Seeing that Yang Qiuchi was standing, he kept instructing the village Minzhuang to carry the Taishi chair and follow Su Lizheng, and hurriedly beckoned Minzhuang to put the Taishi chair in the shade of a tree and give the Zhizhou master a rest.

Yang Qiuchi sat in the Taishi chair, hulala shaking the folding fan, thinking about what to do, thinking carefully about the situation of the iron chain, and always felt that he was missing something.

What is it? Yang Qiuchi looked at the thin iron chain around the neck of the dog tied to the small yard of the family in front of him, and suddenly his heart moved, and he told Su Li to take off the chain that tied the dog to take it off for himself.

The family had already taken refuge in the house, and Suri was standing at the gate of the courtyard, beckoning them to quickly remove the chain from which the dog was tethered.

The family hurriedly went out of the room, knowing that the eldest master had an order, and was about to take the dog chain in a panic, Su Li was scolding: "Do you want to let the dog out?" If you hurt the big man, how many heads do you have? Don't fucking lead the dog into the room and take the chain! ”

The farmer was an old man in his fifties, who was already trembling with fright, and when he heard Su Lizheng's scolding, he was even more panicked, and he agreed again and again, and locked the dog in the room, and then took the chain that tied the dog, knelt down on his waist, and handed the chain to Yang Qiuchi with both hands.

Yang Qiuchi took it and looked at it carefully, and said to the old man: "When you bought this chain from the blacksmith shop, were they all like this? ”

The old man replied tremblingly, "Go back to ...... Returning to the old man...... Be...... It's all like this. ”

Yang Qiuchi touched the two ends of the iron chain, which were two complete oblong iron rings, and immediately recalled that one end of the thin iron chain tied around the neck of the corpse was an incomplete oval iron ring, and most of it was still left, which was almost cut off from the top.

At that time, Yang Qiuchi didn't pay attention, he thought that it was the same as buying a rope, as long as you want, cut it for you, so it was normal to have traces of cutting at one end, however, judging from the chain that tied the dog just now, it was not like this, it seemed that this kind of chain had a fixed length, which was made by the blacksmith with fixed specifications, and was specially used to tie the dog.

Since the chains on the leash of the dog are all fixed specifications, and the iron rings at both ends should be complete, why is one end of the thin iron chain on the neck of the deceased cut off? Could it be that someone cut off the chain that tied the dog and used it to bind the stone of the sunken corpse?

Yang Qiuchi immediately instructed Su Lizheng to take the trappers to the whole village to check if any other people's iron chains for tethering dogs or similar chains for other purposes had been cut off. If you have one, take control of the family immediately and extract the chain.

Su Lizheng hurriedly agreed, and took the catchers to search carefully from house to house.

Song Yun'er asked, "Brother, did you find anything?" ”

"Sort of, I recall that the iron chain on the neck of the dead corpse seems to have been cut off, and the iron chains for dogs in this village seem to be specially made by blacksmiths to tie dogs, so one end of the chain will not be cut, if we can find the other end of the cut iron chain, follow the vine and touch the melon, and use this as a clue, we may be able to find the murderer who killed Li Hanbao for money and used the cut iron chain to tie the stone to sink the corpse, and the murderer is likely to be the person who has another iron chain, at least has something to do with him."

"Great!" Song Yun'er clapped her hands and said with a smile, "When I inspected the body, I didn't have any bottom at all, and I thought to myself, if I want to solve this case, I don't know where to start." My brother is just amazing, he knows where the criminal is by pinching his fingers! ”

"What? Are you a fortune teller? Yang Qiuchi said with a smile.

Shuang'er wiped a handful of sweat from her forehead, and said: "Yes, I always hear others say how powerful our master is at solving cases, but I haven't really seen it, but today I opened my eyes!" After a while, the murderer was caught. ”

Master Jin also shook the folding fan and echoed: "Yes, Dong Weng is the youngest and most talented of the old men I have ever talked to...... At that time, the contemptible people admired it very much. ”

Master Jin is Yang Qiuchi's staff, he was born in Xiucai, and he has a meritorious reputation, which is not comparable to Chang Fu and other followers. Yang Qiuchi smiled and bowed his hand politely: "If you want to say that it is too early to solve the case, it is just to find a little clue and make some bold speculation, which may not be accurate." ”

After talking for a while, Su Li was escorting more than a dozen men and women with the catchers, some old and some young, and when they arrived in front of Yang Qiuchi, they knelt down to a large area.

Su Li was holding seven or eight iron chains in his hand, and bowed down and handed them to Yang Qiuchi: "My lord, the little one and a few officials searched the houses of the people in the village who had such thin iron chains one by one, and found these seven or eight iron chains, all of which were cut off one by one, and brought these people with them. ”

Yang Qiuchi snorted, and took the chains one by one to carefully observe the fracture, although he had a good memory, he couldn't remember what the broken chain on the deceased's neck was. It seems that it can only be brought back for careful comparison. Fortunately, a strap is tied to each chain, on which is the name of the head of the household, so that it is easy to find out who the suspect is.

Yang Qiuchi instructed Su Lizheng and Minzhuang to put the dozen or so men and women under residential surveillance, not to move around at will, let alone leave the village. Then, with the seven or eight iron chains, he returned to the Yamen of Bazhou.

He first instructed a few catchers to go to the cattle and sheep market to investigate the situation of the deceased Li Shiyin's cattle selling and the exact time of leaving Bazhou City the afternoon before yesterday, to see if there were any clues, if it was for money, the murderer might have seen Li Shiyin in the cattle and sheep market with the money from the sale of cattle, and intended to kill people for money, and asked the catchers to inquire whether the cattle and sheep market business had found that there were such people following the deceased out of the city at that time, especially those with diamond-shaped wooden sticks or thin iron chains.

After the arrangements were completed, he returned to his own forensic office in the internal office, and Yang Qiuchi's work now was to find out if the other section of the iron chain around the deceased's neck was among the seven or eight extracted iron chains.

To find the other half, the method is very simple, the chain is cut by the chopper from one of the oval rings close to the round head, first the chain is broken and docked, and the appearance can be recombined into a finished chain, and the other section can be determined.

Soon, another section was found, and after docking, it was completely able to kiss into a complete iron ring, and after comparison, the size and thickness were the same as the other iron rings on the iron chain.

Yang Qiuchi picked up the iron chain and looked at the cloth strip on it, it was written "Huo Xiaosi", the iron chain around the neck of the deceased belonged to Huo Xiaosi's family, so Huo Xiaosi was suspected of a major crime of murder.

Not long after, the catchers who went to the cattle and sheep market to investigate also quickly heard the situation and came back, and reported that there were many people who proved that Li Shiyin had indeed sold cattle in the cattle and sheep market the afternoon before yesterday and had received 3,000 copper coins.

The owner proved that Li Shiyin had left his shop at about two o'clock in the evening before yesterday (half past five in the evening) and went all the way out of the city. No one was found to be following him.

Yang Qiuchi was fanning the folding fan, thinking that according to the autopsy, the time of the deceased's death should be about two days, which coincided with the snack bar owner's certificate. From Bazhou City to this Liuli Village, it only takes about half an hour (about an hour), so if the deceased was killed on the way back, the time of death should be between half past five and half past six in the evening.

Since the deceased's fingernails contained lime particles in the silt found in the river bottom, it is likely that he was killed near the lime kiln near Liuli Village, so it is likely that the deceased was killed between 6 and 6:30 depending on the time taken during the journey.

Unfortunately, an autopsy could not be performed, otherwise a more accurate time of death could be determined based on the degree of digestion of the stomach contents.

Then, Yang Qiuchi immediately led the men and horses back to Liuli Village.

On the way, Song Yun'er asked with some surprise: "You won't find the suspect so quickly, right?"

"Almost." Yang Qiuchi said confidently.

The six-mile road arrived in half an hour, and Yang Qiuchi asked Su Lizheng to lead the way, and came directly to Huo Xiaosi's house.

Huo Xiaosi's family saw that Su Li was coming to their house with the old man of Zhizhou and a large group of catchers, and they immediately panicked and knelt in the yard and kowtowed.

Minzhuang didn't need to be instructed, he carried the Taishi chair and followed behind, and when he saw that the eldest master was going to ask the case on the spot, he quickly put the Taishi chair in this courtyard. But there are no trees in the yard, don't heat up the official master on a hot day, what to do, fortunately, Shuang'er was prepared, and this time he specially brought a big sun umbrella and propped it on top of Yang Qiuchi's head.

It's so comfortable, Yang Qiuchi winked at Shuang'er with satisfaction, and then turned his head and shouted, "Huo Xiaosi!" ”

A middle-aged man knelt forward and climbed two steps, and replied in a trembling voice, "The villain is here." ”

Yang Qiuchi picked up the two iron chains that were broken and kissed and threw them in front of him: "Take a closer look, these two chains belong to yours?" ”

Huo Xiaosi picked it up and nodded: "Yes, it's from the villain's family." This section of the head was taken down from the villain's courtyard by Su Li with a few officials before. That's when I realized that the chain had been cut at some point. ”

"Really? You don't know when the chains in your yard broke? Yang Qiuchi sneered, and then asked, "What are you using this chain for?" ”

"Yes...... It's for leashes. ”

"What about dogs?" Yang Qiuchi looked around, but didn't see the shadow of the dog.

"A few days ago...... Sick to death...... The chain was left in the yard and left unattended. ”

"Isn't it! Since you threw it in the yard and didn't care about it, why did this half of the chain get to Li Shiyin's neck again? ”

(To be continued)