Chapter 498 Where can we not meet
Not far from the street, a man wearing a suit and a mustache was looking at Duanmuhuai in surprise. This person is none other than Duanmu Huai’s “distant relative” art dealer Charlie Simon.
He was almost sacrificed by a ghoul before, and after that incident, Charlie's spirit was also greatly stimulated. He once thanked Duanmuhuai for coming to her door, and then sold all his collection of paintings and the villa in one go. According to Charlie, he doesn't plan to go home again. He wants to visit other places and find a retirement home that makes him feel at ease.
When Duan Muhuai saw him a month ago, he was haggard and had thick dark circles under his eyes. But now I see that he is wide and fat, with a smile on his face...
"I didn't expect to see you here."
Duanmuhuai looked at the distant relative he set up and asked curiously, while Charlie laughed.
"Haha, I didn't expect that either. To be honest, I just came here to relax at the invitation of my friends and see the exhibitions and so on... Hey, I didn't expect that something like that would happen."
"That kind?"
"Yeah, right!"
Charlie nodded, and his eyes suddenly lit up when he saw Duanmuhuai.
"Exactly, I was thinking about whether to find you!"
"????"
Although he was confused, Duanmuhuai still nodded, so Charlie pulled him aside excitedly and told him about his troubles.
To put it simply, after the previous ghoul incident, Charlie was restless in Arkham and couldn't stay any longer, so he sold his company and villa, and then planned to use this large sum of money to travel around the world. What a mess. Anyway, the money is enough for his subsequent living needs.
But this also made Charlie feel deeply empty. He did love art, otherwise he wouldn't be an art dealer. But now he was forced to abandon his wailing, which made Charlie quite sad. At the same time, one of his friends learned about Charlie's experience and invited him to go out to relax. There happened to be a modern art exhibition at the Newburyport Museum, so Charlie was invited to come here with his friends.
Then his friend disappeared.
………………………Um? ? ?
"I have already called the police and looked for people from the museum, but I have no clue. I was in a hurry. I didn't expect to see you..."
“……………………”
Looking at Charlie in front of him, Duanmuhuai was speechless.
Isn't Yi Ya a walking god of death like Conan? People die wherever he goes?
But in any case, it was an unexpected surprise for Duanmuhuai to meet someone who had witnessed the case, so he also asked Charlie about the whole incident.
Basically, the process itself is not complicated. According to Charlie, his friends invited him to come here to visit the latest exhibition. An exhibition about modern civilization and art exchanges. Of course, despite the lofty name, in fact it is just a group of art students amusing themselves. Although he has had problems of this kind before, Charlie is still very happy to see young people's thoughts and expressions on art.
In Exhibition Hall No. 1, Charlie was attracted by the sculptures in front of him, and his mind as an artist and businessman became active again. After viewing the artworks displayed in the exhibition hall, his friend told Charlie that he wanted to go to the next exhibition hall first, so Charlie didn't say much. He just nodded, and after a few minutes, he looked back and went to the next exhibition hall.
But his friend was missing.
"To be honest, I thought he just went to another exhibition hall, so I hurriedly looked for him. But when I walked through the entire museum and didn't see him, I realized that something seemed wrong, and I also I called his number but couldn’t get through…………”
Charlie first asked the security guards of the museum to inquire about the situation. He found that when he said that his companion was missing, the security guards seemed anxious, but they still accompanied Charlie through the entire exhibition hall again, and even took him to the office area of the museum... ...However, there was still no sign of his companion.
In desperation, Charlie had to call the police.
The police also called up the museum's surveillance. Through the surveillance, it can be seen that when Charlie was admiring the sculpture, his friend did walk up to him, said a few words to Charlie, and then turned around and went to another exhibition hall. The camera then shifts to another exhibition hall, and you can also see Charlie's friend arriving there and then walking forward along the exhibition hall.
Then it disappeared.
Yes, it's that weird.
To illustrate how strange this was, Charlie also took a piece of paper and drew a simple schematic diagram for Duanmu Huai. He was in exhibition hall A, and his friend was going to exhibition hall B. There was also a corridor between exhibition halls A and B. There are cameras in the exhibition hall and corridor. Now according to the surveillance camera footage, you can clearly see your friend walking out of exhibition hall A, coming to the corridor, and then walking through the corridor and entering the door of exhibition hall B.
However, my friend was not photographed in Exhibition Hall B.
In other words, his friend disappeared inexplicably when he entered exhibition hall B.
After that, the police conducted a blanket search of Exhibition Hall B and found nothing. Moreover, according to surveillance, the friend did not come out of Exhibition Hall B. This is very strange.
So…………
"I hope you can help me investigate what is going on. I know you are very good at this. Of course, I will also pay you the commission fee."
"No problem."
Naturally, Duanmu Huai would not refuse such a good thing. Wouldn't it be nice to earn two portions of money from one commission?
One fish and two meals is the way to go.
Duanmuhuai originally planned to invite Charlie to go with him, but it turned out that this guy really left a psychological shadow, saying that he would wait for his good news at the hotel, and then just wiped his butt and ran away.
So Duanmuhuai had no choice but to contact Anthony again and invite him to come to his RV to discuss the situation again.
There's nothing we can do about it. Normally at times like this, we have to find a cafe or bar to chat, but the problem is that Duanmu Huai doesn't have anywhere to sit.
Let's talk in the car. After all, the car has air conditioning.
Anthony quickly reunited with Duanmuhuai, and the two parties also exchanged news. When he learned that the reporter this time was actually the victim of Duanmuhuai's last case, Anthony was also quite surprised, but fortunately Duanmuhuai had already left. Charlie heard what happened, and Anthony, as a police officer, also learned what happened from the museum's security guards and other staff. The two sides verified each other and found that there was basically no problem.
"So, where do you plan to start the investigation?"
After checking the information, Anthony looked at Duanmuhuai curiously. Although generally the police would not interfere with the investigators' actions, Anthony was really curious about what Duanmuhuai planned to do.
After all, he is like this. If he wants to do this kind of work, it will be difficult to control the situation.
On the contrary, Duanmuhuai's answer was very straightforward.
"I'm afraid of it, so tonight I plan to go to the museum and stay all night to see what the hell is going on, and then I'll catch it and kill it!"
“………………………………”
Very direct indeed.
"Then I can apply to the curator for a closed search at night, no problem."
"Okay, it would be better if you could come forward."
Duanmuhuai didn't care. After all, he had the genes of the Raven Guard. Even if the museum didn't agree, he could sneak in quietly. But since Anthony wanted to act with him, Duanmuhuai had no problem with it. The advantage of having the police around is that you don't need to explain yourself a lot of the time, you can just throw the blame on the other person.
Facts have proved that the federal police are quite a deterrent. After Anthony briefly explained the situation to the curator, the latter agreed to allow the two of them to stay in the museum after closing. Of course, the reason why the museum is so generous is because there are really no particularly valuable treasures in the museum. After all, it is a local museum. A hoe that has been passed down in the local area for two to three hundred years is considered a treasure. What else do you expect.
Soon, as night fell, the museum employees also left the museum one after another, and then Duanmuhuai and Anthony strode into it.
"Click."
The sound of crisp footsteps echoed in the empty and silent space. Anthony looked around and took a breath of air. Duanmu Huai narrowed his eyes and stared at everything around him coldly. After a moment, he spoke.
"Then, let's start the investigation."
First of all, the two of them went to Exhibition Hall B, where the missing person was. It was just an ordinary exhibition hall. The walls were covered with various oil paintings, and there were also some very ordinary ones from a hundred or two hundred years ago. Daily necessities... Well, it can be seen that this museum really has nothing to display.
This is not surprising, after all, history is shallow.
Compared to the disgusting things painted by the ghouls before, the oil paintings hanging here were much more normal. Duanmu Huai glanced at them and then withdrew his gaze and began to stare around. Anthony, on the other hand, held a flashlight in one hand and flipped through his notebook with the other.
"Well, according to the surveillance, the missing person walked into the door and then leaned against the wall along this side... It is very likely that he was admiring the paintings like us..."
As he spoke, Anthony raised his flashlight and shook it toward the painting hanging on the wall. It was as if he was imitating the sight of the missing person, trying to see what he saw.
However, at this moment, he suddenly saw the content of one of the paintings. At this moment, Anthony almost screamed!
(End of chapter)