punch it as skillfully as he did before. The bed used to have neatly stacked quilts, but now everything was empty and tidy, the floor had been swept clean, not even any footprints remained... Wang Yong had really left...

  "Qin Fayei, what are you doing so late? This seems to be... Wang Yong's room?"

  "Ah, Dr. Jia Fa," I said, surprised that he would initiate a greeting with me, as he was usually so serious and stoic. "You're back late, what case were you working on?"

  "Call me Jia Cangmiao (Miao: same sound as Miao;), San Shui 'Miao', Gu Fayi invites you to dinner." Dr. Jia's expression of disgust was unmistakable, "I don't like this set coming back first, what are you people doing?"

  "It's San Shui brother, we're investigating the secret room gift case, want to join us?"

  "Escape Room Gift Box?"

  "Yes, it's like this...". I told Dr. Jia the whole story, omitting parts that he shouldn't know and adding some details to help him understand.

  "You guys play, goodnight." Dr. Jia said and went back to his room to sleep, was it my illusion? Why did I see three black lines appear on his forehead after he heard me finish speaking?

  "What the... How is it that even the window wasn't touched..." Brother Chang muttered to himself, furrowing his brow in a state of utter disbelief.

  Chang Ge didn't find any signs of forced entry on the window.

  The windows of Lan Gong Guan use the old-fashioned plug-in type, which is a small iron column with a "7" shape that can be moved up and down on the window frame. The bend is a 90-degree right angle, straighter than the "7" shape, and hangs from the curved head.

  The small iron rod is inserted into a hole fixed on the wall, and after insertion, the horizontal stroke of "7" is buckled to one side of the card slot, and it is stuck.

  For this kind of old-fashioned latch, those who are familiar with the mechanism can instantly think of six or seven ways to lock it from the outside and create a sealed room. Even frequent Conan viewers can easily come up with two or three methods.

  But a method that leaves no trace at all is probably not so easy to come up with.

  For example, tie a thin rope to the latch and pull it out of the window. After closing the window, pull the rope and the latch will be locked. Then use a lighter to burn the rope. However, this method will undoubtedly leave ash.

  Or tie two clever slip knots, and finally pull the rope away is even smarter, no ash will be left behind, but the place where the rope has been scratched will leave a scratch mark, which can be revealed by scanning with fingerprint powder.

  Chang's brother did not find any ash around the window, and after applying fingerprint powder, no signs of rope were visible, indicating that this method was not used.

  The only way left is to use a magnet, controlling the latch through the window, but the magnet will definitely leave scratches on the outside of the window. Brother Chang didn't find any trace of the magnet's friction.

  When someone climbs in through the window, they will definitely leave fingerprints on the windowsill. If they wore gloves, there would be glove prints. There should be footprints standing below, and on the wall, there should be footprints left from climbing or marks left from placing a ladder, etc., etc. It seems like everywhere we look, there are flaws, but none of these have been found.

  "You don't pay, I won't believe it! You're kidding me!" In the cold winter, Brother Chang took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves to fight with "Ben An".

  "I looked at the window latch and thought for a moment, 'Brother Chang, although it's unlikely, could Wang Yong or someone he found use a very strong magnet to attract the latch from a distance without touching the window, and then insert it?'"

  "Windows are very thick, the insert is alloy and not all iron, plus magnetic attenuation, it takes 400 to 4000 Newtons of force to suck up the insert. If it's even farther away, the required magnetic force is unimaginable."

  "But it's not impossible."

  His brother nodded, then shook his head. "Even so, it still can't solve the problem that there is no trace on the window or outer wall, not even a wiping mark, and indeed did not come in from this side of the window."

  "If it wasn't for the lightness of his movement, flying in from a small path several meters away, without landing, still floating in mid-air and opening the window with his palm... then it could only be..." I looked up, "He came in from the third floor."

  The third floor of the public house is a small attic, parachuting onto the roof, using a construction drill or an industrial cloud drill to open the cement roof and enter the attic, then from the attic use a cloud saw or corrosive means to open a hole into the room... Okay, accidentally, the brain hole was opened a bit big.

  The investigation has reached an impasse.

  Suddenly, Dr. Jia Fa's voice came from behind us: "Why don't you open the gift? Maybe there's a note inside on how to send it in, besides, aren't you curious what's inside?"

  I'm curious, I'm dying of curiosity, but I couldn't. "Third Water brother doesn't know, I've hacked into Wang Yong's phone more than once, and he still thinks I instructed someone to steal his wallet," not to mention the time he was brutally drunk at my house. "In short, I've been investigating him for a long time, and the 'grudges' between us are not trivial. If there's itching powder, chili powder or something like that in the package, I won't be surprised at all. Anthrax virus is also possible. Otherwise, let Dr. Jia take it to your room and open it, we'll wait for the result."

  Jia Fa Yi took a big step back, "No more! And my name is Jia Cang Miao."

  "Alright, Brother San Shui."

  The gift may have a triggering device that will explode with just one touch! So I didn't move the gift in any way, walked far away from it, and even slept on the inner side of the bed, keeping a distance from it.

  The next day I specifically adjusted shifts to conduct a survey of the surrounding masses.