After Roy woke up from his hospital bed, he lay down for less than two hours before he was discharged and couldn't wait to return to his apartment. Barbara repeatedly dissuaded him that he needed more rest, but Roy insisted that he had been in bed doing nothing for more than a day and a night, and that he didn't want to delay for the rest of the day.

So he continued to devote himself to the search for various clues of the Joker.

A few days passed, but the clown was temporarily silent. Roy also asked about the Batcave, but it didn't seem like there were any clues on Batman's side.

It wasn't until this day that the impasse finally changed.

Early in the morning, Director Gordon's phone call came to the apartment, and he directly said that the clown had done it again, hoping that Roy would immediately rush to the crime scene to join the reconnaissance.

Roy was refreshed when he heard the news, and immediately called straight to the scene with a radiant face after putting down the phone.

Another case of illegal break-in, this time in the Kington area.

The victims were a young couple. Similar to the previous clown case, there are also traces of sleeping on their bed, but the murder scene is in the living room. When Roy walked into the living room under the guidance of Director Gordon, he saw two corpses, a man and a woman, both wearing pajamas, lying in opposite directions on the carpet of the living room.

The cause of death was clear at a glance, and both men had a bullet hole in their foreheads.

"Did you find the bullet?" Roy asked.

"Found it, the appraiser is already analyzing." Gordon said.

"He didn't cut his face this time." Roy said, holding his chin.

"You can't expect this madman to have any particular pattern." Gordon said, "Maybe he changed his mood this time, so he won't cut it." Who knows what he was doing when he cut the faces of his victims the first two times? Maybe it's just boring to collect. ”

"Sounds reasonable."

Roy said that he would not comment and walked around the two corpses in a circle.

"From this posture and orientation," Roy said, gesticulating, "the couple were on their knees facing each other before they were shot." ”

"yes, I see it." "We preliminarily judged that the clown dragged them both out of bed, tied his hands behind his back, and made them kneel face to face on the living room carpet According to the clown's habit, we can even speculate that he the two poor victims for a long time, and then forced one of them to watch the other being killed in front of him." ”

"After appreciating the victim's desperate expression, he killed the other person." Roy said, "It does sound a bit like his style." But I may ask, how did you know for sure it was him this time? ”

"As always, he kept his business card."

"Can you show me?"

Gordon thought for a moment and said, "You wait. ”

With that, Gordon turned around and went out, as if to collect evidence.

Roy continued to stare at the two bodies for a moment, thoughtful. Then, he shook around the living room twice, especially leaning on the windowsill of the living room to look outside for a while, and then stretched out his mobile phone to take a photo.

Gordon returned to the living room and handed him a bag of evidence: "Here." ”

Roy retracted his gaze and took the bag in Gordon's hand, and it was indeed a big king playing card. Roy flipped through the backs and turned the bag back to Gordon without saying a word. Although he didn't say anything, with such a period of cooperation with this young man, he could tell from the twinkle in Roy's eyes that he had discovered something.

"How?" Gordon asked.

Roy shook his head and asked, "How do you think he got in?" ”

Gordon thought for a while: "Since you said last time that he has **, then I think he should still use **, right?" ”

"So when the victim was found, was the window open over there?" Roy asked, pointing to the living room window.

"Yes."

"That's weird. Who has the habit of sleeping with the window open when they sleep? ”

Gordon thought for a moment, "Maybe they just forgot to close it that night?" ”

"Maybe." Roy took out his phone and showed Gordon the picture he had just taken.

He photographed the window as seen from the outside, with obvious signs of lockpicking. If the window is open, it is not easy to notice this mark from the house.

"So since he has a **, why pry the window?" Gordon asked, touching his nose.

Roy didn't answer directly, but pointed to the red mark on the windowsill and asked, "So what do you think of this?" ”

Gordon took a closer look. This mark is made up of a few short red lines, which are not obvious and can be easily ignored, and look like a little paint accidentally stained during renovation.

"I dare say, this one is bloodstained." Roy said.

Gordon was taken aback: "How do you know?" ”

"Look at this pattern that doesn't look like the sole of a shoe?" Roy continued.

Gordon took a closer look, imagining that if these short and shallow lines continued to extend, it really seemed that they could really be the marks of the sole pattern.

"I can recognize it because I've studied many styles of sole patterns." "But it's so subtle that I can't tell what brand of shoes the intruder is using just by the slightest trace." At least we know that our intruder is in and out through this window in the living room. A great detective once said that footprints are like passports that can reflect a person's whereabouts to a large extent, let's extract a little bit of this footprint and go back and see if we can find it. ”

Gordon nodded: "I'll call someone to do it right away." ”

"Plus, I have another discovery that can be frustrating." Roy said.

"What's wrong?"

"Can you give me another poker?"

Gordon took the King in the evidence bag from his coat pocket and handed it to Roy.

"Thank you." Roy took it, pulled out a photo from his phone, and handed it to Gordon along with the poker, "I happen to have a 'business card' in my phone that the clown left behind, you can see what is different from this one." ”

Gordon studied it for a while, and it quickly became apparent: "The front pattern is exactly the same, but there is a slight difference in the pattern on the back of the poker. ”

Roy nodded: "Exactly." Because in the news released in the media, we have never given a photo of the front of the clown's 'business card', and never given the pattern on the back. So, apart from those of us who have access to the crime scene and the clown himself, no one else should know exactly what the back of the poker he used looks like. ”

"You mean to say," Gordon shook his head as he just had the idea, "but maybe the clown just changed his business card on a whim today?" We can't have a fixed mindset for dealing with him. ”

"Well, then as you said earlier, the clown has a **, why choose to turn the window again?"

Gordon was stunned.

"Every criminal has their own different habits. The clown prefers to walk through the front door, while we seem to prefer to walk through the window. At this point, Roy paused, and continued, "So, what I want to say is that the prisoner we are going after now is not a clown, but some of his imitators. ”