Chapter 157: The Death of the Owner of Tongyi Hall
In the early morning, Li Guolou jumped out of the carriage and carried two big bags, which contained some Tianjin specialties and delicacies that foreigners like to eat. Li Guolou was going to give them to his superiors and friends, and came to the gate room to register. Li Guolou carried two bags. As soon as the bag stepped out of the room, a group of people came over.
Wu Defu came out with several detectives and two gangsters.
Li Guolou was a little excited. If there was a case, there would be a stage for him to display his talents. He hurriedly went up to him and said, "Good morning, Master Wu, where are you going?"
Wu Defu showed an expression of joy on his face and said: "Xiao Lizi, you were the first to arrive. The owner of Tongyi Hall, Bai Renyi, hanged himself. You can lead a team to see it. I will stay at the Yamen."
"Ah!" Li Guolou was stunned, and the two packages in his hand fell to the ground. He let go of the theft gang that stole Tongyi Hall. The consequences finally showed up. Bai Renyi, the owner of Tongyi Hall, was overwhelmed and committed suicide. Yes, he has unshirkable responsibility for this case.
"Xiao Lizi, why are you so stunned? I will go to support you at noon. Come here early if you have nothing to do. If you have anything to do, you can handle it yourself. I will help you collect these things. Come and scoop half of them tomorrow." Wu Defu dismissed Li Guolou and turned around to leave. Wu Ta, the little follower, hurriedly picked up two bags of food and smiled brightly at Li Guolou.
There were many people coming to work in the Criminal Department in the morning, and some people had carriages. Li Guolou stopped a carriage and went to the crime scene with two gangsters and two police officers. The carriage went north and drove for more than half an hour. There are six Biandan Hutongs in the capital behind the large and small Buddhist temples. This is a bustling commercial street, and the headquarters of Tongyi Tang is located here.
Tongyi Hall was a drugstore, and there were also doctors sitting in the hall. At this time, most pharmacies provided one-stop services for diagnosis, treatment and dispensing of medicines, but they rarely admitted patients. Generally, the patients were seriously ill, and the doctors would go to the clinic for treatment. There were also patients who were dying, and their family members would carry the patients to the hospital using door panels. Medical clinics are used to treat diseases. The poor cannot afford to see a doctor. If they can prepare a few medicines, the doctor will give them away. Doctors are parents, and this is empty talk. The mortality rate of patients is very high.
It has closed in recent years, and Tong Yi Tang is a sparsely populated pharmacy. You can enter the backyard through the pharmacy in front and Li Guolou, the sitting hall.
Yesterday was the day when the shopkeepers of the twelve branches of Tongyi Tang came to the capital to settle their annual benefits. Unexpectedly, today was the day when they would say goodbye to their owners forever. When they walked into the backyard, there was a cry, and there were two government officials standing at the door of the room of the deceased owner, Bai Renyi. The body of the deceased was laid flat on a bed inside.
The family members of the deceased came from home and knelt at the door crying bitterly. Behind them were some shop assistants and twelve big shopkeepers from various places.
Li Guolou ignored the family members of the deceased and the clerks. He asked his subordinate Zhang Junjie to do all the work of intervening with the idlers. He and the two co-workers walked directly into the room of the deceased.
The deceased, Bai Renyi, was in his forties, had a slightly fat figure, three long strands of beard, and was about 1.7 meters tall. He had his eyes closed, wearing underwear, barefoot, and there was an obvious strangulation mark on his neck.
The room was only a little less than 20 square meters, and it looked like a place where one person lived. The two gangsters put the body on the ground and began to check the injuries of the deceased. Li Guolou first looked at the two-bay door that was opened by the impact. It is an old-fashioned wooden latch door. The wood is nanmu. The wooden latch with a palm width has been broken. The other lock is a Western door lock, which is intact. The Western lock opens when it is bumped. Looking at the broken marks, Li Guolou knew that people could not open the door. They had to hit it with hard objects such as wood several times to break it open. There were traces of being hit by heavy objects on the door, which proved his suspicion. There was also a stick placed outside the door. Logs are used to knock down doors.
Li Guolou closed the two doors and checked whether there were any traces of tools inserted into the cracks. Is it possible that the door was locked from the outside? From inside and outside the room, Li Guolou closed the door four times. , no trace of the door crack being pried was found.
Li Guolou entered the room and looked at the layout of the room. There was a window facing south with vertical iron bars on it. The curtains had been opened and the dark curtains were rolled together. This is the second window in the whole room. There is an air outlet, and the solid iron railings have no trace of being pried. Li Guolou pulled the window latch and opened the window. The weather in the north was cold, and the windows were designed with two layers. The two windows opened first opened inward, and then the windows were opened. Open the other two outward-facing windows.
The cold wind blew on Li Guolou's face, and tears flowed down drop by drop. He wanted to change himself and never degenerate again. He had no sense of shame, no self-esteem, and no morality at all. What's the point of succeeding like this? The hidden truth will eventually make him taste the bitter fruit. The dry and cold wind from the north cracked his lips. This time he no longer needed the sheep oil. He tasted the blood in his mouth by himself. Li Guolou gritted his teeth and turned around.
The four-foot-wide wooden bed shows that the owner, Bai Renyi, is a frugal man. The summer mosquito net has not been removed yet. The deceased Bai Renyi should have been hiding in this mosquito net and crying until he died. Li Guolou felt full of regret and annoyance. He could have let the thief go and returned the stolen goods to Tongyitang, but he did nothing, just sat on a chair and drank bloody red wine.
There was a square table below the place where the deceased Bai Renyi committed suicide by hanging from the beam, and a round stool on the ground next to it. The deceased should have stepped on the table, then stepped on the round stool, and ended his life with a piece of white silk cloth.
Li Guolou picked up the round stool that had fallen on the ground and placed it on the square table. He looked at the height of the deceased who fell on the ground and found that he should be about 1.7 meters tall.
Li Guolou raised his voice and said: "Zhang Haojie, can you try to get Bai Ling?"
The new detective Zhang Junjie who was standing outside the door stopped talking and immediately ran in and tried to hang himself.
"Report to Li Zhengzheng, it's just right! I can reach it." Zhang Junjie's chin can just hang the white silk cloth.
"Kick the stool off for me." Li Guolou said without any doubt.
Zhang Haojie's neck was hung on the white silk cloth. He didn't dare to let go of the white silk cloth with both hands. He kicked the round stool far away with the force of his feet.
"Is it okay? Sir!" Zhang Junjie's voice was a little weird.
"Jump down!" Li Guolou no longer looked at Zhang Junjie's expression.
The display in the room is very simple, with a bed, a square table, two round stools, a clothes rack, a coffee table with an oil lamp beside the bed, a large teapot and two upside-down teacups on it. The wall near the north There were some clothes in a wardrobe. Li Guolou checked them and found nothing suspicious.
"Report to Captain Li that I have completed the preliminary inspection." Zuo Fang stood up happily and said.
Li Guolou looked at the crowd of people outside the door who bowed their heads in silence and said, "Say it!"
Wu Zuofang was so happy that he seemed afraid that outsiders would hear him. He came closer to Li Guolou and said: "The deceased Bai Renyi must have drunk a lot of wine. There is only one strangulation mark on his neck. He committed suicide by hanging. There are no wounds on his body and he has never fought with anyone." Traces, I think we’d better go.”
Fang Kaixin wanted to go to Baozhifang to join in the fun and have a meal, and didn't want to stay next to the dead.
Since Li Guolou brought a few of them out and took them to dinner, he didn't have much interest in this suicide case.
Li Guolou glanced at him and said, "Pack up the tools, put on the clothes of the deceased, and put them on the bed. I'll ask you what happened. Please be serious. Your expression is disgusting."
A large group of family members of the deceased were chattering and crying endlessly. When Li Guolou heard that they were not at the scene of the crime, he drove them all out of the backyard with a wave of his hand. Even the eldest wife of the deceased, Bai Renyi, refused to listen to her cry.
Li Guolou said: "Everyone who was not in the backyard last night should leave. I just want to know who stayed with the deceased yesterday."
Several government officials conscientiously drove out the clerks and doctors in Tongyi Hall, and the number of people was reduced a lot. Only twelve shopkeepers from various places in Tongyi Hall and the deceased Bai Renyi's servant, Bai Shanfeng, who was more than 50 years old, were left. .These thirteen people all smelled strongly of alcohol, and their eyelids were red and swollen from crying.
The servant Bai Shanfeng and twelve shopkeepers took Li Guolou and others to the canteen where they drank last night. It was diagonally opposite the deceased's house. The two spliced Eight Immortals tables were still placed there, and the tables had been removed. It must be clean and tidy, not even a teapot.
Li Guolou said with a solemn expression: "Sit down exactly where you sat yesterday."
Li Guolou himself sat at the main seat due south. He knew where the deceased Bay Renyi was sitting last night without looking at him. Thirteen people from Tongyi Hall looked for their own seats and sat down.
Isn’t this Jesus and the thirteen disciples? Li Guolou’s heart trembled. Who among them was Judas?
Li Guolou said: "Blessed Shanfeng, I ask you something, and you are quick to answer. Don't cry to me. If any of you want to cry, go out and cry to me. My time is very precious."
Being polite to these people will take time. Li Guolou knew how to deal with the common people.
The thirteen people from Tongyi Hall stopped wiping their tears. They were still quite scared when they saw the official.
Li Guolou took out the notebook and the pen in the iron box from his leather bag. At this time, the pen easily leaked ink, so he had to put the pen in the box even if he carried it with him.
Li Guolou said: "Since you held a shareholders' meeting during the day yesterday, let's start with the shareholders' meeting first. Don't hide it from me. There is nothing to be ashamed of. Who can say it first?" He had already predicted that yesterday's shareholders' meeting in Tongyi Hall would not be a success. , 9,000 taels of property were stolen from the main store. No matter how much we calculated, the twelve branches a year would not be able to make back the money.
A shopkeeper in his forties coughed and said: "Mr. Li, let me tell you first. My name is Shan Tiangu and I am the shopkeeper here. In fact, we have already held the meeting for the second day. The shareholders' meeting started the day before yesterday. From the beginning Everyone felt heavy and sighed. In March this year, the main store warehouse was stolen. I bear the main responsibility. I was the first to speak during the meeting..."
Li Guolou stopped taking notes, raised his head and said: "Stop! Shopkeeper Shantiangu, right? Don't make a long speech. I don't want to listen to your review. First tell me what you were arguing about the day before yesterday?"
Shanda Gu lowered his head and said: "My boss and I came up with the first plan, which was to let the twelve stores share the losses of the theft. Everyone slapped the table, scolded others, and some said they would withdraw their shares. In the end, even the table was overturned, so we didn’t even drink the night before, so we all held back our anger and talked about it yesterday. The boss stayed up all night and talked to the eleven shopkeepers one by one, and only started making new ones yesterday. plan."
&nbs
p; Li Guolou asked: "Shopkeeper Shan, what is the main difference between you and your boss?"
Zhang Junjie was very smart and brought a big teapot in and poured hot tea for everyone present. Li Guolou nodded to Zhang Junjie with satisfaction and praised Zhang Junjie for being a teachable boy and not letting him down.
"The main disagreement is, of course, whether the theft has anything to do with the branch, and whether the shopkeepers, who have worked hard for a year now, should go through the difficulties with the boss," Shanda Ya said.
"Oh!" Li Guolou looked up to the sky and sighed, "Then what is the compromise plan you passed the next day?"
Shantianya said: "It has not all been passed yet, but our twelve shopkeepers are willing to work through the difficulties with the owner, and it has been basically resolved. There is still some controversy over how to divide the loss over several years."
There were only two names on the notebook in front of Li Guolou, and nothing else was recorded. There was no irritability or restlessness on his expression. He picked up the tea cup and drank water without even looking at the thirteen disciples.