567

Shiller first turned his gaze to Bruce, who in turn, looked at the pool of blood concealed in the shadows, his thoughts tracing back to last night.

In the night at Wayne Manor, Bruce was perusing some documents in the library. Even though he had come to know about his butler's secret past from Metropolis, he still needed to pursue further investigations regarding the agent, the Philipp list, the Soviet Union, and those long-past incidents.

However, at that moment, a robust noise echoed from upstairs. Bruce, resignedly closing his book and pinching the bridge of his nose, rose and went upstairs.

In the room above, Aisha was learning to talk with Dick and Alfred. She could "coo and gurgle" in varying pitches, even uttering English words of two syllables or less.

But as everyone knows, children learning language are budding chatterboxes. Speaking loudly seems to bolster their confidence in the language so they tend to yell as loudly as they can.

Moreover, they like repetition, as if they could find the rules of language in repetitions. With loud voices coupled with repetition, Aisha now seemed like a human-sized alarm. Bruce even thought he might develop an alarm system for the Batcave based on Aisha's loud calls.

Even though the Batcave was halfway across town from Wayne Manor, Bruce was sure he would hear the alarm.

This situation was unlike Aisha's crying - when Aisha cried, Bruce and Selina would do their best to soothe her until she tired herself out and fell asleep. However, learning language was a serious matter. Seeing the approving expression on Alfred's face, Bruce knew he had no say in this matter.

Besides, language learning sessions have specific time requirements. They wouldn't stop until a certain amount of time had been reached. Clearly, Alfred thought Aisha learning to speak was far more important than Bruce going through documents in the library.

Normally, Alfred wouldn't disturb Bruce's work. But recently, Bruce had become enamored with magic, exhibiting dubious behavior such as tracking down Constantine and procuring strange magic books. Alfred was seriously worried that Bruce might go astray, so he tried to divert his attention by any means possible.

So now, Alfred paid no regard to when Bruce wanted to study in the library, nor did he try to schedule Aisha's language class around that time. This resulted in Bruce being unable to get anything done due to the noise.

Some might suggest that Bruce could work in the Batcave, but the issue was that the Batcave was quite far from Wayne Manor, and Alfred insisted that Bruce come home every day. As such, the library at Gotham University became a better working location.

Last night Bruce stayed up late researching, so he decided to sleep in his dorm room. Although the facilities at Gotham University were somewhat old, the layout was nice. All dorm rooms were single rooms, with a common lounge on each floor.

But since it was an old dorm building, the soundproofing was poor. In fact, when Lex laboriously dragged his suitcase up from the first floor, Bruce, who lived on the second floor, was awakened by the noise.

Lex and Thomas happened to meet in the stairwell on the second floor. Bruce heard everything they said, so he wasn't surprised when he saw Lex - he even pretended not to know him.

"You might not have noticed, but the noise you made dragging your suitcase was deafening. The vibration of the suitcase hitting the stairs even vibrated my bed," Bruce turned and said to Lex.

"And because of that, I became suspicious of Thomas. The amount of time it took you to drag your suitcase from the first floor to the second was just enough for an average person to rush from the other staircase from the fourth floor to the first, cross the entire corridor, and then ascend one floor to the second-floor stairwell where you were."

Bruce glanced back at the whole hallway, saying, "Judging by Thomas's stride and pace, the discrepancy would not exceed three seconds. Such coincidence in a murder case can hardly be just a coincidence."

"I surmise that when your suitcase made its first noise hitting the stairs, waking me up on the second floor, Thomas, who had just committed the act on the fourth floor, was also alerted."

"He would have realized that there were new arrivals, but not knowing the exact numbers, he quickly cleaned the crime scene and then ran down the stairs, following the same staircase you used to catch up with you."

"Upon discovering that you were alone, he would have realized that there was no need for panic, and even had the idea to use you as a joint witness to the crime scene. However, it was rather foolish of him not to install a time-delay mechanism - when you arrived, Doris had already died, so he couldn't use you as his alibi."

"All you've explained is why Thomas appeared," Lex interjected, folding his arms, "Estimating from the timeline isn't enough as substantial evidence. However, I knew he was a murderer shortly after meeting him."

"He made a rather stupid move. To cover up the bloodstains on his shirt, he put on a suit coat. Surely, nothing seemed odd from the front, but when he was ahead of me, carrying his suitcase up the stairs, I deliberately pretended to be exhausted and lagged behind."

"That created a height difference between us, allowing me a more comprehensive view of any signs on his body. That's when I saw blood stains under his suit coat where it met the shirt."

"Of course, it might have been his own injury. So, I observed further and noticed that he was struggling to lift his suitcase, nearly exhausted. If he had been injured, there would have been no need for him to enthusiastically offer to help me, especially considering we're strangers."

"I guessed that he was trying to hide something, and when we arrived on the fourth floor and saw the crime scene, I was sure, he was the murderer."

"Why?" Gordon asked.

Lex had walked over to the crime scene, pointing at the body, he said, "The victim was pierced through the chest with a javelin. The wound suggests that the javelin was thrust from above downwards. This means the murderer must've assumed this position while committing the crime..."

As he spoke, Lex demonstrated a javelin stabbing motion. Both hands were loosely held, with his left hand in front and right hand behind, forming a straight line. He raised his hands above his head, then forcefully thrust downwards.

Continuing, Lex said, "Thomas is taller than me, so he wouldn't have needed to lift his arms so high. However, Doris isn't short enough that Thomas wouldn't need to raise the javelin to thrust it downwards into her."

"So, for him to commit the crime in this fashion, he would need to raise his arm, which means if he was only wearing a shirt at the time, there would be blood in a place that usually wouldn't get splattered - the armpit."

"Before, I spotted blood on his shirt under his suit jacket, precisely at the right armpit."

"Wait a moment!" Gordon spoke up suddenly, "In the near pitch-black stairwell, you could see the bloodstains on his shirt through the gaps in the suit?" Gordon lifted his own coat for a look and saw only darkness, even though he was very close.

At this point, the entire dormitory building was in a blackout. The corridor had some slight light because of the windows, but the stairwell was nearly devoid of light because of the window angle, making it pitch black.

Standing at this angle, Gordon saw that Lex's eyes had a bit of a gleam, making him look unlike an ordinary human.

Shiller also noticed this. He remembered that Alberto, who had previously fallen into the Dionysium pool, had the same gleam in his eyes, which might be caused by the Dionysus Factor.

No one knew if Joker had night vision ability. Nonetheless, he could faceoff against Batman, who wore night-vision goggles, in the pitch-black nights of Gotham.

"Alright, only the motive is left now." Gordon stood next to the dead body, pondered for a moment, and then said, "What I got from my subordinates is that nothing suspicious was found on the deceased. Her handbag contained only ordinary makeup, presumably for touching up before going on stage."

"According to Christine, Doris had a boyfriend who worked at the Central Research Institute in Metropolis. They were in a long-distance relationship, but since they were not far apart, they met every week. She and Thomas likely didn't cross paths."

At this point, Bruce spoke up: "Thomas also has a girlfriend, or rather fiancee, arranged by his family. He has no interest in baseball or football and has never interacted with the cheerleading squad. He only knew the captain of the cheerleading squad, Christine, and Christine didn't mention any love entanglements between Doris and Thomas. Therefore, it doesn't seem to be a crime of passion."

"He must have premeditated this because otherwise, he couldn't have prepared a javelin such as this. Admittedly, it is a useful weapon. But to get this at Gotham University, you must apply to borrow it from the equipment room..."

"Then shall we check the equipment borrowing records?" Gordon instantly took out his phone and said to the person on the other end, "It's me. Come over. Bring the search warrant. We need to collect evidence…"

Quickly, they arrived at the office of the physical education teacher. Gotham University had both normal PE teachers and those coaching cheerleading squads. It happened to be the cheerleading coach at the office now. She pulled out a form and said, "... here, Thomas had applied to borrow a javelin three days ago..."

"Could you confirm which javelin it was?"

"Yes, all our equipment is numbered."

"Was it the javelin with the code 5012?" Gordon asked.

"Application record... equipment number... yes, it's 5012."

This time, personal identification, motive, method, and weapon were all fitting perfectly. There seemed to be hard evidence - Thomas, taken away for interrogation, didn't stand a chance to resist. With the camera shutter's sound, the image of Thomas wearing a prison uniform and holding an information plate, was forever preserved in the archives of the Gotham Police Department.

It was a well-rounded murder case. The investigative process went quite smoothly, and clear evidence was present. It was a textbook murder case.

Even without Bruce and Lex deducing, relying solely on Gordon, the outcome of the investigation would eventually arrive at checking the equipment room borrowing records. At most, it would've delayed the matter by a day.

However, on the second day after closing this case, the Gotham Police Department received a report. It was made by the cheerleading captain, Christine. She cried out:

"Detective Gordon! Hurry! Come to Gotham University's sports hall... another member of the cheerleading squad is dead!!!"