“？？？”

This sentence made the already quiet empty vault even more silent, and some people even felt that they had heard it wrong, and began to look at each other, and Hopkins also walked over with a very incomprehensible expression:

"The Inquisition is just outside the door, do you want me to call them over?"

This sentence has been said very vaguely, but he can still hear that he can't accept the cause of death at all, and even wonders if Watson has made something wrong, but he thinks that this doctor can be Sherlock's assistant, if not a monster, should be an extremely terrible person, which makes his tone reveal a sense of self-contradiction.

Of course, Watson didn't care that Hopkins questioned his ability to perform an autopsy, because at first, he himself thought it was incredible, so he got up and looked at the corpse with some doubts:

"I am very sure that the deceased died of lack of water, malnutrition, and organ dysfunction, and from the physical point of view, there is no doubt that he died of starvation, and a person who does not eat or drink water should only live for about a week, and a trained person should live for more than 10 days, and it is clear that our banker is not this kind of person.

Of course, to be on the safe side, I'd also recommend sending your men over to examine the body. ”

As he spoke, he turned his head and looked at the box of food in the corner of the vault, and felt that this man's death was even more strange than that of the Pope the other day.

After Sherlock heard the cause of death, he had already come directly to the box of food, in fact, it didn't take too keen observation to find that this box was a cardboard box that could be seen everywhere, about one meter in length, width and height, not too big, but not small, enough to hold food and water for an adult for ten days.

At this time, the carton was in an open state, and when I came in just now, I could also see an empty biscuit bag thrown not far from the corpse, and it was obvious that the deceased had taken out some food from this box and ate it.

However, it was only the small bag of cookies that I took out

After that, for unknown reasons, the deceased stopped taking the contents of the box, whether it was food or drink.

Everything was left on the ground, but the banker would not eat the contents even if he starved to death and died of thirst.

When he was puzzled, Hopkins also walked over, leaned over and opened the paper shell above the box, then took out a bottle of water inside, twisted the lid open, poured half a bottle to the ground, and then took out a somewhat dry apple.

Everything is normal.

Hopkins took a few deep breaths, then called several of his judges and ordered them to take the food from it and inspect it to see if it was poisoned or something.

In fact, he just wanted to blindly find some clues, because he knew that there should be no problem with the food in the box, as I said before, these things were all moved into the vault by the banker after inspection, and the one who checked the food was still the court personnel sent by himself, and he didn't think that anyone could quietly poison the food under the hands of these professionals.

"Is there a high probability of poisoning?"

Sherlock asked suddenly, as if he was thinking about the question as well, but his tone was more like that of a teacher asking a student than asking.

"Not big, not even no." "But I can't think of any other way to murder than poison," Hopkins said.

Then, we can only speculate according to the poisoning first.

But it doesn't seem right, because even if it is poisoned, then the dead should be poisoned, not starved to death.

Could it be that in the bag of biscuits that the deceased ate was something that could make it impossible to swallow food, such as the kind that could make the throat swollen and make it impossible to eat at all?

But even if you can't eat it, you can't even drink water.

And judging from this box of food, the deceased did not touch the rest of the food at all after eating the bag of biscuits, and he did not even do the act of 'trying to see if he could eat something'"

Sherlock nodded, seemingly agreeing with Hopkins.

"Did you think of anything?" Hopkins asked.

"For the time being, I just thought about it, could it be because that bag of biscuits contained drugs that could make the deceased fall asleep, and he was asleep to the point that even if he starved to death, he would not wake up." Sherlock said thoughtfully, "But this is contrary to my observations, because this guy has obviously had a lot of activity in the vault, which can be seen from the folds in his clothes." ”

As he spoke, Sherlock also pointed to a watch that had been thrown on the ground not far away:

"That watch was worn by the deceased when we first came here, and it was very valuable, and the deceased often wiped it, and I could see that he took great care of it, but now the dial has been broken, and the deceased threw it out very hard for some reason.

There are also some places around. It was full of scattered books, and it was also evident that the deceased had been throwing things around in this empty vault in a frenzied manner. ”

"Throwing things?"

"Yes, this scattered distribution, and the parabola without any arc, can be seen that the deceased threw these things with great force, as if he had seen something terrible in the vault. Then, because of fright, he desperately picked up everything he could touch at hand and used it to smash the other party. ”

Hearing this, Hopkins seemed to think of something: "You mean, the deceased was poisoned by some kind of poison that could cause him to hallucinate, such as. He thought of that box of food as a demon that had emerged from a crack in the void?

That's why because of fear, throwing things at that non-existent illusion, and similarly, not daring to approach food, for fear of being bitten to death? ”

In fact, if you look at it theoretically, this conjecture is valid.

But the details are untenable:

"According to my understanding of the hallucinogens of the empire at this stage, there should not be any potions that can make people hallucinate for 10 days in a row." Sherlock said faintly: "And even if the Academy of Life Sciences researches this kind of thing, how good it is to directly poison the target, why spend time and effort to make him hallucinate and starve himself to death." ”

Indeed, the idea of [making the dead hallucinate] itself is not valid, and there has always been an injection of demonic tranquilizers in this vault, so it is impossible to make people hallucinate for 10 days through some demonic strange abilities.

After Hopkins listened to Sherlock's denial, his whole person was decadent.

"Within 10 days, two died" He grabbed his hair in pain, maybe at this moment, he had the idea of quitting his job.

Sherlock looked at Hopkins, this person has known him for a long time, although he is not a friend, but he also has a good relationship, seeing him so distressed, Sherlock sighed and comforted:

In other words, according to this situation, the stage actor who hid himself is also dead.

So. Not two, but three."

(End of chapter)