Chapter 518: The Same Starting Point

Zhang Heng returned to 221B Baker Street at four o'clock in the morning. Tonight, the Whitechapel area was relatively peaceful, except for a few drunks fighting behind the tavern. Then nothing else happens.

Zhang Heng sent Lao Mi back to her residence, lay on the bed for three hours, and opened his eyes at seven o'clock.

He went out of the room. Holmes had finished his breakfast as usual, and was sitting at the table, smoking his pipe and flipping through the newspaper.

"Morning."

"Morning." Zhang Heng sat where he usually sat, rang the bell, and waited for Mrs. Hudson to bring his breakfast.

"You seem to have come back quite late yesterday. How about it? Don't tell me I still don't have a clue. I have high expectations for you." Holmes flipped through the newspaper and said.

"I did find a very important clue. I probably know how Jack the Ripper chooses his targets."

"Oh?" Holmes also showed a look of interest. He finally looked away from the newspaper and looked at Zhang Heng. "Tell me."

"Don't forget that we are still competing with each other. If you want to know, you can check it yourself." Zhang Heng said lightly.

Holmes laughed loudly when he heard this, "Are you still angry at me for choosing an opera in advance? Well, I take back that sentence, but I have indeed gained a lot. Which of us will find the answer first."

After finishing speaking, he put down the newspaper in his hand, took off his hat and cane from the hanger, and said to Zhang Heng, "I have to admit, you really put pressure on me, I think I have to work harder."

"I hope you can catch up with my summary of the case." Zhang Heng replied.

…………

After breakfast, the time was 7:15. It had been a while since Holmes had left. Zhang Heng sat in his seat for a while to collect his thoughts. He did not exaggerate to Holmes.

He gained a lot last night, especially when he chatted with Noomi, he got a very valuable clue. According to the Swedish prostitutes, the churches in the East End do not welcome them very much, except for a church called Sacred Heart The priest there treats prostitutes equally, and sometimes some homeless prostitutes will go there to spend the night without a place to stay. In addition, the priest will distribute bread to them from time to time.

Laumi himself might not have realized that there was something wrong with it, but Zhang Heng was keenly aware of what it meant.

He finally found the answer to the question he had been searching for all night.

Who can get close to these prostitutes generously without attracting anyone's attention, the answer is always close at hand-that is the priest.

They don't even need to deliberately collect information about these prostitutes, because these prostitutes will take the initiative to find them and confess all their secrets without reservation.

Zhang Heng glanced at his pocket watch. The reason why he didn't leave immediately was because it wasn't time for the Sacred Heart Church to open yet.

So Zhang Heng used the remaining time to briefly formulate an action plan for later, then put back on the equipment from last night, walked out of the house, and called a carriage.

As a result, when the carriage stopped at the entrance of the Sacred Heart Church, he unexpectedly ran into an acquaintance.

Holmes was standing outside the gate, watching him with interest.

"Interesting, it seems that although we chose different directions, we ended up with the same goal in the end."

Zhang Heng also seemed a little helpless. He had already raced against the clock as much as possible, and successfully got the clues he wanted, but he couldn't control the progress of Holmes.

Sure enough, the abilities of this great Victorian detective will not disappoint.

"Well, before we go in, shall we exchange the information we have at hand?" Holmes suggested.

After pondering for a while, Zhang Heng also agreed.

Different from Holmes directly announcing his own reasoning before, Zhang Heng used it. This is a short-term alliance between the two. Equal transactions should not affect the final outcome. I just don’t know if the two will be together in the church later. Whoever catches the murderer wins, but now that he has come to this point, it is useless to think too much.

"Let me go first," Zhang Heng said. He briefly introduced his analysis and the information he got from Laumi, then added after a pause, "There are also the wounds on the faces of the three deceased before, the first person's Not too obvious, but the knife marks on the second and third victims are different. I thought it looked familiar at first glance, but now that I think about it, it does look a bit like a cross. The murderer probably has a cross on his body. Religious overtones."

"Impressive analytical reasoning." Holmes also exclaimed. "I am glad that your work was very effective yesterday. As for me, it is relatively simple. I went to the newspaper office in the afternoon."

"Newspaper?"

"Yes, I noticed the letter paper and the red ink on it. As you know, I did a lot of research on this. I can tell which paper factory produced it from the material of the paper, as well as the ink. The same is true, but the information that can be obtained on the ink is limited, because basically half of London uses red ink of this type, but the letter paper makes my trip worthwhile."

Holmes smiled, and continued, "These letter papers are different from ink, and they are not the cheapest type. They are quite eye-catching in the East District, but when I heard who the biggest customer of that paper mill is, I thought It's normal for this letter to appear here."

"Church?"

"That's right, the church's stationery is purchased uniformly, and then distributed to each church for use." Holmes said.

"But there is more than one church in the East End."

"Yes, but the three murder scenes in this church are the closest, and I also inquired about it when you were still having breakfast at home. This Sacred Heart Church is the church that prostitutes usually visit most frequently. .”

Zhang Heng sighed and helped Holmes complete the rest of the sentence, "There are two priests in the church. Among them, Father Matthew is 80 years old and in a semi-retired state. He moved to the suburbs five years ago for the elderly, and rarely cares about the affairs of the church. , basically only in the name of the church, given his age and physical strength, it is unlikely to become a murderer, so only Father Jacob is left. He is just fifty-six years old this year, and he is still at a strong age. The actual person in charge, usually those prostitutes will come to him to confess, but what they don't know is that Father Jacob probably has a great hatred for prostitutes who have given birth to alcohol and live together for some reason. So the secrets they revealed became their reminders."

"As I said, we are now on the same ground again," laughed Holmes.