At this time, Catherine was wearing a comfortable homestay dress, her hair was not tied up, quietly draped over her shoulders, and the slightly old furniture around her blended together without abruptness, who would have thought that after getting rid of the battle dress of the Judge Nun, she really looked like a rich lady who was deep and simple, but there was still some coldness and fatigue between her eyebrows and eyes.

The last time Sherlock met her was before the Day of Love, when she wore gorgeous makeup, in addition to the needs of the occasion and to show respect for His Highness the Son, there was also an important point. Hide your haggardness.

She is an extremely rebellious person, in fact, with her identity, as long as she sets foot in some scientific research or management circles, she can easily have resources and status in the life science academy that others cannot struggle for in several lifetimes. But she turned a blind eye to this blood wealth, and even wanted to escape, so she plunged into the church and became a nun of judgment who dealt with demons all day long.

And the reason for this is not difficult to guess, it is because of Catherine's strong resistance to the Academy of Life Sciences, the mecca of science and technology in the whole empire, and her dislike of her father.

That's right, disgusted.

Professor Darwin is undoubtedly one of the most powerful scholars in the entire Sacred Calendar, and he has almost single-handedly developed the discipline of "Demon Science" to the extreme, and Master Dante once said that there are amazing people in every field, and Professor Darwin is undoubtedly the strongest genius in this field of biological sciences.

And his talent in this field is not limited to the study of demons, in fact, even if the gates of hell have never been opened, Professor Darwin must have written the most colorful handwriting in history. In short, he was admired and respected by scientific scholars almost all over the empire.

But no daughter would like a father who only comes home once every two months.

When Catherine was young, she even thought that the laboratory was her father's home, and on the day her mother died, her father was still immersed in his research, and it was not until five days later that he learned that his wife had died, and then he stood alone in front of his wife's grave with an umbrella all night, and then returned to the laboratory again.

From that day on, Catherine felt that the behemoth of the Life Science Institute was so hateful.

"So, you did all these assessments and screenings?" Sherlock asked with a cigarette in his mouth, but didn't light it, and asked indifferently.

"Yes, in fact, if I wasn't afraid of being too public, I would even want to make the battle a little bigger." Catherine said, then frowned and stared at the cigarette on Sherlock's mouth, "If you want to smoke, light it quickly." ”

"As you wish, beautiful lady." Sherlock took out his lighter and lit the cigarette, and took a beautiful puff, and it was clear that he was only symbolically asking for the consent of the owner of the villa.

After that, he didn't ask about the relationship between Catherine and her father, and he didn't care about the mood of a young girl who had run away from home since she was a child, when she learned of the death of her father, whom he hated, but said slowly in the fog:

"Tell me about the case, right?"

And with a few words coming out, Catherine seemed to suddenly feel that the aura of the man in front of her had changed, as if only when the case was mentioned, he would show a little bit of his true heart, and the usual hateful man with no quality was just a decadent shell soaked in a boring life.

Unintentionally, she was also infected by this atmosphere, sat up straight and slowly spoke.

In fact, the whole process of the case is not complicated, and it can even be said to be clear at a glance.

It was more than three months ago that Professor Darwin was in the same room with a third-order archdemon while conducting an experiment on demons.

This third-order great demon had been injected with demonic sedative, which was the kind commonly used in demon breeding grounds, so it was not dangerous, but when the professor approached it, suddenly, this demon went crazy and inexplicably entered a violent state.

Dean Darwin was only a second-order contractor, and it was impossible for him to survive the demon's rage, and the testing ground was not very large at that time, so about three seconds later, the most prominent biology professor in the Holy Calendar died.

In full view.

Because this experiment was a display of scientific research results, there were more than 100 witnesses outside the laboratory at that time, they were from various departments of the empire, including scientific representatives, journalists, papal see, and even military advisers who had traveled thousands of miles from the front line to witness with their own eyes how great the shock that Professor Darwin's experiments over the years could bring to the world.

But no one expected that the last thing they saw would be a corpse torn in half.

After listening to this brief account of the case, Sherlock fell into deep thought for about a second.

"In general, it was during a demonstration of the results of an experiment that the demon suddenly lost control, so it caused an accidental death, right?"

"Not an accident! It's murder! Catherine corrected immediately.

"Oh? Why do you think so? ”

"Because I know him." Catherine doesn't seem to be used to using the word 'father' too often: "He wasn't the kind of person who could make mistakes, and in order to ensure that the data of an experiment was not wrong, he even locked himself in the laboratory and did not let anyone disturb him, so that he did not even see his wife for the last time."

Now, you're saying he's going to risk his life because of a mistake. I can't possibly accept that. ”

"So, that's why you think your father died in murder?" Sherlock said with great interest, he now finally understands why the Life Science Institute has to suppress the whole thing and dare not leak the news, the woman in front of the relationship does not have any evidence, just based on her own understanding of her father, she bites the nature of this death If it spreads, there is a chance that it will become a farce that cannot be cleaned up.

"You don't believe me, do you?" Catherine's words didn't seem to have any emotion, and it could be seen that she was also under pressure from many sides during this time, so she didn't explain or question as usual at this time, but just looked at the table a little weakly.

"Of course not, I believe you, it's a murder!"

"What?!" Catherine turned her head sharply and looked at Sherlock in surprise.

In fact, this morning, she heard that Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes] also showed a similar look of surprise.

Although she knew that Sherlock was a very simple person as early as the first time the two met, this time, among the people invited by the Academy of Sciences, every one of them was a rare talent, who would have thought that he would stand out as a civilian.

He was even able to crack the code of his father's safe

Thinking about it this way, this guy seems to have some kind of strange intersection with His Royal Highness the Holy Son, and I really don't know how many secrets this unattractive detective still hides.

"You believe me?" It may be that she has been questioned too much in the past few months, and she has been recognized once, which makes this stubborn eldest lady a little uncomfortable, and even asks rhetorically: "Why?" ”

"Intuition." Sherlock said naturally: "Actually, you may not understand, but you have seen a lot of murders, and this kind of intuition is quite strong A death that could not have happened happened in front of everyone's eyes, there were many witnesses, and all of them were people with status, and the time happened to be at such a high-profile juncture as the 'Experimental Results Display', although everything seemed to be very logical, but so many logical elements gathered together, it would give me a kind of [atmosphere has been baked to this extent, If there is no homicide, I am sorry for this condition]. ”

Sherlock explained.

Of course, he still has a lot of reasons that he hasn't said, that is, the old dean is dead, there is a large-scale air crash in London, someone wants to kill the Holy Son, someone is hiding the truth, at this time, as long as there is a little point of spearhead pointed at the Academy of Life Sciences, even if it happened three months ago, then the probability that the old dean's death is murder will inevitably rise exponentially.

Catherine, of course, didn't know that there were so many inside things in Sherlock's mind, she just stared at the nasty person in front of her in a daze, smelling the nasty smell of smoke in the air. After hesitating for a moment, he finally whispered:

"Thank you."

"Thank you?"

"Oh, of course not thank you for believing in me." Catherine hurriedly explained: "It's just. . . I'm thankful that there is still someone in this world with a fairly long head like you, and that you're so much better than those bastards who only know how to stare at the legacy. ”

As she spoke, she seemed to have thought of something, and her expression showed a hint of boredom.

Sherlock didn't want to care about this kind of family affairs, even if it was a small family, after death, people would get into some trouble of dividing property, let alone people like Dean Darwin.

"So. I'm curious about what kind of experiment you just mentioned, why so many people attach importance to it, and why your father wants to be in the same room with a third-order archdemon. ”

Catherine retracted her irritable thoughts, and spoke:

"It's a very long experiment, you don't know it, and even many people in the industry have forgotten about it.

Thirty-five years ago, he came up with a conjecture called "Can Wild Demons Make Contracts Enforced".

The content of this conjecture is probably . He thinks that human beings becoming contractors is not a matter of talent or chance, and in certain circumstances, any person can become a contractor. It doesn't take into account the contractor's rank.

In other words, everyone can control the third-order Great Demon.

However, this idea is a bit too absurd, so as soon as it was brought up at the time, it was criticized by many people, and even thought it was ridiculous, but because of his status as the dean of the Academy of Life Sciences, he did not put it forward positively.

Of course, the old fellow knew this, but he was a stubborn man, and as long as it was a matter of determination, he would not listen to dissuasion, so he had been buried deep in this experiment since that day.

For more than 30 years, during this time, he worked almost every day, every minute of the time, his wife died, his only daughter also left this home, oh, I'm sorry I was wrong, this is not his home, the old guy's real home is in the laboratory"

At this, Catherine was still expressionless, as if she were talking about the life of someone she didn't know very well, but Sherlock could hear a small tremor in his voice, but she couldn't tell whether it was sadness or anger.

And one day, three months ago, at lunchtime, he suddenly told Maude Butler that he had succeeded.

I can't guess how the people who heard this were at the time, but maybe it was shocking.

And even more shockingly, a week later.

And he died

Died in the display of his experimental results for more than 30 years! ”

Before the words fell, suddenly, Catherine raised her head, and then looked at Sherlock in front of her with great seriousness:

"I hate that old fellow, he doesn't deserve to be a father, and naturally he doesn't deserve to be a husband!

But he couldn't just die

He abandoned his family, his wife, his life, his hobbies, and me!

He used all this, his time, his energy, the sense of family responsibility and love that he should have had, in exchange for the results of more than thirty years of experiments!

Then there was absolutely no way he could fail, and he could not even allow the experiment to be flawed in the slightest, not just his dignity as a man and his self-sufficiency as a scholar.

It's that he doesn't dare to die!

Otherwise, what are the things he gave up, how could his soul face my mother in peace.?

Even if he did fail and was torn in two, he would get up and pan in pain on life-sustaining equipment until the experiment was completed!

So!

He must have been murdered! ”

(End of chapter)