novelhk Chapter 111 Where the Threads Connect
Chapter 111 Where the Threads Connect
The three little guys under Hugo's command are all restless types, and they have already changed their poses and positions countless times while painting in Aydi.
Normally, when creating a painting, an artist should arrange the composition according to the initial sketch, and even if there are slight modifications, it shouldn't be completely different from the original sketch. However, street sketching requires completing the work in a short time, so it's natural to pay more attention to the efficiency of time utilization.
Drawing from a sketch can avoid wasting time recomposing the drawing and also prevent the model from being dissatisfied with the changed composition.
But Aydi chose a different, thankless approach: first, he drew a sketch for Hugo to check, then he drew a background to completely cover the sketch, and finally he drew another sketch and added the detective and the three main characters to the drawing.
Therefore, a clear logical contradiction emerged in the short forty-minute sketching session—why didn't Mr. Yati paint according to the original sketch?
Or—since Mr. Artie had already decided to draw the background first, why did he first draw a draft and show it to Hugo and the others?
After Hugo's careful consideration of Ayti's words and actions, the answer to these questions became crystal clear—Ayti had to complete the painting in the order he had practiced, so he had to spend thirty minutes painting the scene first.
Hugo's appearance on the bench was an unexpected coincidence. The insect artist had a sudden inspiration and decided to spend ten more minutes painting the model to add a perfect eyewitness to his alibi.
“If only one aspect of their behavior, speech, or painting style is unusual, it might be explained by a coincidence or a matter of mood. But when all three are combined, there must be something strange going on.”
Hugo held up three fingers and said to the Bug-type Gym Leader—
"Perhaps I couldn't understand the meaning of your little actions this morning, but after the incident, your motives became crystal clear. At the time, in order to make the time you spent drawing irrefutable evidence, you specifically emphasized the forty-minute timeframe to me, and even went so far as to show me the draft to prove that you started drawing from scratch, as if you were afraid that I would provide the police with incorrect information afterward."
"And the purpose of all this you did was to make people believe that you were right in front of me when the artworks in the museum were stolen, so you couldn't have had the time to commit the crime. That's your alibi trick."
The detective's long-winded explanation echoed throughout the battlefield.
"Based on just this one meeting, you've connected me to this case?" Yati raised one eyebrow.
Perhaps resigned to his fate, he stopped making excuses for himself and became much more composed, even asking the detective with interest, "Have you figured out what happened in that art museum?"
The detective did not answer immediately, but slowly raised his arms, his fingers moving nimbly in the air as if manipulating an invisible stick.
This is what Hugo did in the police station!
Miss Sera, standing nearby, immediately recalled the scene from noon when the detective was distracted, fidgeting with his hands in the interrogation room. So that wasn't an unconscious, childish gesture after all. She was slightly surprised—could it also be related to the case?
“Mr. Artie, you kept pointing your brush in my direction while you were painting. This technique is usually used by painters to determine the proportions of objects in a painting, so they use a brush instead of a ruler to copy the size they see onto the canvas. But based on the information I just deduced, you have practiced that scene many times before, and you are even fully capable of drawing that scene from memory.”
"I couldn't help but wonder—did you really need that ruler? Could it be that you were pointing your finger and paintbrush at the sky for some other purpose?"
“Sigh, I surrender, I completely give up. What an excellent deduction.” Yati shook his head with a wry smile, while raising his hands. “Hugo Detective Agency? I’ve lived in Feiyun City for so long, and I’ve never even heard of your name, you famous detective. I’m so ignorant.”
“You can’t see the essence of things with the naked eye.” The detective said meaningfully, making a double entendre. “As an artist who plays with silk, you must have a special understanding of this.”
"Oh! I see!"
At this moment, Sera finally realized that the invisible thing in the air that Hugo mentioned was insect silk!
Mr. Adi's babysitter worms can spray out different colored silk threads depending on the food they eat. However, besides the white, brownish-red, light yellow, and lake blue silk threads that are visible to the naked eye, can't there be transparent, colorless silk threads?
The silk threads of babysitter worms are naturally transparent!
The silk produced by Pokémon is exceptionally strong, especially that of Bug-type expert Mr. Artie's main Pokémon, the Nutcracker. Perhaps a single strand of this silk could even pull a large truck!
The bench where Hugo was standing was opposite the Feiyun City Art Museum, while Yadi was standing in front of the detective, with the Feiyun City Art Museum, its gates wide open, just across the street behind him!
Therefore, as long as the interconnected threads are set up in advance, even if Mr. Artie is facing away from the museum, he can still move things inside the museum!
"Although there are no security cameras inside this small art gallery converted from a traditional gallery, a review of the street cameras in the vicinity might reveal Mr. Atti sneaking into the art gallery last night. Judging from your current inexperience in even handling a search, Mr. Atti, you probably weren't prepared for this at all..."
Hugo shook his head. This time, the suspect who committed the crime was surprisingly quiet and listened attentively to his reasoning, which the detective found quite enjoyable.
“But Hugo, even if the museum owner had connected a few threads to the works inside the museum, how did he manage to tear all four paintings to shreds at once? You were at the crime scene, weren’t you? The mess there couldn’t have been done with just a few thin threads.”
Although Ayati has shown a willingness to turn himself in, Sera still has some questions about the case.
"That 'Four Virtues' piece was Mr. Adi's debut work, right? From that time on, he used silk as a material for his creations. And silk materials have a common characteristic—that is, as long as you master the methods and techniques, you can unravel it back to its original form."
"Untie?"
"Yes, it's like pulling on a thread and tearing a sweater into a pile of yarn. As the creator of the work, Yati can easily find the loose thread in his painting and then destroy it slowly and quickly, like pushing over dominoes."
Hugo reached out as if to pull, looking at the curator provocatively with a wicked smile that seemed to expose a sore spot, and continued—
"Mr. Yati connected the vital points of those works to the external threads, and then while painting in the morning, he was depicting me and the little fire monkey sitting on the bench with his brush, while pulling on the transparent threads, causing all the paintings in the museum to collapse!"
"why is that?"
The policewoman was stunned by the absurd scene the detective recreated: "Mr. Atie, why did you destroy your own painting like that?"
Amidst Sera's skepticism, the Bug-type Gym Leader, exuding an artistic air, suddenly let out a sneer—
"Does an artist need a reason to destroy his own work? Many people think that art is noble, great and priceless, but in the eyes of the painters who create it, so-called works of art are nothing more than junk to be disposed of."