Chapter 386: The Murder Case of the Royal Opera Troupe (Part 1)
Upon hearing that someone had died in the palace opera troupe, Sun Shaozong naturally did not dare to be negligent. He hurried back to apologize to Jia She and his brother, and then rushed to the scene with Jiang Yuhan.
It has been a while since Sun Shaozong cracked the "Longsheng Old Store Heart-gouging Case" and when he suddenly got into work mode, he felt a sense of nostalgia as if he had been away for a lifetime.
However, the moment I saw the crime scene, most of this feeling of nostalgia disappeared.
I saw seven or eight heavily made-up actors gathered outside a row of simple thatched huts. They were of different heights, weights and bodies, but all of them covered their noses with their hands.
As for the reason...
"So Zhu Er was killed while he was using the toilet?"
"Exactly."
Jiang Yuhan also took out a handkerchief, covered her mouth and nose with her hands, and said in a muffled voice: "When someone went to the toilet just now, as soon as he opened the door of the second toilet on the east side, he saw him lying inside covered in blood. He had already died a long time ago!"
Then he raised his voice and ordered, "Everyone, get out of the way and let Lord Sun investigate the case!"
Those actors hurriedly stepped aside and cast awe and expectant glances at Sun Shaozong - when rehearsing the play before , Jiang Yuhan had collected a lot of Sun Shaozong's experience in solving cases for everyone to figure out the role, and quite a few people in the palace's opera troupe became fans of Sun Shaozong's mystery.
However, Sun Shaozong walked to the second toilet on the east side with an expressionless face. He raised his eyes and glanced inside. He secretly breathed a sigh of relief - after all, it was a famous restaurant in the capital, and the sanitary conditions of this toilet were much better than he had imagined.
The entire toilet is about two meters long from north to south and about one and a half meters wide. There is a thatched shed on top to provide shade and shelter from the rain, and it is surrounded by whitewashed wooden walls. The "tunnel" in the middle is tightly covered by a wooden board with a long handle nailed to it so that people can easily move it away when they need to use the toilet.
In addition, there is an armchair in the corner with arc-shaped holes on the seat, which looks like an ancient version of a toilet.
At this time, Zhu Er's corpse was slumped on the armchair with his eyes wide open. He was only wearing a plain white underwear, and a dagger was stuck in his heart - if nothing unexpected happened, this should be the fatal wound suffered by the deceased.
Sun Shaozong first checked the door lock of the toilet and saw that there were no signs of forced damage. Then he stepped in and reached out to lift the wooden board that was pressing down on the tunnel.
An indescribable aura suddenly burst out!
Sun Shaozong held his breath, looked down for a few seconds, then quickly pushed the board back.
After that, he came to Zhu Er 's body and examined it carefully.
Zhu Er was about thirty years old, short in stature, with a fair face and no beard [actors usually do not grow beards]. He leaned back in the chair with his arms hanging naturally on the outside of the armrests.
After preliminary investigation, it seemed that the deceased had only one fatal wound on his chest.
The murder weapon was a dagger less than six inches [twenty centimeters] long, narrow and sharp, with no blood groove on the side. After the murderer inserted it into the heart, it seemed that he had no intention of pulling it out, so the amount of bleeding from the wound was not very large.
After confirming this, Sun Shaozong immediately checked Zhu Er's hands hanging outside the armrest.
Generally, if a sharp object pierces the heart and is not pulled out instantly, resulting in massive blood loss, the deceased will often struggle violently before death. Therefore, there is a high probability that clues such as skin and flesh fragments or clothing fibers will remain between the fingers.
Sure enough, after a careful investigation, Sun Shaozong found some moon-white fibers in the cracks of the deceased's fingernails.
but……
These white fibers appear to be made of the same material as the deceased's clothes.
Did he grab his clothes before he died?
Sun Shaozong pondered for a moment, then suddenly turned around and left the toilet. He pulled over an actor dressed as a martial artist, lifted up his colorful costume, and began to touch and examine it.
The martial artist was so stunned by him that he didn't know whether to resist or give in. However, Sun Shaozong had already let him go and asked loudly, "Are the moon-white underwear you are wearing distributed by the palace opera troupe?"
Everyone nodded in unison. Jiang Yuhan also covered his nose and said in a muffled voice, "Brother Sun, the costumes in our troupe are all made by the needlework women in the mansion, so they are all of the same style and material."
"In this case, the possibility of an internal crime is very high."
Sun Shaozong ordered without question: "Brother Jiang, please gather everyone in and out of the troupe to the backstage so that I can examine the body and interrogate them."
In fact, Jiang Yuhan also felt that the murderer was inside the troupe, so without saying a word, he immediately gave an order to gather all the members of the troupe backstage.
But Sun Shaozong turned around and went back to the body, continuing to examine it carefully.
The deceased's eyes were wide open , his expression filled with horror and disbelief - perhaps he didn't believe that the murderer would dare to attack him?
There seemed to be a lot of saliva overflowing from the corners of the deceased's mouth.
Sun Shaozong further turned over the deceased's lips to check and found clear tooth marks on the inner wall of the lips. These should be the marks left when the deceased's mouth struggled under external force.
Could it be that he covered his mouth with one hand and stabbed his heart with a dagger with the other?
If that's the case, this person should be quite agile.
but……
Agility seems to be the basic skill of an actor, so it cannot be regarded as very important evidence.
Sun Shaozong pondered in his heart, and carefully pulled the upper body of the deceased outwards to make some space so that he could check the situation behind the deceased.
The first thing I checked was the back of the head. Apart from some dust, there were no signs of collision or severe friction.
If the murderer had covered his mouth with his hand, common sense would have led the victim to lean back and avoid the attack.
Is the inference that the person covered his mouth with his hands wrong, or is it because the deceased did not touch the wall while struggling?
wrong!
Based on the blood accumulation in the deceased's abdomen, it can be basically concluded that he was attacked while sitting on a chair, and if he struggled a little in this position, he would have hit the wall behind him - in other words, there is a problem with the inference that he covered his mouth with his hands?
Moreover, there were obvious signs of friction on the wall behind the deceased's head.
Could it be that there was something behind his head at that time?
While constantly pondering the clues and questioning himself, Sun Shaozong carefully inspected the crime scene inside and out more than twice.
Just as he was imagining the murderer's crime scene in his mind, he suddenly heard someone outside say respectfully, "Sir, we have just made repeated inquiries and learned that Zhu Er, who died suddenly, was accustomed to playing tricks and shirking the responsibility, so he was not on good terms with many people in the troupe."
"Also, Zhu Er once made a big fool of himself on stage because of unbearable abdominal pain. From then on, every time a play started, he would go to the toilet first. Everyone in the troupe knew about this."
These words are quite succinct and concise.
Sun Shaozong looked back curiously and saw a man standing outside the toilet with his body bent. It was Su Xingfang, the magistrate of Daxing County.
"Why, County Magistrate Su is here to listen to the opera too?"
"I won't hide it from you, sir."
Su Xingfang smiled ashamedly: "I have been here for three days, and I don't know how much official business I have delayed. I know in my heart that I shouldn't do this, but I really can't bear to miss such a wonderful show."
This guy usually looks smart and capable, but he is actually a drama fanatic.
