Santa Fe Cathedral, night, eight o'clock sharp.

"Master, are you religious?" Downey sat on a chair in the chapel of the church, staring reverently at the statue of the Virgin Mary, which was divinely illuminated by candlelight.

"Shut up, I'm a Christian!" Hanif whispered.

"Huh? So what are we going to do in the Catholic Church? Donnie was shocked, isn't this a betrayal of faith, master.

"Because this is the only place here that has the money to light the lights at night and let strangers in." Hanif looked down and examined his revolver.

It's true that he's a Christian, but when it comes to religious beliefs, he's flexible.

"Strange, how is it that there is no one else in the church today? The priest was gone. Hanif was a little confused.

The priest, of course, was gone, and he was locked up in his room by Sheriff Van Cleef, in the name of keeping him safe.

"Boss, are we going to make the atmosphere of the church too strange and alert those two people and the kidnappers?" One of the sheriff's men reminded.

Sheriff Van Cleve looked away from the crack in the back door of the auditorium.

He did not directly answer his subordinates' questions.

"Did you spot any suspicious people around?" He asked in a low voice.

"No, we have secret posts up and down the church, and if anyone comes close, they will be discovered.

Van Cleef nodded in satisfaction and continued to observe the two men in the auditorium through the crack in the back door.

Time passed minute by minute, and the people waiting on both sides had not yet come.

Donnie was looking around boredly, and Hanif was picking at his fingers.

The sheriff behind the door took out his pocket watch and looked at it.

At 8:40, it had been exactly ten minutes.

"Is there any news from the people who went out to search?" The sheriff asked his men behind him. He was a little agitated, and found that he seemed to be overconfident in his judgment of form.

"Uh, no, I didn't see any suspicious people nearby." There was some hesitation among the men

"Then wait a little longer, as soon as the kidnappers come forward, we will take action."

"But what if the kidnappers don't come forward?" The subordinates raised their own questions.

"This ransom is so high, the kidnappers won't tear up the ticket for a while." The sheriff glanced at him and said firmly, "Besides, if they dare to tear it, I will dare to let them die." ”

……

Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, the temporary residence of the housekeeper.

The door was locked, everyone outside the chamber of commerce was off work, and the corridor was full of black holes.

The door to the butler's makeshift office was open, and he paced anxiously back and forth in the office.

Every time I walked back and forth, I would look up at the clock in the corner of the office.

On the table was a small box containing six large gold bars, each weighing more than a kilogram, worth a total of $5,000.

This is what the butler took out of the bank in the evening.

After the sheriff left, he reflected on what had happened, and then asked the people around him about the sheriff in Santa Fe.

After listening to it, there was a cold sweat behind his back.

As the capital of New Mexico, kidnappings are rife around Santa Fe, and the sheriff's style of solving cases is so vigorous that many kidnappers are sent to the gallows.

The only drawback is that the cases he handles have a relatively high mortality rate for hostages.

This hellish place in the west is really a civilized desert, and there is no reliable person.

If the kidnappers knew that they had notified the police, then the life of their young master would probably be difficult to protect.

I was really sick and rushed to the doctor.

The housekeeper decided to take matters into his own hands.

He made up his mind and went into the bedroom to get ready to change clothes.

When he tidied up and returned to the office, he found one person sitting in his chair while another, sitting on the couch, gobbling up pastries on the coffee table.

"Sorry, the door is locked, the window is open, so I just came in." The man in his chair looked up, pointed to the gaping window, and a smile appeared on his yellow-skinned face.

Chen Jianqiu took off his cowboy hat and covered it on the small box on the table.

"Who are you? What are you doing with me? The butler became nervous, and he turned to look for the pistol in the clothes on the hanger, but soon remembered that the pistol was in the drawer to the right of his desk.

"You are a trespasser, this is near the city council, there will always be police patrols, I advise you to get out as soon as possible." The butler's gaze did not take his eyes off the box covered by the hat.

"Don't be nervous, sir, we're not bad guys, and the police are all searching around the church right now." Chen Jianqiu leaned back in his chair and said.

"Water! Hmm, get the water! Hmmm......"

Just as the housekeeper was still looking at Chen Jianqiu vigilantly, the person sitting on the sofa shouted to the housekeeper, at this time he was stuffing a whole piece of almond cake in his mouth, and he was choked because of the lack of water.

Why is this sound so familiar?

The butler looked at the man's face closely, and looked at it for a long time before exclaiming:

"O my God! Is it really you, my young master? ”

Astor IV now looks like a hillbilly that is ubiquitous in the western countryside, with straw-like hair and a face that can only be barely identified by the clothes covered in ash and mud.

"Hmm, it's me, hmm, quick, stop talking nonsense, get some water!"

The housekeeper hurriedly brought the kettle and was about to put it on the stove to boil, but little Astor snatched it, he didn't care that the kettle was cold water, and poured it directly into his mouth.

"Pour a glass for the gentleman sitting over there, too." As soon as Astor swallowed the cake in his mouth, he began to call the butler.

If this honor is placed in normal times, the housekeeper must not have seen it, but he watched little Astor grow up, and seeing that he was fine, now he is distressed and happy in his heart.

The housekeeper took some more pastries from the cabinet and gave them to little Aster, and then poured a glass of water for Chen Jianqiu.

But he looked at Chen Jianqiu's face, and the more he looked at it, the more familiar it became.

"I seem to have seen you, you, aren't you Mr. Mark Twain's bodyguard? Then he disappeared with the Indians. ”

The person in front of him should be the kidnapper who kidnapped the young master.

But now that the young master has been sent back, he has a lot more confidence. There is also bargaining capital.

The housekeeper cleared his throat and said to Chen Jianqiu without humility or arrogance:

"Well, sir, since the young master has come back safely, then I have nothing to say, I have prepared the ransom."

He took the box from underneath the cowboy hat, opened it, and turned it around to reveal it before his eyes.

This hillbilly must be impatient to pick up the gold bars and salivate over a box of gold.

However, Chen Jianqiu only glanced at the box and frowned.

Seeing this, the butler couldn't help but feel nervous in his heart, could it be that he had already discovered that the amount of ransom was wrong?

"Your asking price is a bit high, I can't scrape together that much money for a while, can we talk?"

Chen Jianqiu still didn't respond.

The housekeeper didn't know why, his eyes swept around Chen Jianqiu's waist to determine whether he had a weapon or not, and he was calculating the time when the police would come back.

"Give it to him, give it to him, and I'm worth that money? He wasn't a kidnapper, and his kidnappers killed me. Astor had almost eaten, and he looked angry.

He stood up, wiped his mouth with a tablecloth, and glanced inside the box.

"It's five thousand dollars here, how's that?" He seems to have regained the self-confidence of New York's first broad.

Chen Jianqiu stood up, walked to the butler's side, took out the wallet from the pocket of his clothes, counted out five hundred dollars, and then stuffed the empty wallet back into the housekeeper's clothes.

The butler didn't dare to move the whole time.

"Fractional three dollars can be erased." Chen Jianqiu lifted the box, "Thank you, boss." ”

With that, he walked to the door.

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One more, two more later

(End of chapter)