"Let me confirm again." Hitzfeld wrote quickly, "His carriage is at the back. Does 'back' refer to carriage No. 9?"
"Correct!"
"Is your carriage number 8?"
"No, on number 6."
"You never came back?"
"Never!"
"Have you ever wondered why a person who was seated in car 9 would start at car 6?"
"no!"
Yoderal answered the question quickly, but he also showed a hint of confusion after this question.
Indeed, if you think about it carefully, if you want to buy a ticket for carriage No. 9, you have to board the train from carriage No. 6. This behavior is not normal.
"Mr. Bilis." Hitzfeld turned to the other side. "Are you in the same carriage with him?"
"That's right." Bilis seemed to have accepted his fate and answered helplessly, "We are even in the same room."
"Were we sitting together outside?"
"……Yes."
"Does he smoke?"
"I've never seen him smoke."
"Does he react to you smoking?"
"I……"
Billis paused, frowned and said, "I'm not sure... I saw him waving away the smell of cigarettes, but he never reminded me to stop smoking."
"You should be the person closest to him from beginning to end. Based on your observation, what do you think of his physical condition?"
"I'm sorry... I don't quite understand."
"It's his health."
“…I can’t tell!”
After thinking about it carefully, Bilis shook his head.
He is not a doctor. What can he tell from such a brief interaction?
Not to mention that most of his attention on the journey was on the newspaper and flirting with the flight attendants. Those little girls were very lively and cute.
"Does he eat normally?"
"Yes, eat normally..."
"you sure."
"More or less... Every time we ate, we ate together, and he did eat it all."
"You mean you eat the same thing every time?"
"Yes."
"You didn't see him adding anything to it, like creamer, sugar, salt, pepper, etc."
"Never seen it, I'm sure of it!"
"Is he resting normally?"
"He also lies there every time I rest." Bilis shook his head. "That's all I know. I can't guarantee what he does when I fall asleep."
"Is he moving smoothly? Is there any difficulty in walking or turning?"
"I don't see anything unusual."
"You feel--"
When asked this, Hitzfeld suddenly stopped writing, looked up and met the eyes of Bilis who had been looking at her.
"Do you think it's possible that he was drugged before he got in the car?"
"This……"
Bilis was stunned at first, then stared in horror and jumped up from the bed in an instant.
"Wait...you're doubting me? This wasn't me! I swear I had no idea! It wasn't me!!!"
The two men were not nervous before because they thought that Mr. Tompley might have some disease and died suddenly during the trip.
But now suddenly it comes to poisoning——
This situation is different.
"Don't get excited. It doesn't look like you did it at the moment."
Hitzfeld continued to take notes and asked them, "What do you think of Mrs. Charles?"
"No impression."
This is Yodelal.
"Jealous woman."
This is Bilis.
Bilis talked a lot about this matter. He said that he had talked to the flight attendant about this person and roughly guessed that she ran away because of a conflict with her husband, and the root cause of the conflict was that her husband found a lover outside.
Apparently, this wasn't wrong at all in Bilis's opinion.
In those prominent families, which male owner didn't have a mistress? He always believed that it was normal for capable people to take on responsibilities. It wasn't like they were getting a divorce, so the woman was really short-sighted.
Hitzfeld was too lazy to comment on his views, so he put away his notebook and stood up to leave.
Continue down the corridor and knock on the door on the right side of the last row.
"who!"
"A detective from the police station."
Hitzfeld approached the door and listened carefully to the noise inside.
"Open the door, please, Mr. Larson."
"We need to talk to you about something."
There was a rustling noise from inside the door, as if someone had knocked over a box of junk and was frantically trying to put things away.
They waited for more than a minute before the door opened. Standing behind it was a tall, middle-aged gentleman of medium build.
His temples were gray and he was not wearing a hat. His white beard spread from his temples to his chin and formed a circle around his lips.
He wore a pair of gold-rimmed glasses and his face was full of wrinkles, making him look older than 47. He looked more like a man in his late 60s.
This is Papaconi-Larsson.
The said famous zoologist and botanist.
Chapter 6 Suspect 2
Hitzfeld did not forget to look around the room.
They were all standard 6-person sleeper rooms with no difference in overall area, but those iron beds - except for one that was obviously meant for sleeping, the others were filled with various boxes and flower pots.
The girl roughly counted and found that there were nearly five boxes the size of two handbags, two boxes the size of four handbags, and more than 5 flower pots of various sizes. She really didn't know how he could handle all these things by himself.
"This is my job." Seeing the two unfamiliar faces, Papaconi-Larson spread his hands and decided to argue. "I spent money... You have no right to control this, right?"
"He not only bought all the tickets for this room, but also hired staff on the bus to help take care of it during the journey." Mike came over and whispered.
"But I see you haven't detained any crew members here?" Li Ang raised his eyebrows.
"Ah, that's because the agreed time hasn't arrived yet, and I've been taking care of them all the time." Papaconi said quickly.
No matter how hard you try to cover up the other party's voice, it's too difficult to completely conceal it in such a sealed space.
However, he could hear clearly, which could be considered excellent hearing. Hitzfeld couldn't help but look at him a few more times and noticed that he even wore cotton earplugs on his ears.
"Sorry." She tilted her head slightly and stared at the earplug on the side hesitantly, "What's wrong with your ear...?"
"To prevent small insects from getting in." Papaconi said simply, "Most people probably don't have this kind of worry, but I... you can see the situation. Where there is soil and grass, there will be no shortage of insects. I have to take precautions."
"Ms. Hitzfeld and Detective Cornerell were invited by the sheriff to help, Mr. Papaconi." Mike interrupted to explain the situation. "Now we need to go over the interrogation again. Is it okay for you to...?"
"No problem." Papaconi rubbed his hands and took the initiative to find the only bed and sit down.
Then he looked at the other two beds on both sides, whose bedding and mattresses had been removed and filled with flower pots on the wire mesh and wooden boards, and he leaned forward and stood up again.
"No need, let's just talk while standing." Hitzfeld raised his hand to stop him.
Are you kidding? The density of insects is so high that an entomologist would have to put in earplugs when sleeping at night. Even after making this bed, she wouldn't have the courage to sit on it.
She is not afraid of bugs. Even if one flies in the face, she can calm down and grab it and crush it to death. But it is indeed disgusting. She can avoid contact... Why does she have to choose disgusting?
Hopefully those are just little ants or something that don't like to leave the pot.
Just like he had asked the two businessmen before, Hitzfeld repeated all the questions according to the records in the transcript, asking Papaconi to describe in person who he was, his occupation, his family background, and what he was going to do from Wayne to Nansingze.
"I divorced my wife...I went there to study red-legged ants." When he mentioned this, Papaconi's spirit and energy changed.
He began to gesture his hands up and down to them, "Do you know the red-legged ants? There is evidence that they are not native to this continent but are from Elsa, yes, the lost continent!"
"This thing is rampant in the wild in the south." Leon said casually, "Its name often comes up among hunters, so many peddlers have suffered from it. Why don't you hire someone to catch some and bring them to Wayne?"
"Why don't you guess why there are none in Wayne?" Papaconi said with a smile, "The reason is simple... because they can't adapt to the climate in Wayne, and they will all die on the way over."
"So they are actually not very adaptable to climate?" Hitzfeld asked. "Is it the temperature or the humidity?"
"It's both, but mainly..."
"Could they be active in Blackwood City?" Hitzfeld interrupted him rudely.
"..." Papaconi was obviously unhappy, but he had no intention of getting angry. He thought for a moment and said, "It shouldn't be possible. Blackwood's situation is similar to Wayne's. They are close, and I've never heard of a red-legged ant plague here."
Leon, who was standing next to him, used his height advantage to see Hitzfeld raise his pen and gently cross out the words "insect repellent and committing crimes".
But with only two strokes, the original shape can still be clearly seen.
Li Ang raised his eyebrows and looked at the flower pots around him, as if trying to find something from the shadows of the roots and leaves.
"I understand your purpose," he heard Hitzfeld ask again, "but I don't understand why you brought these flower pots, and it sounds like there are some living things in them..."
"Insects." Papaconi smiled, and that smile was as kind as a grandfather taking candy out of his pocket and giving it to his granddaughter.
"Don't worry... there are no insects with stingers here. At most there are tree root crickets, blue-tailed spiders, northern black ants, and golden swallowtail butterfly larvae."
"Blue-tailed spider?" Mike, who had been leaning against the bed frame, jumped back as if he had been electrocuted when he heard this.
"Oh my god! Isn't that stuff poisonous???"
It’s true that there are no ones with stingers, but does that mean fangs don’t count?
"The venom of the blue-tailed spider is not fatal to large creatures like humans," Papaconi explained helplessly. "Some of these mutants can kill with one bite, but the premise is that they can bite through your skin - but the power of their fangs is only equivalent to that of an aphid."
"Where is it?" Hitzfeld said suddenly.
"What……?"
"Blue-tailed spider, where is it or them now?"
"It should be in the flower pot on the corner. It has made a web... Do you want to see it now?"
Hitzfeld nodded solemnly.
As if he understood something, Papaconi's brows relaxed. He stood up and walked to the bed on the left. He bent down, and under Mike's horrified gaze, he reached inside and picked up the pot of flowers that were said to contain poison.
"This is it." He placed the pot of flowers on the small table by the window. "Sawtooth gladiolus, this thing is not poisonous."
Hitzfeld looked closer and could indeed glimpse spider webs tangled in the serrated leaves of the bluegrass.
But there was no trace of the spider and I couldn't find where it was.
"It's very shy." Papaconi said nearby, reaching out and stroking the orchid leaves a few times like he would a cat.
He moved the spider web as well, and as others looked on in surprise, a lid suddenly opened in the soil beneath the orchid, and a ghostly black shadow jumped out from it, flew into the leaves and disappeared.
"What is this...?" Mike pointed at the sawtooth gladiolus and shouted, "It's down there! It's down there???"
