Chapter 9 Chapter nine

As we left the counter, Baisha was studying the contents of the telegram.I said: He is coming soon, there is a direct flight to New York in the morning, he didn't mention which flight, right?Richmond must have been a stop on his way north. He only said to fly back as soon as possible to meet, that is because the plane is too crowded recently. I said: After he comes, let me talk to him. Baisha suddenly made a decision: You are absolutely right, and you will take care of everything. Baisha wants to buy a plane ticket to fly back to Los Angeles. If Mr. Hai asks, he will only say that Baisha is serving the government and the war, and he must go in person. This morning the two of us Do you want to talk to him about the past?

don't want. That is enough for me to know.she says. May I see you off at the airport? You don’t want to go, you are poisoned, you want to punish Mr. Hai, because Mr. Hai didn’t tell you the whole story, you start it, and you end it yourself. Baisha is going to order some walnut omelets, eat enough hit the road. I've given you the apartment key, I might still have it. After I take the things away, put the key in the keyhole in the door, goodbye. She walked towards the gate in a gust of wind, and I watched her jump into a taxi, but she didn't even look back. After the taxi left, I walked into the dining room, had a good breakfast, went back to the room, half sat in one chair, put my feet on the other chair, read a newspaper, and waited for Mr. Hai to come .

After ten o'clock, Mr. Hai arrived. I shook hands with him and said: You go back and forth so quickly. He pulled back the two corners of his lips, showing his characteristic smile, and said: It's true, I didn't expect you two to work so fast, where's Mrs. Ke?I asked below and they said she moved out. Yes, she had an emergency and was called back to military duty. oh!You still work for the FBI. I didn't say that. You imply that. I said: I'm not entirely clear about the partnership, but I don't think we're working for the FBI. If there is, you probably won't admit it.

Probably not. I know that's enough, but I'm still disappointed that she's not here. She said that there was nothing she could do here, and now that Fang Lvdai had been found, the only thing left was to pay as agreed. Of course, it’s not wrong to say that you work so fast. They told me that Mrs. Ke moved out at seven o’clock last night. Didn’t she leave last night? No, I just left this morning. But she moved out last night. I said: Yes, she got an apartment in the corporate district, she thought that was our investigation center, she stayed there, I guarded this side. Oh, so, where is the apartment?

I can't tell you exactly, the roads there are hard to find. You enter from one road, turn around and come out from another road. I don't know if you are familiar with the legal person area. unfamiliar. The apartments are the same, all the same. Then Mrs. Ke still participated in the work, but she didn't tell me. You didn't ask her, did you? No. I said: For customers, she rarely actively provides working methods. He gave me a quick look, and I tried to keep my face expressionless. Has she talked to Miss Fang? I put a look of wonder on my face: Didn't you telegraph us to hold everything still until you come to make further decisions?

That's not what you mean. You said that Miss Fang lived in the Bay Apartment on St. Charles Avenue. Yes. I think we'd better go once, have you had breakfast yet? used. Let's go see her. You talk to her, do you want me there? want. We hailed a taxi and gave him the address of the apartment on the bay, and halfway through, the driver turned around and said: That apartment is where the murder happened this morning, isn't it? What apartment? Bay Apartments. Never heard of anyone dying. I don't know either, it seems to be a man surnamed Qu. Surname Qu.I said: With this surname, I have never had a friend with this surname. What does he do?

He is a lawyer. Did you know it was murder? I've heard of someone in .38 caliber and gave him a dick right over the heart. The one with the surname Qu lives in that apartment? No, he was found in a girl's room. how? I don't know, I heard that Niu'er still works in a bank. What happened to that girl? She is missing. You don't happen to remember her name, do you? Don't remember Hey wait a minute, I heard a kid tell me, let me think about it, the surname Pan is wrong, simple words, the surname is Fang, yes, Fang Lvdai. The police must think she fired the gun, right?

What the police think, I don’t know. I heard everyone chatting while waiting in line this morning. A colleague called out to pick up the photographer in the middle of the night last night to take pictures of the dead. It is said that the scene was a mess.Arrived, this is the building, look, a lot of cars are there. What Mr. Hai wanted to say, I rushed ahead of him.What do you think dude?I said in a loud voice: Let's go to see another group of people first, and then wait for the people here to go back and see the people in the Bay Apartment.I don't like to discuss business in places where people come and go, it's noisy and I can't rest assured

you're right.Mr. Hai said. I said to the driver: Then please pull us to the intersection of Napoleon and St. Charles, and we will get off there.I leaned on the cushion and said to Mr. Hai in a louder voice: Our customers in the Gulf Apartment will not be in the mood to discuss business today anyway.He must be busy messing around with the other residents right now, I don't think we'll be back in the afternoon. OK, everything is up to you. After that, neither of us spoke, the taxi drove to Napoleon Street, and the driver asked: Do you want me to wait. No, we may have to stay here for more than an hour and a half.

He took the tip I gave him and drove away. what to do?he asks. Get a taxi and go back to town. He showed excitement, we should find out everything about this case, is there any way you can contact the police and ask them what they think about this case 100% hopeless.I gave him a basin of cold water. Aren't the police and the detective agency family? Can't play a piece. But now, all my plans are over. Are you sure this is the Fang Ludai I told you to find, the Fang Ludai in the photo? Yes. Wish I knew where she is now? The police may also be asking this question. Tang Nuo, do you think you can still find her?

possible. His face brightened: I mean before the police found her. Maybe. In what way? It is too early to tell. We waited at the intersection, he was very excited, looking at his watch from time to time. A car passed by and we got in the car. I knew that Mr. Hai had made up his mind the moment we got in the car. He kept trying to talk to me, but I didn't give him any chance. I kept looking out the window. When we passed by the Gulf Apartment again, we all craned our necks to look. There were many cars at the door, and a small group of people stood at the door, pointing and talking. This gave Mr. Hai the opportunity he wanted. He took a deep breath and said, "Lai, I'm going back to New York. You are in charge of everything here." I said: I think you'd better get a room and get some sleep, you can't fly around here in New York all day. I couldn't sleep anyway. I said: Ke Baisha just moved out of the apartment, which is currently vacant, you can move in immediately to rest, it is not like a hotel, but no one will disturb you, you can close the door and sleep well. I could see the idea touched his heart. Another point, I said, you must be interested in that apartment, Fang Ludai lived there for a few months, and her name was Ge Yina at that time. This really gave him a shot in the arm, his red, sleep-deprived eyes widened suddenly, and he said with interest: How did you find her? I found some clues there, yes. He said with great concern: "Mr. Lai, it's really strange that you can find out these things. You must be a preoccupied owl." I smiled at him. Maybe you, Miss Fang, know a little more, but you just didn't tell me. Your purpose is to find her, isn't it? Yes. Well, we found it, we only know the effect, we don't need reports, clues and other useless things to bother our customers. He readjusted his position in the car: You are a very special young man. To be honest, I don't know how you could find so much news in such a short time. I said: Get off here, let's walk for about five minutes from here. Mr. Hai is very interested in antique furniture, old buildings, rooms with high ceilings, he stepped out of the balcony, looked across, looked at the street, walked back, put pressure on his palm, tried the mattress and said: very good, very good, I can rest here. You said that Fang Lvdai lived here, which is really interesting. I told him he'd better take a break.I left him and walked down the street to find a remote phone booth, hoping to be out of the way. It took me half an hour to contact a private detective agency in Little Rock, only to find out that Room 935, Gem Building, Little Rock, was the address that Ge Yina used when writing to Fang Ludai. In a large office, the owner has put many small desks, which are rented out to small one-person companies. The owner supplies stenographers, public secretaries and mailing and sending addresses. If you use this address to write to Ge Yina, the owner will forward it to her, but they will never disclose Miss Ge's real address. I told the detective in Little Rock on the phone that our detective society sent him a check and walked out of the phone booth. I found a typing firm on the street, found the lady inside, and asked: Can you shorthand a business letter for me and print a thousand copies? Of course, no problem, we can do it for you. The lady smiled at me, picked up a pencil and said: I am your secretary now, if you are ready, we can start right away. I sat down and said: I'm ready, let's get started. I began dictating the letter, which she jotted down: dear madam: One of your best friends told us that you have beautiful legs.You want them to look beautiful, and we want them to look beautiful too. We know that your difficulty is that it is impossible to buy extremely thin silk stockings like before the war, at least the whole United States is completely out of stock now. We can serve you, only for limited people to enjoy, and supply you with extremely thin silk stockings.When the Japanese army attacked Pearl Harbor, a Japanese merchant ship was docked in a port in Mexico. We were lucky to get the stockings that the ship originally planned to ship to the United States.All taxes on the stockings have been paid in Mexico, and customers do not need to pay additional taxes. The stockings will be mailed directly from Mexico City. You can open the package, put on the stockings, and try them on for 30 days for free.Thirty days later, if you are 100% satisfied with the stockings, you can remit the same price as you bought the stockings a year ago. Any threading, manufacturing defects or substandard quality can be returned without taking any money. Please fill in your name, address, size, model and favorite color in the attached table. The goods are limited, please order early. All commercial and legal responsibilities are the responsibility of the seller. The lady raised her head and said: That's it? that's all.I said: The next item is a silk product import company, and of course there must be a color, model comparison table, and a blank attached table, and I will take care of these. How many servings do you want?she asked. 1000 copies, I'll have a look at the typed text, and send 1000 copies first. She looked at me and looked carefully: okay, okay, can you tell me, what the hell are you doing? I just sat there, staring at her, without speaking. She said: Long before the Pearl Harbor incident, there was an order to prohibit the import of silk products. How could these silk stockings come from Japan? I smiled and said: If the person who received the letter was as smart as you, I would have nothing to sing about. I am a private detective, and this letter is a smoke screen. I want to smoke a person out of a mailing address. She looked at me from top to bottom again, thinking about the content of the letter. I could see her change from suspicion to admiration. She said: I understand as soon as you explain it. Are you a private detective? Yeah, don't tell me it's not like, I'm getting tired of hearing it. Private detective, she said, is also a good job, and you should be proud of it. How many copies of this letter do you want? Two copies, don't do it too well, make it old and dirty, as if thousands of copies were printed, these two people received the last few copies, you can even type the envelope for me, the first One copy was sent to Miss Geyner, Room 935, Gem Mansion, Little Rock, Arkansas, and the other was sent to Mrs. Ke Baisha, Los Angeles, Juxue Mansion, Colley's Private Detective Agency. She laughed, pulled the typing table in front of her and said: This method will work, come back in half an hour, and everything will be done. She rolled a sheet of letter paper into the typewriter and began typing. I told her I must be back, went out, bought the first edition of the afternoon paper, and sat in one of the restaurant booths to read about the murder. The papers haven't published the details yet, but most of the main points are already in place: Paul Qu, a well-known young lawyer, was found dead in Fang Ludai's apartment, and Fang Ludai herself was missing. The secretary of the bank did not go to work this morning. Judging from the items left in her apartment, she left in a hurry even if she left voluntarily. She did not bring clothes, face cream, toothbrush, or even a purse.Her purse was left unopened on the dresser in the bedroom. There was money and keys in the purse. The police believed that she had no money on her when she left and could not return to her apartment. The police believed that someone might find it within 24 hours She is dead, or she herself will turn herself in to the police.The police have two kinds of reasoning. The first possibility is that after the murderer shot the lawyer, he used a gun to coerce Fang Ludai to run away with him; Ludai got scared and ran away; of course, there is a third possibility, that Fang Ludai herself was the one who shot. Obviously, the police currently attach the most importance to the first reasoning. The police are focusing their efforts on investigating a young, well-dressed man, wearing a gray plaid jacket, who had waited at the gate of the bank for Fang Lvdai to leave work the previous afternoon. The two left by taxi. The witness said that He is about 5 feet 5 1/2 inches tall, weighs 130 pounds, has dark curly hair, a gray checked two-breasted jacket, and brown and white leather shoes, possibly with brown and white spots. Lawyer Qu has been in practice for five years. He is now 33 years old. His colleagues praise him very much for his talent and cleverness in court. Lawyer Qu's parents have passed away. He has an elder brother who is 37 years old. He is an important person in a beverage company. According to the staff, lawyer Yunqu is very popular and has no enemies. After this incident, all acquaintances were surprised. The murder weapon was a .38 automatic pistol, and only one shot was fired.In fact, it only takes one shot.The coroner said the death was almost immediate and the position of the body and the distance between the deceased's hands and the gun made it undoubtedly a deliberate murder and never a suicide.The pistol was left on the ground at the scene.If it is not the case above, the police may still have a fourth reasoning, that is, the two parties had agreed to commit suicide together, and Fang Ludai did not carry out her agreement and fled. Police currently determine the time of death as 2:30 am.Since the murderer had used a pillow as a silencer when the gunshot was fired, no one reported the gunshot, and the only person who actually heard the gunshot was Marie Wen. Wen Mali is the waitress of the Lantern Bar, and she just returned home at this time. Her apartment and Miss Fang's apartment have opposite doors, and there is only a corridor between them.Last night, actually this morning, when she was returning home and was about to put the key in the gate facing the street, she heard what she thought was a gunshot, and two friends who were taking her home were sitting in the car to see her safe go home.Miss Wen immediately turned to the car and asked the two friends if they heard the gunshots, but neither of them heard it.The police have investigated the matter in detail.The police believe that the sound of the gun was silenced by the pillow to a minimum, so the two friends sitting in the car could not hear the sound of the gun, but Marie Win, who was not in the car, could hear the sound of the gun when they were standing closer. . The two friends made Ms. Wen think that the sound she heard was the closing of the door elsewhere. However, after returning home, Ms. Wen was still confident that it was a gunshot, so she checked the time. It was 2:35 at this time. The gunfire will not last more than five minutes. The newspaper did not mention how the police had discovered the murder. The police may not have let the reporter know about my mysterious way of reporting the case. I finished the paper, smoked another cigarette, and went back to typing. The lady showed me the typed letter, and I read it again. Do you think this will work?I ask her. She said: I almost became your first customer, of course it works. I said: My silk product import company needs an address. Three yuan a month, so that you can use this office as a mailing address.No matter how many letters come, the fee is the same.she says. I hope that what I tell you will be kept private. I understand what you're trying to say.If someone comes to ask three questions and four questions, this company, who is in charge, who is in contact, they all hope that I will shut up. Yes. What should the government unit do? be honest. say what? You don't know my last name, or where I come from. She thought about it: this is reasonable.Very good, your last name. If you want to issue an invoice, you can pay it in cash.You charge three yuan for the first month, plus typing and other expenses.