In this epidemic in Xi'an, Mu Lin ate and lived in the unit, and he did not go home for almost a month. During the rest time after completing the relevant prevention and control tasks, I took the time to read the book "The Murder incident at Hakuba Mountain Villa" by Mr. Keigo Higashino.
This is a detective mystery novel that integrates the murder of the secret room and the secret language of "Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes". A long time ago, I read Mr. Keigo Higashino's other book, "After School," which also talks about murder in the Secret Room.
Human death can be roughly divided into normal death (old age) and abnormal death (suicide, other homicide, accident).
Many of Mr. Keigo Higashino's mystery novels are initially disguised as suicides, such as "Who Killed Her" and "Malice" that Kibayashi also read.
In the novel, a group of people with different purposes clash because of the competition and the competition, because the investigation and the investigation come together, and a wonderful reasoning drama of wit and courage is staged.
【Time】It is during the winter vacation after heavy snowfall.
【Location】 It's in a former British villa in Hakuba, Shinshu, Japan, called Mother Goose Inn, and when I read the title, I thought it was a family gathering or family murder in Hakuba Villa!
The hotel is in the mountains, the location is relatively remote, far from the city, in the words of the doctor's wife, the hotel here, there is nothing, but the stay at this time of year, it is like acquaintances or classmates gathering.
Behind the villa, there is an east-west valley, steep as a cliff on both sides, about tens of meters high from the valley floor. The wreckage of a bridge spans its valley, 70% of the opposite valley is connected, 20% is connected on this side, 10% is at the bottom of the valley, and after a solid wooden board of about 2 meters is set up, it can be passed.
The planks hidden under the bridge, at first, I thought the murderer used it to push the victims off the broken bridge down the valley! However, why did the victim go up the broken bridge is a big doubt for me? I really didn't expect that he would venture to the opposite side of the valley by taking the risk of building a plank on it!
[Protagonists] are two female college students who seem to have homosexual tendencies, Hara Naisuke (sister of the deceased Koichi Hara) and Makoto Sawamura, who are also residents, through a series of investigations, on the basis of adjusting and deleting the relevant nursery rhyme passages, combined with the corresponding speculation and comparison of the actual situation in the hotel, the interpretation of the code word is: "When the sunset appears, the shadows of the broken bridge will be connected together and excavated in the shadow position." ”
Later, they added and implemented the interpretation of the original Gongyi.
At the beginning and end of the novel, the mother goose nursery rhyme "Who Killed the Mockingbird", which is quoted twice: "Who killed the robin?" It's me, the sparrow said...". What does it mean? Is it an allusion to Makoto and Nashoko, or to Jojo and Takase?
Regarding the robin, there is a book called "Kill a Mockingbird" that believes that the robin will only hum beautiful music for people to enjoy, do nothing bad, it is a symbol of goodness and harmlessness, and killing a robin is a crime.
There is also a saying in "To Kill a Mockingbird" that is worth playing with: "I want you to see what true bravery is, and not to mistakenly think that a person holding a gun is bravery, bravery is: when you have not even begun to know that you will lose, but you still have to do it, and you have to stick to it anyway, you rarely win, but sometimes you will." 」 ”
The image comes from the Internet
[Case] is based on their investigation of last year's suicide case of Hara Gongyi, and while cracking the murder case in the secret room, they finally uncover a series of murder cases hidden in nursery rhymes, including a series of stories such as why the villa was transferred to the manager at a low price eight years ago to create a hotel.
The characters staying in the hotel are relatively fixed, mainly regular customers, and some of them have become old acquaintances.
[Clue] is that each room has a different mother goose nursery rhyme lyrics wall hanging, but in the records of individual places, after investigation, it is found that there is a slight difference from the original nursery rhyme in the book.
The person who set up the code word was the original owner of the hotel before it opened, the British woman. Her child, who had fallen off a cliff after leaving home on a snowy night and was hanging halfway up the mountain when he died, was holding a mountaineering club badge personally owned by the manager, and she buried the child where the code word pointed.
The hotel manager, the chef and the Husband of the English woman are close mountaineering partners.
The Husband of the English woman died in a traffic accident at an early age.
Before committing suicide, the English woman left the manager a letter and a silver bird-shaped (possibly robin) necklace pendant containing the poison aconitine, and sold the villa to the manager to build a hotel at a low price, and offered the strange condition: the wall hanging of the "Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes" in each room could not be removed or replaced. The letter reads, "That is the mantra that leads to happiness...".
The bearded manager and the fat chef kept their promise and preserved the original furnishings of the interior. The two of them, one of them stayed with each other as good friends, and the other stayed as a hidden guardian because of the guilt in his heart after abandoning the child. Manager Beard may also be a murderer, but he may have killed the child of an English woman!
When the spell was broken, the friendship boat overturned, the hotel was closed, and the manager and chef parted ways.
The mother goose nursery rhyme appeared before the series of murders, on the one hand, indicating that someone had cracked and used this code to make a new setting; on the other hand, it also implied that it also included other meanings beyond the murders in this series.
The code word "Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes" was successfully interpreted by four people. One is Kazuo Kawasaki, who was killed the year before but the police committed suicide, one is Hara Koichi, who was killed last year but the police still ended the case by suicide, and the other two are this year's Makoto and Naiko.
The result of the interpretation of the original nursery rhyme code is: "When the sky is dyed crimson (the morning sun appears), the London Bridge in the shadow will be completed." When the bridge is complete, things are buried underneath. ”
And the time when the shadow of this broken bridge coincides, in a year, there are only a few days in the winter season!
[One of the murderers] Jiang Bo (a guest in the hotel), known by the residents as an expert in insects and birds, is actually an expert in building materials, a low-paid company clerk, and Kurumi is a lover, three years ago, he lived in the hotel, killed Kawasaki, and then killed Koichi Hara, which killed Ohki.
[Another murderer] Kurumi (a young waitress at the hotel), who is complicit with Jiang Bo, may also be the manager's lover, because she wears a silver bird-shaped necklace pendant containing the poison aconite.
The discovery of the two of them is mainly due to the cracking of the murder case in the secret room. For the Chamber of Secrets, either there is a secret passage or a special technique. If there is no secret passage and there is a serial technique, the blindfold method is used, and the eyewitness is the most suspicious.
The previous year's killer, Kawasaki, laid the treasure stolen from his home for his illegitimate son, Keiichi Takase (a male waiter at the hotel who came here after his father's death to conduct a secret investigation). However, when he buried these treasures, he was discovered by Jiang Bo and killed because of them. Unfortunately, these treasures are fakes that are tuned.
This year's killer, Daiki, who lives in the same room as the murderer Jiang Bo, is a nasty tennis coach and a blackmailer who was killed for being too greedy.
The hotel's guest, Jojo, is a private detective hired by the Kawasaki family to investigate Kawasaki's cause of death and the whereabouts of the gemstones. He met and invited Hara Gongichi to help interpret the code words, and he has been secretly investigating.
The hotel guests, the doctor couple, are two retired elderly people, after arguing with their daughter and son-in-law and moving out, they deliberately ran out to travel to hide in the quiet, and there was no dispute with anyone.
In addition, four residents lived in Ōki after he was killed, and in the murder of Ōki, the suspicion was directly ruled out.
In order to solve the case, the two police officers also became residents.
【On the Secret Room Issue】There are three key points set in this case:
First, the window latch in the bedroom can only be inserted from the inside, through the method of cushioning snow, ice, etc., it is impossible to achieve the possibility of relying on gravity to shock off from the outside.
Second, the bedroom door and the guest room entrance door can be locked from the inside.
Third, the spare key to unlock the lock has never been passive.
[On the issue of eyewitnesses discovering the scene of the death of Hara Gongyi] The seemingly dead-end secret chamber murder, in which many live buckles were left. Snaps are things that can't be proven, not by personal assumptions.
When Jiang Bo accompanied the eyewitness Takase to see for the first time, the bedroom door was locked from the inside, the window switch was unknown, and whether Hara Gongyi was dead or not was unknown.
When Jiang Bo asked the eyewitness Takase to go to see it for the second time, the door to the guest room was locked from the inside and did not enter the room, the bedroom door opening and closing situation was unknown, the window switch was unknown, and whether the original Gongyi was dead was unknown.
The third time Kurumi accompanied the eyewitness Takase to see, it was the doors that were opened with spare keys, the entrance door of the guest room was locked from the inside, the bedroom door was locked from the inside, the window was closed, and Hara Washichi was dead. Jiang Bo appeared for the first time.
Speculative fiction is not only to provide people with interesting stories, but also to teach people to expand their thinking, divergent thinking, not to drill the horns, not to discuss things one or the other, but to look at the overall situation through the mystery fog, trace the source, and from some other aspects beyond the usual thinking, to see the problem and solve the problem.
For example, reverse thinking!
For example, the story that the exterior wall protection of the Jefferson Building in the United States only needs to close the curtains in the end!
