Mystery Detective of the Steam World

Chapter 458 Many Mysteries
As the leader of the Thistle Knights, Li Wei doesn't have many overt government responsibilities, but that doesn't mean he can be completely indifferent to these matters.

In other words, even without cases, he will still be extremely busy, just like now.

“Yes, I understand what you mean, Professor. But that’s not how it works. You can’t expect to come up with a new technology, use it in a big case, and then gain social acceptance. That would certainly be dramatic and have a lot of news value, but the court wouldn’t recognize it…”

"...No, no, no, I think you should also understand that judges and juries won't waste time listening to your lectures, and even if you convince them, it won't work. Because what we need is universal technology. Are you planning to lecture all the judges in the country? Yes, that's right, you're a researcher, I think you should understand this principle. All research is built on the most basic work. Judicial work is no exception. My suggestion remains the same: start with small cases, theft, robbery... Yes, they are insignificant, but they are easy to verify the reliability of your technology. Yes, you can ask Deputy Chief Lestrade of the Chongqing Police Department for specific details. Yes, okay, goodbye."

After hanging up the phone, Li Wei sighed helplessly, then took the teacup that Eileen brought him and took a sip of tea.

"Phew...this is really troublesome."

Li Wei advocates for the scientific approach to forensic identification, and indeed, some scholars who felt they had no future in their respective fields have turned to this direction.

However, this raises a problem: their techniques require experimentation, but this is different from ordinary experimentation. It's not as simple as using lab mice to conduct experiments and then writing a paper. Because forensic techniques are case-specific, these scholars can only verify the effectiveness of their techniques by waiting for a case to occur.

Of course, the cases themselves are inevitable; in a megacity of ten million people, the number of unnatural deaths every day is unimaginably high. All sorts of cases emerge endlessly, especially theft and robbery.

However, some scholars want to take shortcuts. They envision a difficult case that is reported in the news and attracts public attention, and then they come up with a technology that can help them easily solve the case and arrest the murderer.

In this way, one's technology will spread among the public and gain recognition.

But Li Wei knew that the court did not operate that way.

This is not a medical experiment. When treating intractable diseases, you can try entirely new treatments (doctors in this era often do this too; when they encounter diseases that cannot be cured by conventional methods, they will first inject you with heavy metals according to the periodic table to see if it can be cured). Anyway, if the doctor dies, the only ones who suffer are the doctor and the patient.

You can only prove the accuracy and effectiveness of your technology by starting with smaller, more easily verifiable cases. Only then can you convince judges, juries, and even prosecutors to use your technology as part of their evidence.

As a result, scholars would often think they had developed techniques and theories that could be used in criminal investigations, and then they would contact Li Wei, asking for a big case to solve.

He looked like a traditional Chinese medicine doctor with family traditions, specializing in treating difficult and complicated diseases.

Of course, Li Wei couldn't give it to him.

He's a detective himself; if he has a case he can't solve, wouldn't that ruin his own reputation?

Furthermore, even if such a case exists, it's not suitable to use new technologies to investigate it, because this involves a question of what the difference is between the new technology and the original technology if the original technology could not be found before... This is a very academic question.

Unless the case itself is highly specialized or academic, judges generally don't like to teach these kinds of classes.

Some scholars even wanted to give them a lesson on the spot—in Li Wei's view, this was not much different from teaching calculus to elementary school students.

While it's somewhat troublesome, the benefits are obvious. Now, the entire empire's judicial system is focusing more on the evidence itself, rather than simply on witness testimony. Previously, reliance on witness testimony stemmed from the lack of a strict and adequate standard for physical evidence.

For example, when it comes to footprints, many veteran police officers have similar experience. By looking at the traces or footprints left at the scene, they can guess who did it.

However, in this case, you know the thing but not the reason. In court, you can't tell the judge that you know this person has this habit, so the mark must have been left by him.

The research has provided a scientific and repeatedly verifiable method for this behavior, essentially offering an explanation for some previously unexplained issues, making its application much easier. For example, fingerprint and footprint data collection has now become standard equipment in police stations across the country. While this isn't necessary at the village and town levels, at least city-level police stations are equipped with fingerprint and footprint collection systems.

In fact, Li Wei also wanted to create a large database, which would collect all the product traces of the entire empire, such as shoe imprints, handkerchief materials, various chemicals, textiles, industrial materials, and so on. Of course, he couldn't do this himself; he could only let the national level do it.

The proposal has been submitted, but whether it will be approved depends on Her Majesty the Queen and Parliament. In Li Wei's view, if such a large database could be established, then at least in the future, when examining traces at crime scenes, the source could be easily traced.

However… well, with the current level of technology, the capabilities of the difference engine are limited; whether it can be done depends on the situation…

There's no use in being anxious right now anyway.

"Is there anyone else looking for me, Eileen?"

Li Wei took a sip of water, looked at Eileen, and she nodded.

“Mr. Hanklis is waiting for a meeting; he seems to have a case he hopes you can take on.”

"Hancles? Who is that?"

"Lord Harbert Henkles"

"Ah, I understand... Okay, let's invite him up. Hopefully, this time it won't be something like suspecting his wife of cheating."

In the past, Li Wei found it amusing to watch anime where detectives were always investigating their wives' infidelity. However, after becoming a detective himself, Li Wei discovered with despair that investigating infidelity was indeed a daily routine for detectives, even for a renowned detective like himself.

In fact, it was precisely because of his status that many nobles would come specifically to seek him out.

Because Livy was a Knight of the Thistle and an Earl, he was considered part of the aristocratic circle. As a member of the royalist party, he was also politically correct, which meant that if Livy were to investigate such matters, he would at least not leak the information to any newspapers or magazines, much less use it to blackmail him into doing anything treasonous with the royal family.

Li Wei also understood a principle.

That is, infidelity and extramarital affairs do not discriminate based on class, wealth, or gender.

Just like death, everyone is equal.

However, strictly speaking, he doesn't really like getting involved in these kinds of pointless cases. After all, when it comes to infidelity, both sides have their own version of events, and ultimately, if the other party wants him to investigate, it's more about preparing legally for a divorce.

Li Wei's identity will obviously have a significant impact on the bias of the testimony.

So unless someone dies, Li Wei generally won't take on such boring cases; he'll pass them on—for example, he sent quite a few of these kinds of cases to the two detectives he met on Prison Island.

The latter didn't seem to care and was happily accepting the offers, and of course, he made a lot of money.

But for Li Wei, cases of infidelity are really meaningless.

How about a serial murder or something? That would be more interesting.

Unfortunately, with the scientific application and promotion of criminal investigation techniques, many similarly heinous murder cases are solved immediately—police departments have limited resources, so they naturally prioritize handling murder cases. As for other cases, they will certainly be put on hold.

Coincidentally, Li Wei also had little interest in ordinary, boring cases.

Hanklis was a man in his fifties who took great care of himself, from his neatly combed mustache to his sophisticated clothes; in modern terms, he was a refined man.

"Greetings, Sir Levi. I apologize for disturbing you."

"Never mind, Sir Hanklis. May I ask what brings you here?"

Li Wei asked Eileen to serve the other person a cup of tea, and then asked.

"Yes, Sir Levi, I have some troubles and hope to get your help."

Baron Hanklis took a sip of tea, then frowned—clearly, he wasn't in the mood to appreciate Eileen's superb tea-making skills.

“Frankly, I find this matter very strange, and you are an expert in solving such strange cases… Therefore, I hope you can listen to my request.” “So, what is your request?”

"I hope you can find out who I killed."

“……………………………”

Upon hearing Baron Hanklis's words, Levi raised an eyebrow.

"If I didn't mishear, you mean you killed someone?"

"Yes."

"But you don't know who the other party is?"

"Never met before."

"This is going to be interesting."

Levi leaned back in his chair, interlaced his fingers in front of him, and squinted as he stared at Baron Hanklis.

"Since you're here with me, and not in a prison cell, I suppose there must be a reason?"

"Because no one else believes I killed someone."

"But the body..."

"They can't see it."

Baron Hanklis shook his head.

“I can see the body, but no one else can. I even suspected they were all conspiring to deceive me, but now they even think I might be mentally unstable…”

Levi stared at Baron Hanklis, whose breathing was rapid and eyes were bloodshot, but his gaze remained fixed on Levi, unwavering and unyielding.

Clearly, at least Baron Hanklis believed that what he saw was real.

"Please provide a more detailed explanation."

"of course."

Baron Hanklis took a breath and then began to recount the troubles that were troubling him.

"It happened about two weeks ago. It was evening, and I was reading in the lounge. I had a few drinks and then fell asleep. I don't know how much time had passed, but I suddenly felt a chill and woke up to find a man standing in front of me. He was wearing a mask, staring at me fiercely, and holding a long sword high in his hand, as if he was going to kill me."

At this point, Baron Hanklis seemed to recall the events of that time, and trembled slightly.

"I was terrified at that moment. I quickly raised my gun, aimed at him, and pulled the trigger as he swung his sword. Then the gun rang out, and the man fell to the ground without a sound. I was terrified and sat there in a daze until my family and servants rushed in."

They asked me what had happened, and I pointed to the man on the ground, asking what was going on. However, they couldn't seem to see the man and thought I was probably having a nightmare and hallucinating.

"Well, then what?"

"Then I thought so too, so I listened to the housekeeper and went back to my bedroom to rest. I also thought that it might all be a dream, after all, I was reading a crime novel before I fell asleep, maybe I was dreaming about something without realizing it, maybe I was dreaming the whole time... that's what I thought."

Baron Hanklis clenched his fists, his face ashen.

"Then, when I woke up the next day, I felt much better. Maybe last night really was just a bizarre nightmare. So I changed my clothes, went downstairs, and went to the lounge—he was still there!"

At this point, a hint of fear crept into Baron Hanklis's voice.

“That man, that masked man, he’s still lying on the ground, but nobody can see him! My family, my servants, they’re walking around the body, but they’re oblivious to him! But I know, I know they’re lying to me!”

"why?"

"Because they avoid that body. You see, if you can't see something, you walk over to it instead of avoiding it! But they avoid that body as if they know there's someone there! I asked them, but they all said they didn't see anything! I asked them why they avoided it, and they had no idea what I was talking about!"

As Baron Hanklis spoke, he involuntarily clutched his head.

“I called the police, and they came. They looked and looked at the location I pointed to, but even though the body was right in front of them, they still told me they didn’t see anything.”

"Did you let them touch that area? Maybe they were able to reach it?"

“I tried, their hands were on the body, but the police still told me he didn’t feel anything. He suspected I might be hallucinating from a hangover and suggested I see a doctor. And then… I didn’t know what to do.”

Did you touch the body?

"Of course, he was dead, cold and hard as a rock. I tried to take off his mask, but it was like it was stuck to his face, I couldn't get it off at all."

"After that, did anything else strange happen in your family?"

“I…I thought about throwing away that body.”

Baron Hanklis hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“I also thought that maybe it really was just a hallucination, maybe I don’t know what’s wrong with my brain—you see, those doctors in the newspapers also said that some lesions in the human brain can cause people to have hallucinations that seem real. I thought that if I just dragged this body out and threw it into a ditch, maybe I could get rid of it. Since everyone says they can’t see it, then it’s fine as long as it doesn’t exist. So I carried it out and threw it into a nearby ditch.”

"Let me guess, when you get back, this guy will be lying in the lounge again?"

"Yes."

Baron Hanklis nodded dejectedly.

"Just like the way he died, Sir Levi, I don't know what to do. Is this some kind of evil spirit at work? Or is there something wrong with my mind?"

"If I were a doctor, I might suggest you take medicine or have surgery, but I'm a detective."

It must be said that this case did indeed find Levi somewhat interesting, and throughout the process he kept an eye on Baron Hanklis's expression, feeling that he didn't seem to be lying.

However, it cannot be confirmed whether he was actually hallucinating.

But if it was just a hallucination, then the reaction of the servants in Baron Hanklis's household is quite intriguing.

Or perhaps, this is also an illusion?
That's getting interesting.

(End of this chapter)