原创探案故事（英文）——《Death at the Villa》
2014-05-29 13:15阅读：
Death at the Villa
by Coco, Frank and Millie
The Chief of police and his investigation team could still
remember the murder case they detected years ago---
One night, the Chief was about to go to bed when he heard a
sudden noise coming from the corridor of the police station. It was
a man with sweat on his head, panting out, “Oh, sir, please help!
My lord is about to die!” “Please calm down, sir.” said the Chief,
walking out towards the corridor, “Tell me who you are, and who
your lord is.” “I’m the butler of Mr. Belvedere! My lord! He is
dying! Please go and save him!” shouted the man in
anxiety.
The Chief and his team went to the Villa following the man.
The Villa was in Beverly Hills, which took a twenty-minute walk
from the police station. Of course, when the people arrived at the
rich man’s room, what they saw was his corpse, lying pro
ne on his desk, with a piece of paper, half a bottle of wine and
two empty wineglasses beside him. Behind the desk was a butcher’s
knife with no blood on it, and a hypodermic needle was found when a
policeman opened one of the drawers.
“It seemed that this’d not gonna be an easy job.” murmured
the Chief, as he ordered his fellows to have the Villa blockaded.
The butler seemed so sad about his lord’s death that he was trying
to break the blockade and enter the room again, crying, “No! Oh, my
lord, my poor old friend! How come you die so pitifully! Oh, my
God, what on earth is happening! ......” The Chief was trying to
calm the sad man down when he suddenly saw a policeman running
towards him from the garden, holding a small bottle in his hand,
shouting, “I’ve discovered something new! I found this in the
garden just now.” When the Chief turned the bottle to read the
label, he found the word “ORGANIC PHOSPHORUS” on it. “Organic
phosphorus? Organic---phosphorus? It must be something chemical……
Jerry!” “Yeah?” answered Jerry the forensic scientist. “What is
‘organic phosphorus’?” asked the Chief. “It’s a kind of pesticide.”
answered Jerry, “By the way, I found a knife wound on the corpse’s
back, with no blood---probably it was the murderer who cleaned
it.”
“Wine, knife, hypodermic needle, poison…… That’s
interesting.” murmured the Chief.
After the police investigated the place, the butler was taken
back to the police office for questions. After crying for a while,
the man wiped out his tears and said, “Ask me what you want me to
answer.” “So,” asked the Chief, “when did you find your lord was
dying?” “Well……I was walking into his room to……err……” the man
seemed to be hesitating, but soon he continued, “to have a chat
with my lord when I found him lying there, being out of breath……”
The man dropped his head as he was answering. “This guy seems
suspicious.” thought the Chief, so he continued by asking, “Why did
you hesitate when you were answering? Were you with your lord when
he was killed?” “You mean I’m the suspect?” said the man, “That’s
absurd! Mr. Belvedere, my lord, is my best friend, the nicest
person I’d ever seen! How come I become the suspect?” As there
wasn’t much proof to prove the suspicion of the butler, he was
freed after being questioned.
The second person who lived in the Villa to know the rich
man’s death was Cynthia, his daughter. The poor girl was so
anguished that she even fainted when she saw her father’s corpse.
When she regained her consciousness, she said in tears, “It’s
entirely my fault……If only I didn’t go for a visit to my
boyfriend’s cottage……If only I was with my dad……” “Your boyfriend?
Who is he?” asked the Chief, who determined not to leave out a
single possible clue. “His name……is Alex, and he is the captain of
my dad’s yacht.” said the girl who was still wiping her tears. “The
captain of your dad’s yacht?” asked the Chief, “So your father
often traveled by yacht?” “Yes.” said the girl. “So,” asked the
Chief who was about to find something fishy, “why don’t he live
with you in the Villa if he loves you and your father needs him
often? Why does he live in a small cottage far away instead?” “That
is because he wasn’t accepted by my dad, though my mom supposed
that he was reliable. He moved away from the Villa after arguing
with my dad fiercely, and he bought a cottage far away.” said the
girl. “Did he hate your father?” the Chief suddenly asked. “Well,
it seems to me that he did.” answered the girl.
“So, the young man called Alex might also be a suspect if he
was in the Villa then.” thought the Chief. Just then, a policeman
knocked the door and came in, telling the Chief, “The maid in the
Villa wanted to say something to us, and we questioned her just
now. She told us that she was cleaning the garden on the day her
lord was found dead, and she saw the light in that room being
turned on and off for two times that evening.” Hearing the
policeman’s words, the girl suddenly called something to mind, and
she said, “There is a rule in our family: the light of a room ought
to be turned on only when there is someone inside.” “So there were
two people or two groups of people who entered the victim’s house
that night……” thought the Chief. Just then, another policeman came
in with the butcher’s knife in his hand, saying, “The owner of the
knife has been found. It belongs to the cook serving for the
villa.”
The cook was taken to the police office too, but he denied
entering the rich man’s room at that time. He said, “In fact, I was
busy looking for my knife then---it had been stolen! If the knife
was used to murder my master, the murderer must be the thief who
stole it!”
Several days later, the Chief suddenly received a phone call
from Cynthia. On the phone, the girl said, “Please don’t dissect my
dad’s body---it’s miserable enough for him to die so suddenly.
Please, sir.” Because of the phone call, the autopsy for the rich
man had to put off. The police placed the corpse in a freezer. Just
then, Jerry the forensic scientist walked into the Chief’s office,
telling him, “I had found a fingerprint on the knife, but it
doesn’t belong to the cook. In fact, it’s Alex’s
fingerprint.”
The maid also proved that she saw Alex running out from the
Villa with fluster shown on his face.
A circular asking for helping finding Alex was sent to
several police stations nearby.
Two days passed. This morning, the Chief was woken up by the
ring of the phone. It was the Chief of XXX police station, calling
to tell him that they had caught the young man called Alex in a
hotel nearby. “He was so mad of being caught that he started
barking like a psycho when he was handcuffed. ‘It’s his own fault!
It served him right! He has been sent to the hell!’ roared the
young man. It’s obvious that this guy hates the dead man very much
and had been wishing him to die.” said the voice in the phone,
“Thus, it’s obvious that this young man must be the criminal. We’d
put him into the lockup and he’d be waiting for the
trial.”
It seemed to be all right, but the Chief still couldn’t
settle himself down. He decided to do further investigation, and
this idea was even firmer when he received another phone call from
Cynthia. On the phone, the girl said, sobbing, “I’ve heard that
Alex had been arrested and he had been supposed to be the suspect,
but I believe he’s innocent. I’d do an investigation myself, and
please help me. I don’t believe it’s him who killed my poor
father.” The Chief felt a lump coming into his throat. He comforted
the girl with a few words, and then went on his work.
Going on his work, the Chief found that he had ignored
someone before---David Belvedere, Mr. Belvedere’s younger brother,
who was a hardened gambler and an alcoholic. He had been missing
together with his daughter, Angelica, since his elder brother’s
death. The Chief called Cynthia back, asking her if she was
familiar with her uncle David, or if she knew anybody who might be
familiar with him. “The maid may know him well,” answered the girl,
“for she often visits Uncle David’s house. Uncle David lives with
Angelica several miles away from the Villa. My dad was so sad about
his bad habits that he wasn’t allowed to live in the Villa anymore.
By the way, Uncle David had been hungering for my dad’s heritage
since my dad was diagnosed with an incurable disease.” “Heritage?
An incurable disease? So it is possible that David Belvedere killed
his elder brother for this rich man’s heritage……” thought the
Chief, when he suddenly reminded himself of the wound on the rich
man’s back, so he asked, “Did your father do any operations for
curing the disease?” “Yeah,” sighed the girl, “he did, but it did
no effect except leaving a wound on his back.” “Oops! So it means
that the wound wasn’t caused by the butcher’s knife!” thought the
Chief. “And he used a hypodermic needle for injecting medicine into
his body for lingering, just for lingering.” added the
girl.
Cynthia started her own investigation, just like what she
told the Chief. The Chief was quite worried about her safety, so he
decided to hide in the Villa, observing everything happening there.
One night, the Chief saw Cynthia picking up the phone in her room,
calling the police station, and saying, “I am Cynthia Belvedere. I
have something important to report……AARGH!” The Chief heard her
sudden screaming noise and saw a silhouette escaping from the room,
so he ran towards the silhouette that was climbing up the wall. The
silhouette fired several shots at the Chief. The Chief fired back,
dodging his rival’s shots. One of the bullets hit the silhouette’s
thigh. It fell off to the other side of the wall and ran away
quickly. When the Chief rushed back to Cynthia’s room, the poor
girl, who was shot on her back and was at her last gasp, struggled
to say her last words, “The person……who murdered my dad……might be
Uncle David……or his……” Her breath stopped after offering the last
clue to the Chief.
But poor Cynthia wasn’t the last person to die. Two days
after her death, her mother, Mrs. Belvedere, was found dead in her
room, hanging herself in the ceiling. Hearing the news of his
mistress’ death, the butler couldn’t take it anymore. He went to
the police station himself, telling the police that he had been
lying.
“In fact,” said the butler, “I was with my lord that night. I
have lied to you because of being afraid of being suspected to be
the one who poisoned my lord. I was my lord’s old friend, but I did
something disgraceful---having an affair with his wife. That
evening, on the dinner table, my lord asked me if I could have a
drink with him after dinner. I agreed, but soon I found that the
wine in my storage had been drunk up. Just then, I saw a full
bottle of wine on a small desk beside the dining table. I took this
bottle away without asking who the owner of the bottle was. I took
the bottle and two wineglasses to my lord’s room and poured a glass
of wine for him. He drank it up, pouring out his troubles of his
heritage. I started feeling sorry for him. I wondered if I should
tell him about the affair, but I gave up after hesitation. He took
out a piece of paper, saying that he’d write his testament, leaving
his entire heritage to his dear daughter. That was when he suddenly
lied prone on his desk and was out of breath.”
“Was anybody else in the Villa that day, besides you and your
lord?” asked the Chief. “Well, my mistress and her daughter wasn’t
there, but his younger brother was there having dinner together
with us, telling my lord that he was willing to bury the hatchet
with him.” Just then, Jerry the forensic scientist went in, asking
if he might dissect the rich man’s corpse. The Chief said
yes.
Several hours later, the result came out. “He died of organic
phosphorus poisoning.” said Jerry.
“So,” thought the Chief, “Wine, younger brother who is an
alcoholic, heritage, poison……The clue is clearer and clearer……” He
decided to go to David’s home for a visit.
Entering David’s yard, the Chief found David supporting his
daughter with his hand, and a wound could be seen on the girl’s
left thigh. “She told me that she fell off the horse. Poor girl.”
said David. However, the Chief found that the wound was more likely
to be a gunshot wound. “Something fishy, eh.” thought the
Chief.
Going back to his office, the Chief started investigating the
identity of Angelica, David’s daughter. He found that Angelica was
a student studying biochemistry in XX College. When the Chief went
to the school for further investigation, he found that two bottles
of organic phosphorus reagent were stolen from its biochemical lab.
He also found that Angelica was also hungering for her uncle’s
heritage.
After summing up all these clues, the Chief announced his
conclusion to his investigation team, “There is no one but Angelica
who could be the suspect!” Then he called XXX police station,
telling them, “The true suspect has been found! Set Alex
free!”
However, when the police went to David’s home to arrest
Angelica, the girl was found dead, with two empty wineglasses and
half a bottle of wine beside her. After the autopsy, the result
showed that she also died of organic phosphorus poisoning. From her
room, the police found a secret diary book, with the following
words in it:
“Yesterday was the day of the action. I poured a whole
bottle of the reagent into my dad’s wine, expecting him to drink it
up and give his inheritance to me by sacrificing his life. However,
he took the bottle of wine to the Villa, so I followed him. I heard
him moaning, ‘Who is the brat who stole my wine?’ So I knew it was
not him but my uncle who was going to be killed. But I did nothing.
I just stayed in the dark and watched all the things to happen. Ten
minutes later, I, hiding in the garden, saw the butler rushing
downstairs and shouting, ‘Oh, no! My lord!’ I know what was
happening. I just threw the bottle onto the grass and ran
away.
“……Several days later, I found that Cynthia, my cousin,
had been searching for the murderer. It seemed that she was
suspecting me. I was so afraid that I decided to make her close her
mouth by shooting her to death. And so I
did……”
“That’s obvious,” said the Chief to himself, “but where is
David? The guy is missing.”
Two days later, David appeared in the police station, saying,
“I want to surrender to the police.” “What do you want to tell us?”
asked the Chief. “It was me who killed my daughter, though it
wasn’t me who killed my elder brother.” said David. “So why did you
kill your daughter?” asked the Chief, feeling confused. “That was
because she was trying to poison me, just like how she poisoned her
uncle.” said David, “It’s true that I had been hungering for the
heritage, but my daughter had even more hunger. She was planning to
kill everyone who might stop her from getting the inheritance. Thus
she murdered her uncle and her cousin. But I was extremely furious
when I found that she was trying to murder me! How come she forgot
the affection between a father and a daughter! I was so furious,
but I pretended to be OK. I pretended to drink with her, but I’d
changed our wineglasses secretly. She drank up the wine with her
own poison, and she died. She paid the price for the wicked things
she did. I decided to surrender to the police after being far away
for two days.”
“You’ll also pay the price for what you did.” said the Chief,
handcuffing David, sighing.
(The end)
注：此题目来自我们课上的一个活动，根据线索串成一个探案故事。我们组是少数几个真正把故事串成文的组之一。这是我根据我们组的创意整理成的一个虚构的发生在比弗利山的富豪别墅的凶杀案的故事。
