Crime scene: 162 mystery solving puzzles to find out who the murderer is

Chapter 16 The Disappearing Pistol

One dark night, police officer Kimura was patrolling the road along the river on his bicycle.Suddenly, a gunshot was heard from the bridge about 100 meters downstream.Kimura immediately pedaled towards the bridge.As soon as he got on the bridge, he saw a woman lying in the middle of the bridge, and a man beside him. The man ran away when he saw someone coming.At the same time, Kimura heard a "plop", as if something had fallen into the river.

Kimura chased after him on his bicycle, knocked down the man with his bicycle, handcuffed him, and turned back to the woman lying on the bridge.She was shot in the left chest and was dead.

"Who is this woman?"

"I don't know. As soon as I got on the bridge, I saw a woman lying there. I was shocked. The murderer must have fired from the other side of the river."

"Lie! She was shot at close range, and there are gunpowder-black charred marks on her left chest. Huh, if you suspect it, search your body and see if I have a gun."

The man argued.Kimura searched his body, but found no pistol.No pistol was found on the bridge or next to the body.This is a suspension bridge with a length of 30 meters and a width of 5 meters. The criminal cannot hide the murder weapon somewhere in a short time.

"Is that thrown into the river? I heard the sound of water just now."

"That's because when I was running away, the strap of my clog broke and I couldn't run, so I threw it into the river. Believe it or not!"

The man raised his left foot and said with a smile.Sure enough, the left foot was bare, and only the right foot was wearing clogs.It is a square big clogs.Helpless, Kimura had no choice but to take him as a suspect into a nearby police station and report the situation to the General Administration by phone.The criminal police rushed to the scene immediately to investigate and collect evidence, and in the early morning of the next day, centered on the bridge, searched within 100 meters of the upstream and downstream of the river.

The depth of the river is about 1.5 meters, and the flow rate is not so fast, so if the gun is thrown into the river, it will sink to the bottom of the river within a short distance.However, despite the use of electric detectors and a thorough search of the river bottom within the search area, no trace of the pistol was found.

However, the results of the paraffin test showed that the man who was regarded as the suspect had indeed used a pistol.His right hand was stained with particles of gunpowder, the dross of gunpowder turned into fine particles after the pistol shot.Also, based on the bullets taken out of the body, it was presumed that the murder weapon was a double-caliber small pistol.So where did the murderer hide the pistol after he shot the woman on the bridge?

[Answer] The criminal tied the pistol to the clogs with a strong paper rope and threw it into the river.In this way, the clogs replaced the floating bag, and the small pistol would not sink to the bottom of the river, but float downstream.Soon, the paper rope broke after being soaked, and the pistol lost its buoyancy and sank to the bottom of the river. But at this time, it was far downstream from the bridge, so there was no need to worry about being discovered.It just so happened that there was no moon in the night, and the night was pitch black, so Kimura naturally couldn't see the pistol floating away on the river.

(End of this chapter)