Part 45: Kiss Goodbye - Part 1

Ah, Commissioner. What are you doing here so early in the morning?

Something's happened. A very worrying case. I want you to look into it.

Ee, must be serious, sir. You don't normally dish out the work in person.



Four?



Sir?

Never mind.

I've sent through the full report. As soon as you make any progress, I want to hear about it.

Right you are, sir.

Er, Lucy, could I have a word?

Of course, sir. What can I do for you?



Off the Prof, you mean? Why not? What's going on?





Merseyside is in North West England, quite a distance (given the size of England) away from London, which is in the South East.











What is it, Prof?

Oh, er, sorry, Lucy. Never mind.

Alfendi does seem a bit preoccupied with something.

This is a very elaborate copycat crime.

Really?

Mm. Anyway, let's go over what we know.

Okay, I'm listening.






The mafia?







I think one of the character designers must have had a liking for Pinocchio/Cleopatra type noses. Alfendi, Carrière, Potsby-Mahn, Blaise, Mann, and now Fassi are all mentioned as being good looking at some point, and all of them have a long, pointed nose.

So they were all gangsters that were killed then, eh?

Yes. But as for suspects...

Ee, I hate to think, it must have been a savage beast to take out four of the mob's top fellows.

Well, actually, we don't have any suspects.

What?

There must be someone. What about the person who found them all, eh?

It was a group of sailors who were loading goods into the warehouse that discovered them.

They thought they could smell burning, and when they went to investigate, they found the bodies.

But none of them has any connection to the victims.

That's not enough to rule them out though, is it, Prof? What were they doing just before it happened, eh?



Oh. Well, that's pretty cast iron as alibi's go, I suppose.

Exactly. No, we can safely eliminate them from our enquiries.

Well, there must be some other people connected to the case, surely.

There is one other person who could have been involved in some way.

But unfortunately he's gone missing. We have no idea where he is.

Ee, that's a kick in the ribs. I don't see that there's much we can do now then.

We'll just have to start investigating without any suspects or statements to help us.



The point of our investigation this time isn't to identify the killer.

The current theory is that the culprit fled the scene after the event.

However, the door to the hideout was locked from the inside.

Eh? A murder inside a locked room?

That's right.



I see.

And there's something else about this case that's very mysterious.

Oh? What's that?