"Come in."
Barrie's voice.
Pushing the door open, Li Ang saw his fiancée standing in the aisle. Diagonally opposite her - there should be a bed in the area blocked by the wall.
From this angle he could see an empty bed by the window directly opposite, so Hitzfeld must be leaning on the bed inside.
Although being allowed in already meant that the people inside were very "convenient", Li Ang still asked a few more questions to be on the safe side to make sure that the girl's clothing, makeup, etc. were acceptable to be seen by others.
"No problem." Baliu leaned over and whispered to him, "I've already put on my coat... Why is there another person outside?"
She remembered that Hitzfeld had asked to bring only one person up.
"A follower." Leon glanced at Miss Mary and spoke to Bariu in a lower voice, "She said she was worried that someone might get into trouble again... How about you ask her what she thinks?"
Baliu went back and told Hitzfeld.
Soon she came out again and nodded to Li Ang: "She said it's okay and everyone can go in."
But basic security work still had to be done. Coincidentally, she and Leon were also a male and female team. They searched Yodral and Miss Mary separately to make sure they did not carry any weapons. The two were formally brought into the room and met Hitzfeld again.
They looked a little surprised.
Even though we hadn't seen each other for just one day, the girl looked like she had just had a serious illness and her face was abnormally pale.
what's the situation?
Things weren't so exaggerated when he was sent back in a coma. What happened in between?
Li Ang was also surprised. He looked at Baliu, who shook his head helplessly at him.
What could she say?
Whether it is the Black Flame Curse or the hidden dangers of the Devourer, these are not things that can be discussed directly in the current situation.
"This... Miss Hitzfeld..."
It was Mary who broke the deadlock.
She took two steps forward with some concern.
"You look like this..."
"I just caught a cold, but it's nothing serious."
Hitzfeld interrupted her, "Compared to this, let me ask you, did you really come with him voluntarily?"
"I...of course!"
"No matter what happens here next, you won't regret this decision?"
"What on earth are you talking about, Miss Hitzfeld..."
Mary opened her mouth, looked at the girl and then at Leon.
“I don’t think I understand you…”
"You don't need to understand, because you are just an accessory."
Hitzfeld no longer had the heart to communicate with her and turned his gaze directly to the red-haired man.
"Good evening Mr. Jodral."
"Or should I say..."
"Good evening, Aman."
Chapter 38 Back to the Scene 1
As soon as I finished speaking, I could almost feel it on my skin. The temperature in the room seemed to drop by several degrees.
Li Ang raised his head suddenly, aiming at the red-haired man with the eyes of a hungry tiger staring at its prey. He slowly retreated to the door while pulling out his pistol, saying, "Baliu, watch here. I'll go to other rooms to confirm the eavesdropping."
He was well aware of the priority of this matter, so he would rather miss the next "wonderful conversation" to eliminate this hidden danger first.
Baliu recovered his senses even slower than him, and did not react until Leon quickly retreated. His body suddenly changed into a "semi-combat form" - that is, he broke through the covering cloth, and the joints of his hands and feet turned into vines.
"monster!"
Seeing her instantly jump up a section, her body tearing the cloth to reveal the wriggling roots, Miss Mary suddenly opened her eyes wide and her mouth, as if she was about to scream.
"Tree people." Yoderal raised his hand to stop her. "No need, Mary... It's obvious that the detective has guessed everything."
He no longer had that reserved smile on his face, and his whole expression changed. He looked not only serious but also vaguely majestic.
Of course... Bariu wasn't sure if this was just a psychological effect.
"Yes, I am Armando Angelo." She heard the man directly admit his identity, "But I don't understand how you found me... and why you came to find me now."
"It was your own carelessness." Hitzfeld shook his head slightly.
Although she was wearing a shirt and a coat, she was still sitting on the bed because she was unwell, with most of her body covered by the quilt.
"If you had fled immediately after Temple was murdered, no one would have been able to find you, but you chose to stay... or you shouldn't have come in the first place."
"I have a reason to come." The man shook his head. "If I don't come, how will I know who betrayed me?"
"You want to execute the traitor yourself." Hitzfeld nodded, "Do you know who killed Tenpley?"
"It's Bilis." Yoderal - or Aman nodded, "I heard that you have been looking for that hat. You can't find it on the railroad because it is hidden in the car, covered by his own hat."
"Wait a minute!" Baliu was so confused that she had to interrupt them. Then she asked the girl in a tone that she tried to keep steady: "Can you explain it clearly... from beginning to end?"
"It's simple." Hitzfeld leaned back. "Your Highness is here for revenge."
"How did you tell?"
"They mistook Mr. Tompley for his Royal Highness, and in order to silence him and avoid alerting the nearby Weinport, they chose to use a more complicated and troublesome method to carry out the murder." Hitzfeld said, "But we all know now that Tompley is not Aman."
"Temperley is not His Royal Highness. He is just a stand-in that His Royal Highness has released to attract attention. That is to say, when those people used means to try to contact this 'Aman' in their cognition, they could not help but be vigilant."
"But he still came." When he said this, Hitzfeld looked at the man, "Because he wanted to know why those people could guess this way...why, they thought he was Aman."
It sounded a bit confusing, but Bariu quickly understood what it meant.
To put it simply - this is a double trap.
Armando Angelo did not pretend to be Yankee Tompley, but he deliberately leaked the news that Yankee Tompley might be Armando—probably only to the few people he trusted the most.
The rest was simple: even Sarah didn't think about it in this way. The attackers attacked Temple right from the start, and the intention behind it was self-evident.
So why do they think so?
Apart from their body shapes, Tompley and Aman are very different in other aspects. Why does this association arise?
Where did they get the information? Who leaked it?
"That's exactly why I came here, Miss Detective..." The red-haired man took off his hat and nodded respectfully to the girl, "But I didn't expect them to be so cruel... I failed to save anyone."
"So I must stay and help Yang Ke get revenge."
As he spoke, the shape of his face and body began to change.
With a burst of bone-cracking sounds, his body was stretched several inches taller, his shoulders became broader, his arms longer, and he looked more powerful than before.
The face was no longer as fair as before. The overall skin had changed from yellowish white to olive color. There were several scars on the side of the face and from the left ear to the chin, giving it a primitive and barbaric feel.
In the blink of an eye, he went from a pampered tobacco merchant to a wilderness ranger.
"Formally, I'm Armand Angelo," he said, "and this is my follower Mary. Neither she nor Yanke used a pseudonym."
"You..." Baliu's eyes almost popped out.
She didn't understand. Aren't the tree people the only ones who could do such a thing?
Even among the tree people, not every tree species can do it. He is clearly just a human...how can he do it?
"On the eve of the myth's demise, the schizodon became extinct to save the goddess." Aman saw her confusion and explained briefly, "According to the records I've read, the goddess skinned the last schizodon and gave it to us. Since then, Angelo has had some special abilities, including this kind of disguise."
"So you can turn into sharks?" Hitzfeld asked.
"That won't work..." A'man shook his head. "The degree of change is limited. We are indeed better at swimming, but turning into fish is impossible."
Footsteps were heard coming down the corridor.
A'man shut up and faced the door with the others. He saw Li Ang stepping in with a gun in hand: "I checked, there's no one around..."
Then he saw Aman, who had changed drastically, and he was completely stuck.
?
Hitzfeld couldn't see Leon's face, but she could imagine that there must be a big question mark on Leon's forehead.
"A...Man?" She heard Li Ang's drawn-out tone.
Aman nodded.
"Can you pretend?"
Aman nodded.
Li Ang paused: "...Are you also a tree person?"
It was visibly that Baliu's face darkened.
"This is a natural ability." Aman had to explain the previous things to him again, "... In short, very few people know that I have this ability. Before I return to Goli, I need to know who my real enemy is, so I have to find the hidden traitor. That's why we came to the appointment."
"To keep an appointment..." Li Ang did not come in, but leaned against the door frame, staring at the entrance of the corridor with one eye and asked him: "To keep an appointment means that you were induced to board this train?"
"Yes." Aman answered while looking at the girl, "It was a letter. Because it looked like it was written by Papaconi Larson, we prepared a letter of denunciation in Yanke's clothes in advance, just in case."
"Tell me the details, Your Highness."
Hitzfeld interjected.
"You have no enemies here."
"We can talk more about this."
--------
I won’t wait so late this time, there will be another chapter soon.
Chapter 39 Back to the Scene 2
"Don't call me prince."
There was a moment of silence before Aman responded in a low voice.
"No prince...would allow those who followed him to suffer like this. No prince would be unable to find someone when the kingdom needed him most, and would have to be begged by others for him to grow."
Baliu seemed a little confused after hearing these words.
But Hitzfeld noticed Miss Mary next to him, who obviously opened her mouth to say something.
It was only because she glanced at me before she opened her mouth and noticed that I was observing her that she closed her mouth in fear.
She is actually a little afraid of me?
Hitzfeld didn't quite understand... In her opinion, the process of discovering the truth step by step was not mysterious at all, and could even be described as simple and unpretentious.
Isn't it? First of all, the scene is a train in motion, with only a few people on the train, and the range of their activities from beginning to end, and the number of people they have contact with is limited.
This is already a great convenience, directly reducing the number of suspects to a dozen or even just five.
Although she later suspected the environment "outside the car", through investigations on the Tengniao Hotel and the Hongye Hotel, she found out the murder method used by the other party, which allowed Yanke-Templey to appear in a specific place during a specific time period - this kind of thing is definitely not something that can be done by standing aside, which means that the murderer or one of the murderers must be hiding in the car.
It was this man who lured Tompley to the outer corridor, and all he had to do was probably lower his head as the vines hung down.
Oh, and maybe "tricked Temple into taking off his hat."
Papaconi was dead, and since Temple had tried to persuade Mrs. Charles and her daughter to get out of the car, the two men were not suspects.
Then... what's left is the simplest method of elimination.
Only two fur traders were left, among them Aman and the murderer.
The only thing that Hitzfeld didn't expect was that Miss Mary was also Aman's.
Line 4 had just opened, so it made sense that Miss Mary, as a newly recruited employee, would be the crew chief, but this was too much of a coincidence. The most reasonable explanation was that she already had some work experience at the Reising Company.
Considering the nature of the train crew's job, which is to keep running on the land, she can take advantage of every stop to pass on the news she gets.
This means that Oman is not alone in this land.
