"Tuk, tuk, tuk. ”

"Who?"

The one who opened the door was a middle-aged woman with blond hair, dressed in simple and dignified clothes, with a slender figure and a smooth face, which could be seen to be well maintained. When she saw outsiders, she was stunned. This was a handsome young man with a mixture of Eastern and Western features, a young man she did not recognize.

"Excuse me......"

"Is this the Anson family's manor?"

The young man took the lead and suddenly interrupted her questioning, which was impolite and made her dissatisfied. Still smiling on her face, she glanced behind the young man as if by accident. Outside the villa, there was no one else, no car, and he was the only one in front of him. She looked into the distance, where the janitor was leaning against the wall and dozing off the gate of the manor. Looking at it this way, it becomes clear that this young man has sneaked in.

She looked directly at the young man.

"What do you want?"

"I want to meet the son of the present owner of the Anson family, Jamie Anson. ”

The young man seemed to have expected her to ask such a question, and immediately gave an answer. Hearing the name Jamie, the blonde was stunned, and a hint of doubt flashed on her face.

"For what?"

"You don't know until you meet in person. ”

Such a dumb riddle-like answer, as usual, was vigilant, turned the young man away, and piggybacked. The blonde woman, after a moment's thought, suddenly smiled, turned sideways and stepped out of the door, raising her arm to point into the villa.

"Jamie isn't here yet, but it's time for him to come back. If you want, you can wait here, it probably won't take long. ”

"Okay. ”

The young man responded crisply, and his movements were crisp, and as soon as the blonde woman finished speaking, he stepped into the villa. The blonde woman closed the door, walked a few steps, and hurriedly walked in front of the young man who was pacing herself, and stretched out her hand with a smile.

"Hello, my name is Ella, and I'm the third wife of the head of the family, Edward, Jamie's...... Stepmom, so to speak. Excuse me, what do you call you?"

"My name is Motoichi. ”

The young man looked around the villa and saw the blonde stretch out his hand, so he stretched out his hand slightly mechanically and shook her hand. Seeing the young man's stiff movements, he was expected to be shocked by the sight of the rich family, and the blonde smiled.

"Don't be nervous......

"Ella, Ella, who are you down there with?"

A question, in an old voice, seemed to be coming from upstairs, interrupting Ella's words. Yuan Yi frowned, but the first time he looked at her beside him. At this time, Ella, whose eyes had just been withdrawn from upstairs, smiled calmly when she saw Yuan Yi's suspicious look.

"We didn't know that Jamie had a friend named Moiichi, and I thought Edward would be happy to talk to you. It just so happens that for you, you can also kill the waiting time, how do you think?"

Yuan smiled, the first time he had smiled since he met Ella.

He nodded.

"Okay. ”

The two went up the stairs, with Ella leading the way.

When Yuan Yi followed him into a reception room, Ella was already standing next to an old man in a wheelchair. The old man was dressed in a straight suit and his gray hair was meticulously combed, but these outfits that made people look more energetic could not hide the sense of decay of his pale and flabby, innumerable speckled face and cloudy and dull eyes.

This is a depressed appearance as if he has suffered a huge blow and his spirit is no longer there, which is uncommon. So, Jianyuan must have looked at the old man, as if he was stunned, and the blonde woman's face was indeed like this.

"I said it, at your age, you can't wear any less makeup. She looked at the old man and then at Yuan Yi, "Look, this time it scared the guests again." ”

"My bad. I'm sorry, Motoichi, huh? I hope you don't mind, Motoichi. ”

"No, I think it's normal. ”

It seemed that against his will, Yuan Yi said it very naturally, and the old man and Ella looked at each other and smiled.

"You're a friend of Jamie's in front of his father, no need to say polite words. As he spoke, the old man looked at the empty chair next to Yuan Yi, "Please take a seat." ”

After Yuan Yi sat down, the old man spoke again: "I'm sorry, maybe it's a bit rude to ask like this, but all fathers care about their children, please forgive me, what are you doing?

"I was investigating a homicide recently. The deceased was Jamie's new wife, named Lisa. The death was bizarre, in short, the tongue was gone, the jaw was dislocated, and the expression was frightened, as if he had been brutally tortured and violently frightened. I want to know the cause of her death, the most important clue, or the biggest suspect, is her husband, Jamie. Unfortunately, I was one step late. Not long after the murder, Jamie left home for his hometown, the small town of Ravens, which is here. ”

Hearing this, the old man's face changed from relaxed at the beginning to serious, and the blonde woman was even more nervous.

"So you're a policeman? You're here to get him back to the police station? So, Mr. Policeman, I can admit that I didn't have such a good temper before, and when I heard you slander my son like this, it would be light to use dirty words, and maybe I would have done it with you. But Jamie is different, he has a much better personality than I did when I was younger, and I have a hard time imagining that he would kill people, and moreover, he is still so cruel. ”

In the face of the old man's repeated rebuttals that were close to reprimanding, Yuan's face was as usual.

"I didn't think your son was the murderer, but, by the way, during my investigation, I found something interesting, and it was a nursery rhyme. ”

"Nursery rhymes?"

"Beware of Mary Shaw's gaze, she has no children but dolls, and if you see her in your sleep, don't scream. I heard that this is a nursery rhyme that has been around since your ancestors in the town of Ravens. ”

Ella smiled, "This is a poem that parents use to scare children and make them follow the rules." ”

"Other than that...... That's all. The old man's face was flat, "I don't know, what does this have to do with Jamie, and what does it have to do with Lisa's death?"

After investigation, it was learned that shortly before Lisa was killed, the newlyweds received an unsigned package, which contained a ventriloquist puppet. And, according to Jamie's initial transcript at the police station, he once placed his suspicion on the ventriloquist puppet because in his hometown, here, in the small town of Ravens, the ventriloquist puppet is a bad omen, and some people say it will bring death. It is this ballad that binds ventriloquist puppets and death together. This is the relationship. ”

When the words fell, the old man and Ella were stunned, and after glancing at each other, they both laughed, as if they couldn't help laughing, although a discerning person could see at a glance how far-fetched they were laughing.

"I didn't expect Mr. Police to be so naïve, this is just a folk ghost story, no matter how ordinary, that ventriloquist puppet is mostly just an innocuous prank. Speaking of this, the old man shook his head helplessly, with a hint of worry in his expression, "I was thinking, maybe my poor son was frightened, so he was shocked and connected the two." ”

It doesn't matter why Jamie thinks the way he does, whether it's emotional or rational. The point is, I have found another clue from this clue, do you want to hear it?"

The old man's expression moved: "Let's hear it." ”

"It's a story, or a piece of history. Yuan Yi looked out the window, "When your fathers were young, the town of Ravens was still very prosperous, not as depressed as it is now. At that time, a large theater was built in the town, which is a now-abandoned puppet theater on the shores of the Lost Lake. Mary Shaw in the ballad, a deceased woman, was a ventriloquist in the puppet theater at the time. ”

"She is a ventriloquist, a ventriloquist puppeteer, and a ventriloquist puppet maker. Dedicated to paranoia, to morbid, intent on the pursuit of perfection, so, when she made a hundred and one dolls, she turned her gaze away from the wood and turned to people. ”

"At that time, there was a child, at a show, rudely, trying to debunk her tricks. Thus, that child became the material of her first perfect doll, her one hundred and second doll. The child's name was Michael Anson. That kid is a member of your family. Yuan Yi retracted his gaze looking out the window, looked at the two who were slightly sluggish, and looked at the old man with blank eyes, "The next story, you are a local, you shouldn't need me to tell it, right?"

"I, I ......"

The old man was spitting and spitting, as if he remembered something terrible, and his expression was so frightened that he couldn't speak, and Ella saw it, his face was anxious, and he hurriedly reached out and pressed it on the old man's shoulder.

"Say no more. She dissuaded and looked at Yuan Yi with a worried face, "Mr. Policeman, the name Mary Xiao is taboo here, and we don't want to mention it." Also, my husband just had a stroke two months ago, and you can see his condition. Those things are horrible in retrospect, Mr. Policeman, please don't do this kind of thing to embarrass him. ”

"No, it's fine. The old man looked at Ella, forced a smile and comforted, and then looked at Yuan Yi, "I saw it early in the morning, these things can't be hidden." Originally, in order not to let you be involved, I avoided talking about this aspect of things. However, you've tracked it down, and there's no point in me hiding it. So, where do you start?"

The old man's eyes gradually emptied.

"By the way, it's the days when my uncle, Michael, disappeared mysteriously. At that time, there was only one object of suspicion for our family, and that was Mary Shaw, who had just been provoked by Michael a few weeks earlier. So they called the rest of Ravenstown, broke into her residence, forced her to scream, and cut out her tongue. ”

"People ended up killing her, but her ghost didn't fall into the same slumber as her body. She returns and begins her revenge. The previous ones, one by one, died, and their tongues were cut out. The same thing happened to their wives after that, and then to their children, to their children. Over the years, one tragedy after another has happened around me, hey, it's really difficult. Unexpectedly, even if he deliberately kicked his son out of the house to keep him away from the curse, it didn't work at all. ”

The old man shook his head and sighed, looking depressed, and Ella looked at him nervously, full of distress. At this time, Yuan Yi is rare, just like the cloudy sky on weekdays, with a look of watching a play.