Mystery Detective of the Steam World

Chapter 154 Hidden Mission
"Boss?"

Anthony was completely bewildered when he heard Li Wei's question.

"You can't frame me, I swear..."

"Alright, stop with the act."

Li Wei rolled his eyes.

“I knew you were here for this guy, didn’t I? Don’t think I didn’t see through you. You came to the salon carriage not to chat him up, but to have an excuse to spy on him. Since his carriage is not far from the salon carriage, you can see what he does right away.”

"Boss, you noticed it all?"

"How novel! I'm a detective, after all."

"Then why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"What did I say? I don't want to get myself involved in some random, pointless thing."

Li Wei looked at Anthony as if he were a fool.

"If this matter hadn't involved me, I wouldn't want to get involved. Just give me the truth, and I'll figure out how to resolve this trouble."

"I swear, it really wasn't me."

Anthony realized this wasn't the time to throw a tantrum, and his expression immediately turned serious.

"Alright, since you've already guessed it, I won't hide it from you anymore. Actually, my mission was to monitor this guy, but I definitely didn't kill him."

"Surveillance?"

"Yes."

Anthony nodded.

“We received intelligence that this man—Robert Hadment—had private connections with foreign spies. He was going to Bismarck to use the banquet at the Steam Machinery Exposition to make a deal with an organization. That’s why I came to this train. My mission was to keep an eye on him and find out who this man was dealing with… Now we’re all done for.”

As he spoke, Anthony covered his face and sighed deeply.

"If you're on a mission, wouldn't it be more convenient for you to stay next to him?"

"It's almost the end of the year, and the organization is short on funds. Unlike you, boss, I don't have money to burn and can enjoy a life of luxury wherever I go..."

"Alright, let's investigate the case first."

With Anthony's assurance, Li Wei no longer hesitated and went back to the crime scene to begin his investigation.

First, there's the identity of the deceased. Anthony has already provided detailed information: the deceased's name was Robert Hartment, a researcher at the Imperial Steam Industry Technology Institute, specializing in theoretical mathematical research. According to Anthony's information, Hartment was the kind of honest, unremarkable, and very ordinary researcher.

However, he had privately contacted foreign spies monitored by the agency on more than one occasion. At the time, Anthony's agency thought the other party intended to steal the Empire's technological intelligence through Hadment, so they had been monitoring them. But unexpectedly, Hadment seemed to have reached some kind of deal with the other party to send something to Bisparu.

So, in order to play the long game, Anthony's agency decided to send Anthony to follow Hartment and see who he was going to trade with.

"So, this guy is actually a traitor? A traitor traveling in first class? So high-profile?"

"Those technicians at the technology institute are all idiots; they know nothing about reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance."

Anthony clearly dismissed this.

"This guy submitted a leave request to the research institute under the pretext of visiting the expo. I guess he wanted to enjoy himself, which is why he chose the first-class carriage. I think he has no idea what's going on and is completely unaware of his situation. He probably got a large sum of money from that spy and wants to have some fun."

As he spoke, Anthony shook his head vigorously. He hated rookies like this the most, who showed no sense of accomplishment whatsoever.

"To be honest, I did see that he had a lot of money in his file box."

"That's probably the payment they paid him. By the way, boss, how did you see it? That guy was always carrying that box around, treating it like a treasure. I've wanted to see what was in that box for a long time, but he's very cautious, he even takes it with him to the toilet..."

"Oh, it's not a big deal..."

Li Wei told Anthony about his collision with Olivia, and Anthony was speechless after listening.

"Next time I'll dress up as a woman and try to ram him. What's in that box, boss?"

"If you ask me, I didn't actually see anything particularly strange."

Li Wei thought about it carefully. His absolute memory was very useful at this moment. Li Wei could completely recall the scene from his brain and check it frame by frame.

"Clothes, toiletries, books, maps, tea set, and a big bag of money... Hmm, if you ask me if there's anything particularly suspicious, I really can't think of anything right now. But after that, he quickly stuffed the things into his suitcase and hurriedly went back without even glancing at them."

"That means there really is something very important in that box, but he disguised it so that no one else could tell except for himself."

"We'll discuss this further later."

Li Wei waved his hand.

"In short, let's see the scene first."

The scene itself was very simple: Mr. Hadment lay on the ground, a veritable corpse. And the cause of his death was also obvious: he had been struck on the back of the head with a heavy object and died.

"So the case itself is very simple. Mr. Hartment had his back to the door, someone opened the door and walked into the room, hit him on the back of the head with something, and then Mr. Hartment fell to the ground and died. That's it."

Li Wei quickly inspected the scene and then drew a conclusion.

"So he didn't close the door?"

"Given his clumsy nature, it's not surprising that he forgot to lock the door."

Li Wei shrugged, then stared at the messy room.

"The question now is, what happened?"

"You mean this messy room?" Anthony, of course, understood what Levi meant.

"That's right. There are two interpretations of this room. First, Mr. Hadment was searching for something in the room and, so engrossed in his work, he didn't notice someone entering and was then killed by that person. Second, someone entered the room while Mr. Hadment wasn't paying attention, killed him, and then started ransacking the room looking for something."

"Boss, you don't mean......"

Upon hearing this, Anthony's eyes lit up.

"The person who killed Hadment was the one who was supposed to meet with him to exchange something? But that doesn't make sense."

Thinking of this, Anthony shook his head again.

"We haven't even arrived at our station yet, why is he in such a hurry? Wait, that's right, it's because the train is delayed! The delay prevented him from arriving in Bismarck on time, so he had to act early to save time. That means he's no longer on the train!"

As Anthony talked, he became more and more excited.

"We just need to check the train once to see who's missing, and we'll know who the murderer is!"

"as you like."

Levi shrugged, looking indifferent. Anthony, on the other hand, left excitedly and found the train conductor. Levi continued inspecting the carriages, and it wasn't until quite some time later that Anthony returned, looking dejected.

"Boss, the numbers match up. No one has disappeared or gone missing."

"Oh."

"You're not disappointed at all?"

"Because that's what you said, not what I said."

Li Wei looked at Anthony as if he were a fool.

"I never said that the spy took the item. Think about it, was it really necessary? This researcher doesn't seem to have very high emotional intelligence. A normal spy would just knock on the door, identify himself, say he's there to make a deal, and then take the item, right? Why kill this guy and make such a big fuss? And even if he was in a hurry, so what? Did this researcher bring some kind of weatherproof artifact that could make the other person fly directly from here to Bissubaru? If he took the item, wouldn't he still be stuck on the train?"

"Uh...so you mean..."

"I mean, a huge sum of money in his file box is all gone."

Li Wei stared at the file box, his eyes narrowed. He remembered that the other party had put a large sum of money in the file box, and at the time, whether it was because he was nervous when he saw Olivia or for some other reason, Hadment practically shoved the money into the box in handfuls, and then ran away.

However, now all that money has disappeared.

"A lot? How many?"

"I think it should be at least several hundred to a thousand pounds."

"Not using punched cards, but cash? Humph."

Anthony sneered. As he had said before, the world already had things like debit cards and credit cards, and most people wouldn't carry hundreds or thousands of pounds on them unless they were bored. Wealthy people like Levi and Olivia usually carried a wallet with a punched bank card, along with some gold coins, shillings, and pennies.

For large transactions, use your card; for regular cash transactions, just take the money directly.

However, criminals are an exception.

Because the differential exchange allows the government to trace the time, location, and depositor of every deposit transaction, criminals generally prefer to use cash rather than punched cards to avoid detection by the police and subsequent arrests.

Of course, the same applies to spies.

By the way, a one-pound gold coin weighs about 8 grams, so one thousand pounds would be 8 kilograms... Well, it's not too heavy...

"Boss, you don't mean that the other party saw that this guy had so much money, and then got greedy and killed him?"

Anthony looked incredulous, while Levi nodded.

"From the current perspective, this case does fit the characteristics of a typical home invasion robbery and murder case."

"But...who even knows he has so much money?"

"It's hard to say."

Li Wei shrugged.

"When he collided with Olivia, I, Olivia and her maid, and the train conductor were all present. The problem is..."

"What's the problem?"

"After packing his things, he just grabbed his bag and rushed back to his carriage. I don't even want to think how many people saw him along the way."

Li Wei sighed silently as he spoke.

The victim was stupid enough, which only increased the detective's workload.

"In short, your trip wasn't in vain. It at least proves that the murderer is definitely in this train. And he should be in one of the two first-class carriages."

"Hey? Why?"

"Because people from second-class and third-class carriages can't possibly come here. Have you forgotten how you managed to sneak in?"

"Uh...that's true."

"all in all………"

"all in all?"

"Let's interrogate them first."

Li Wei made a decision.

(End of this chapter)