Chapter 232

She then went to the second floor and, following the instructions of the servant, she came to the room that once belonged to Mary.

Pushing open the door, this room is now very deserted and unpopular except for regular cleaning.

Sherlock walked to the desk, looked at the bookshelf behind him, and then opened the desk drawer.

As expected, there was no trace of the clan emblem inside.

At this time, everyone who checked other rooms also came back.

"Sir, we didn't find any Tulus family emblems in other rooms."

When she heard the word "sir", Sherlock frowned slightly, and then she nodded, indicating that she understood.

Afterwards, she came to Lucius's room.

"Your Excellency, we have searched the house and found no emblem of the Tullous family in the house, so I would like to ask, where is Lady Mary buried?"

Lucius frowned when he heard Sherlock ask this.

Then he raised his head and stared at Sherlock.

"You want to dig a grave?"

"Do you know that your behavior is an insult to a noble family?"

"I'm sorry, but this is an investigation order from His Majesty the Emperor. Please understand."

Lucius slammed the table, causing Sherlock to take two steps back.

"You are taking advantage of my loyalty to His Majesty the Emperor!"

Then, he walked straight to Sherlock.

"Your Excellency, Investigator, Orson and I have talked about you, and I know about you."

"You solved that case with him, and you were promoted to a noble rank because of it. Otherwise, you would still be just an unknown little detective, wouldn't you?"

"Now that things have happened, you don't choose to believe my son, but instead personally send him in for investigation, making him the target of public criticism. Do you still feel a little grateful?"

Sherlock looked at Lucius's question. Either because of fear or excitement, his body was trembling slightly. After a long time, she slowly spoke:

"No, Your Majesty Duke, besides me, there are people who also suspect Orson. Only by completely clearing Orson's suspicion can he not be resented. Otherwise, if the case is closed hastily, it will deepen the rift between him and others. "

Lucius snorted coldly when he heard Sherlock's words.

"You sounded so nice, but in fact you were not one of the people who gave evidence at that time?" Lucius snorted coldly, then turned around and sat back down.

"I will arrange for someone to take you there, but this is my bottom line. If you want to mess around again, don't blame me for being unkind."

"Thank you, Lord Duke."

Seeing that Lucius agreed, Sherlock was relieved and walked out quickly.

Lucius arranged for people to wait for Sherlock and his party at the door. When he saw her coming down, he immediately greeted her.

"Hello, Miss Investigator is here in the Imperial City. I will take you to Lady Mary's cemetery next."

"Well, thank you very much."

Sherlock forced a smile and followed behind the man.

The group of people quickly walked past the family cemetery, and Sherlock asked in confusion:

"Isn't Lady Mary buried in the family plot?"

"No." The servant shook his head, and then explained: "Because of that incident, the relationship between the master and his wife was completely broken. After that, the wife hanged herself, and the master did not allow her to be buried in the family cemetery. It was right. Her punishment."

"That's it." Sherlock nodded after hearing this. Express understanding.

Then, the two came to an unnamed tomb. The servant stepped aside, pointed to the tombstone in front of him, and then said: "This is Lady Mary's tomb."

"Yeah, let's dig."

Sherlock said this and signaled the members behind him to start digging immediately.

"I would like to remind you that although we have sorted out Lady Mary's remains and the coffin has been sealed, after all, so much time has passed and the weather is hot now, so there may be some things inside that you don't want to see. Something, please understand.”

"I know." Sherlock nodded.

Under normal temperature, the body will begin to slowly decompose after more than 24 hours after death. When the temperature changes, the time will also be different.

Likewise, after being placed in a coffin and buried, the decay time will also be extended.

But after all, several months have passed. Although it has not rotted into a white skeleton, the semi-rotted appearance is the most frightening and disgusting thing.

The coffin was not buried deep, and it took several people to dig out the outer panel of the coffin for a few minutes.

Then the tomb pit was cleared, and several people jumped down and came to the coffin.

"Open."

Sherlock ordered coldly.

The investigators who came here this time have all seen big scenes, so there is no problem in opening a coffin.

They first moved a corner of the coffin board together, and then completely lifted the coffin board after they could no longer smell the smell of decaying corpses inside.

The servant had turned his face away, not daring to look at the scene in front of him.

However, the scene inside the coffin at this moment was far from what a few people had imagined.

A rather young-looking woman was lying quietly in the coffin with her eyes closed, her hands clasped together and flat on her belly, as if she was asleep.

According to the description, this person is undoubtedly Lady Mary.

However, after a few months, her body not only did not decay, but also had a strange fragrance.

This abnormal sight actually frightened the investigators responsible for opening the coffin.

One of them tested Mary's breathing and found that there was indeed no breathing sound, and then he felt relieved.

Maybe it was antiseptic using magic.

And Sherlock's eyes have been fixed on Mary's chest since the coffin panels were lifted.

she from

He took out the Tulus family emblem for reference this time from his arms, placed it in front of his eyes, and compared it with the emblem on Mary's chest in sight.

Her eyelids twitched a few times.

"Sir, there is indeed a family emblem on Mrs. Mary's chest. Is it the emblem of the Tulus family?"

"Bring it over first." Sherlock said, ordering his men to put away the clan emblem first.

We cannot rule out the possibility that it is an imitation, and we have to take it back to the Tulus family for personal verification.

Later, the men followed Sherlock's order and prepared to put away the clan emblem.

However, as soon as an investigator's hand touched the clan emblem, it bounced away as if he was electrocuted.

"What's going on?" Sherlock couldn't help but ask.

"This clan emblem... it's so cold, no, the whole coffin is so cold."

Sherlock frowned, then jumped into the pit himself and came to the coffin.

The moment she reached out to touch the clan emblem, there was indeed a bone-chilling chill. After Sherlock released a magic that raised the temperature, she felt the temperature had dropped a lot. Then, she immediately took away the clan emblem.

And the moment she took away the clan emblem, the temperature inside the coffin returned to normal, as if the magic circle had lost its effectiveness after its eyes disappeared.

Fortunately, there was no scene of Mary's body rapidly decomposing.

Then she returned to the top and ordered her men to cover the coffin and bury it with soil before returning to the Duke's mansion again.

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty Duke, I misunderstood you before. We found the emblem of the Tulus family in Lady Mary's coffin."

"Hmph." Lucius snorted and said nothing.

"However, we are going to take the emblem back to Saint Laurent City. There are people from the Tulus family there, and they will identify whether the emblem is authentic."

"Okay, remember, if it is genuine, I don't need you to return it. You can apologize to Orson in person."

"I will." Sherlock lowered his head, and then said: "Well, I hope the Duke will not mind this trouble. I will go back and resume my life."

Lucius waved his hand, signaling Sherlock to leave.

Shortly after Sherlock left, the butler Albert walked into the study and whispered a few words in Lucius's ear, and Lucius nodded.

…

On the other side, the city of Saint Laurent.

With the efforts of Li Te and others these days, the discussion about Orson has gradually disappeared, and the public also knows that Orson is only cooperating with the investigation, and he is living a good life, which is enough.

But in the palace, Alsace received a secret report.

After reading the contents of the secret report, Alsace crumpled the paper into a ball, then threw it into the nearby stove and burned it to ashes.

Chapter 43: How could I be that kind of person? (3K)

"This is the situation. Your Highness, I can guarantee it with my life. This is the emblem that only direct descendants of our family can have."

In front of Alsace, an envoy from the Duchy of Orleans handed the family emblem back to Alsace, then bowed his head respectfully and said.

When Arthas heard this, he didn't say anything, but tilted his head in Sherlock's direction.

"So, Miss Sherlock, your inference is wrong. Heinz has damaged our relationship with the Duke of Antica, right?"

"I'm sorry. I am willing to take full responsibility. If you feel that I have done a bad job, you can fire me directly. I will not refuse."

Sherlock lowered his head, his tone neither humble nor arrogant.

"Hmph, dismissal is not that simple. The matter has reached this level, and it is up to you to continue the investigation."

Alsace said this and put his hand on the emblem of the Tulus family.

"Now we have two family emblems in our hands, both of which are direct members of the Tulus family. This means that Raven lied to us."

Arthas looked at Sherlock and asked:

"So, Miss Sherlock, you swore that in your deduction, the raven had no motive for committing the crime at all. So what happened?"

Sherlock's pupils shrank, and a trace of cold sweat ran down her forehead.

She was obviously more frightened by letting her know that her inference was wrong than by being fired for her incompetence.

She has had a strong logical thinking since she was a child. On top of her logical thinking, she also has a special ability to empathize, which allows her to reconstruct the thoughts of criminals and the motives of crime scenes layer by layer. She has never failed.

However, this time she was not sure whether her reasoning was really wrong.

There is obviously someone, there should be someone who wants to frame His Highness the prince...

After the raven clearly stated the trajectory of his actions and even revealed the people in the Orchid Tavern... it was entirely possible that someone else was doing this.

unless……

Unless the emblem of the Tulus family that the raven took away at that time was fake, or it was switched by someone midway.

But with Raven's eighth-level strength, it was impossible not to detect packet swapping.

In other words, Francois's family emblem had been secretly tampered with before.

Someone knew that Francois would definitely die, so he switched the package in advance and took away Francois's own family emblem!

Yes, that must be the reason.

Then it is particularly important who Francois met during his lifetime, and the servants who took care of his daily life during his lifetime.

As mentioned before, the family emblem is difficult to imitate, so as long as the family members come and do a little comparison, they will know that it is a fake. If Francois himself is not aware of it, then it is very likely that Francois is responsible for it. The living and clothing staff are people whom François trusts deeply.

And it shouldn’t take too long to replace it with a fake, otherwise Francois will also find out.

Then, the people around Francois were in good contact with the assassins, or they knew that Francois would be assassinated that day, so they just chose that day to replace the family emblem on Francois's clothes with fake ones. .

The purpose is to frame him later!

So, the problem now comes to the servants around Francois.

"I know, I know the reason!"

Sherlock said this, which made Arthas startled, and then he asked: "What is the reason?"