“No need.” George Lambert waved his hand, staring intently upward, and said, “I already know how the murderer committed the crime.”

“Oh?” Instantly, everyone present turned their gaze toward him.

“Huh?” Robert Lincoln blinked in confusion.

You just walked around like that, and you already know something?

“Since the two of us left, Henry Jennings indeed didn’t see anyone enter or exit through the main door—this should be correct…” he muttered. “All the windows in the room were tightly shut, with no signs of forced entry, and there were no demons or cultivators… This study was a completely sealed room.”

“What happened here was a locked-room murder.”

George Lambert turned around to face the crowd, his voice clear and loud, raising his hand to point as he declared, “There is only one truth! The one who let the murderer in was him!”

Chapter 10 Reconstruction

Whoosh!

Everyone’s eyes followed George Lambert’s finger, all looking in that direction. Lying on the floor of the inner room was the victim of this case, the Ministry of Works official, Charles Jennings.

“Xiao Liang, what nonsense are you talking about?” Henry Howard was stunned. “Are you saying the victim helped the murderer himself?”

“What he means is, if no one forced the window open from outside, maybe someone opened it from the inside.” Robert Lincoln’s eyes lit up, as if inspired, and she continued, “And the only one who could have done that was Supervisor Jennings, who was alone in the study at the time.”

“Exactly.” George Lambert smiled at Robert Lincoln and said, “As I guess, the murderer and Supervisor Jennings must have had some secret plot and couldn’t meet openly, so they arranged to meet this way. When Supervisor Jennings opened the window to let the murderer in, he probably never imagined the other would kill him.”

“I’ve thought of that possibility too, but on second thought, it doesn’t hold up,” Robert Lincoln frowned again. “Even if the murderer was let in by Supervisor Jennings, after he left, who bolted the window from the inside? It couldn’t have been the already dead Supervisor Jennings.”

“Who said the murderer left through the window?” George Lambert said. “He left through the main door.”

“Impossible!” Henry Jennings immediately shouted. “Don’t listen to his lies, I was kneeling outside the door the whole time—no one opened the door!”

Suddenly, George Lambert pointed at Henry Jennings: “You were the one who opened the door!”

“Huh?” Henry Jennings was taken aback, and the others around him were also stunned.

George Lambert looked at Henry Jennings and said, “When his punishment of kneeling for an hour ended, it was already late. He found it odd that there were no lights in the study, so he pushed the door open to check… The room was dim at the time, so he probably didn’t notice much.”

“If he had looked up when he entered, he might have seen…” George Lambert took a few steps forward and suddenly pointed up above the study’s threshold, “On the beam above the door, there was someone hiding!”

“Huh?” With his gesture, exclamations of shock and doubt rose again.

“The murderer climbed over the backyard wall, and Supervisor Jennings opened the window to let him into the study. After killing Supervisor Jennings, the murderer set up the scene, re-bolted the window, and didn’t leave. If he had left through the door at that moment, Henry Jennings would definitely have seen him. But when Henry Jennings opened the door, the murderer was hiding above the threshold, supporting himself with his hands and feet. Once Henry Jennings entered the inner room, the murderer slipped out, silently moving along the eaves and over the wall to escape. For a martial arts expert, this would be effortless.”

“When Henry Jennings found his father’s corpse, he probably never guessed that the real murderer had just been right above his head! And the one who opened the door to let the murderer escape was himself!”

As George Lambert loudly revealed his deduction about the case, everyone’s eyes filled with astonishment. Meanwhile, the dazed Henry Jennings showed a look of lingering fear, a chill running down his spine.

So I entered the study under the murderer’s gaze?

And even opened the door for him myself?

Thinking of those cold eyes watching his every step from above, his limbs felt as if snakes were crawling over them, sending a wave of cold through him. If the murderer had been more ruthless, wouldn’t he have killed me too?

Luckily, he only killed my father.

“This…” Robert Lincoln fell into thought, her fair face scrunching up slightly.

She had never considered such a possibility, and aside from George Lambert, no one else had suggested such a theory. If the murderer really waited here calmly after killing, how cold-blooded and terrifying must he be?

But thinking it over carefully, it made perfect sense.

“Captain Lincoln, please check the beam.” George Lambert pointed.

Robert Lincoln immediately leapt up, bracing herself on the crossbeam above the door and lying flat on it.

Once up there, she realized something was off, tilted her head, and muttered quietly, “Eh? Why am I following his instructions?”

But since she was already there, she couldn’t help but look up.

The The Jennings Family lacked servants to clean, so the beam was covered in a thick layer of years-old dust, and within that dust, there were indeed two spots where the dust had been wiped away, faintly showing hand and foot marks.

“There really are traces of someone hiding here!” she called out loudly.

Her tone was filled with surprise, realization, and a hint of admiration. It was thanks to this guard that the method behind the locked-room murder was actually unraveled.