Everyone widened their eyes and looked at him. Tim carefully read the sentence as if he didn't recognize English. But he repeated, "The body is missing."
This was sent to him by Brainiac. No context, no data report. Tim even detected a hint of uniquely human surprise and speechlessness from it. It's hard to imagine what mood Brainiac was in when he typed this line.
"The body really is missing." Tim received a very blurry photo, not pixelated, but a night scene through the water looking at the glass behind the window, almost nothing can be seen.
However, if you increase the brightness and look closely, you can see—there is nothing there, just an empty room. The so-called floating corpse does not exist.
Ethan indicated he had something to say, and Victor lifted the freeze on him. Ethan loaded the police gun in his hand, and then said, "Is it possible that this artificial intelligence is playing with us?"
Now everyone was truly silent. According to their understanding of Brainiac, Brainiac wouldn't do such a thing. However, the bizarre development of the situation was a bit unexpected.
Brainiac was eager to prove his innocence. He sent over a heap of pictures, which were actually photos. They were taken on the water surface when the body was discovered.
"Oh, you have photos," Ethan said, "Why didn't you bring them out at the beginning?"
They quickly understood why. Because these photos were even blurrier than the later ones. Only with various zooms, brightness enhancements could the shadow of the corpse be vaguely seen.
"Is this really a corpse? Not some model prop you set up?" Ethan pursued, "Scared we'd find a problem, so you took them so blurry?"
"That's not necessary," Tim started to say, "If you want to mislead us, you could simply put a real body there. Gotham doesn't lack bodies."
"I don't play with bodies," Brainiac finally couldn't help but speak, "If I wanted to mislead you, I wouldn't do it when Shiller is present."
Everyone looked toward Shiller, Shiller nodded and said, "I told you before, this is a murder. It's not a hoax by Brainiac to waste our time. Someone is dead; there is a body and a murderer."
No one questioned Shiller's evidence. Numerous facts have proven that in this aspect, you only need to treat Shiller as a God's-eye view narrator. Everything he says is a predetermined background setting; there is no need to debate its truth.
If Shiller says there is a murder, then there certainly is. It's not a plot by Brainiac to occupy their time and prevent them from getting things done.
But Brainiac's explanation makes sense, too. If he really set up a hoax, firstly, there's no need for Shiller to be present, as he would certainly expose it; secondly, he wouldn't set up such a scene. It can only be said that in this aspect, human creativity far exceeds artificial intelligence; Brainiac couldn't come up with such a bizarre situation.
A storm. A corpse completely submerged in water. A midnight theory without clues. And now, even the only possible breakthrough, the corpse, has disappeared.
The most troublesome part is that the surveillance in the room where the body was located is now useless. And because of the water, there won't be footprints on the floor or anything. The drone footage is also not clear at all. So now no one knows who moved the body.
Of course, the only good news is that everyone present has an alibi. Certainly, it wasn't them who moved the body.
But this makes the reasoning even more difficult because obviously, the few present are highly suspect; either they participated or they are privy to it. If it wasn't them, then the identity of the murderer becomes even more mysterious.
"Where's Edward?" Tim asked.
"He's in the hospital," Brainiac said, "He's been solving riddles and has never left his chair. And he doesn't seem to know how to swim."
"He indeed doesn't," Cobblepot said, "I didn't say anything earlier because moving the body to the first floor doesn't necessarily require swimming. This doesn't rule out his suspicion either. But to pull the body out of the water would require swimming. So it certainly wouldn't be him."
Tim also nodded. Now that the body is gone, there might not be any new clues. They could only sit back down and study every detail of the known clues.
With photos, there's more to investigate. They passed the photos around in front of the fireplace, a bottle of whiskey disappeared unconsciously, yet still no breakthrough in sight.
Pushed to the end, Tim was a bit irritated. Because besides Alberto attacking him, Ethan was attacking him to try to attack Brainiac, Cobblepot sided with Alberto, and Victor sided with Cobblepot. He felt like the whole world was against him.
Sometimes I really wonder how Chief Gordon managed to do this job for so long. It's enough to drive anyone crazy.
"Reveal the answer, Professor." Tim handed the stack of photographs to Shiller and said, "I just want an answer now, so I can report back to the station."
Shiller had already looked at those photos. He said, "Even if I truly have spirit communication abilities, it's important to consider the quality of the medium. These things are like weeds you've randomly pulled from the roadside and placed on an altar, insisting that Satan come and look at them. Sorry, I can't do that."
Tim let out a long sigh and leaned back on the sofa. Fortunately, Shiller was on Tim's side. Half in consolation and half as a reminder, he said, "Regarding showing Brainiac the corpse, there might be other possibilities."
Tim began to ponder again. And when Holmes had the upper hand, he quickly found inspiration. He said, "Brainiac cannot be interfered with, and it's difficult to mislead him. However, the police and the assistants he brought along can be."
"Brainiac is thorough when it comes to evidence. So before the water recedes and the corpse is recovered for autopsy, he doesn't have evidence. Without direct evidence, indirect evidence must be sought. Indirect evidence relies on reasoning. He can use a logical chain for reasoning, but there are so few clues. Without sufficient samples for support, it's difficult for the logic to stand."
"So he would seek out humans. He came to me first, and then I came to find you. More precisely, he wanted me to find Professor Shearer, because Professor Shearer's method is different, not heavily reliant on evidence and samples, and might directly identify the murderer. In this case, the corpse faces not just artificial intelligence, but a group of human detectives. Hence, delays and misdirections become meaningful."
"The murderer is not unfamiliar with Brainiac, but rather too familiar. He knows when Brainiac will seek human assistance, and thus displayed the state of the corpse to Brainiac. The aim wasn't to mislead Brainiac, but to mislead the humans behind Brainiac."
"But what did he mislead us about?" Cobblepot asked, "Using giant observations to mislead the time of death seems a bit low-level. It was said before, knowing the body is soaking in water, everyone would exclude this interference factor and wouldn't make erroneous judgments. Besides, the time of death isn't very important; during the chaos of evacuation, it would be hard to take action much earlier."
"The floating state?" Tim mused, "Though it might be to be seen, perhaps there are other reasons. There might be something inside the body—what could it be? Did the murderer intend for us to see it?"
The group began discussing this. But again, without substantial clues and with blurry photographs, there was no conclusive result after lengthy discussion.
At this point, Ethan, holding one of the photos, said somewhat puzzled, "Don't you guys think the clothing on the corpse looks odd?"
Everyone looked up at him. Ethan pointed at the blurry human outline in the photo and said, "It seems to be wearing black clothes. But, no one in the hospital would wear black, right?"
The group was taken aback. This was quite a common sense issue. Hospitals worldwide are the same; they avoid wearing dark-colored attire.
Some might wonder, since dark clothing is more stain-resistant, why don't doctors and nurses wear all black? But the logic of medical uniforms is reversed, meant to show stains. Because only visible stains indicate dirtiness, allowing for better cleaning.
The white coat was invented for this purpose. Before this, doctors and nuns preferred gray and black robes, which looked tidier. But because of this, clothes easily hid stains, and blood spatter went unnoticed. Lester's request to switch to white improved sanitary conditions.
In modern times, healthcare workers in hospitals usually don't wear dark colors. Operating rooms are generally blue and green, while pediatrics departments are pink. These colors have high brightness, not particularly dark.
Similarly, patients wear hospital gowns not because the director has an obsession requiring uniform attire, but because hospital gowns allow for the quickest detection of bleeding. Black clothing with soaked blood unseen wouldn't work at all.
In the beginning of the reasoning, Tim mentioned the person was dressed in black, but no one felt it was an issue then. They forgot to factor the victim into the hospital environment. Many who don't work in hospitals might not notice the issue either, showcasing a typical knowledge blind spot.
"Could it be visiting relatives?" Cobblepot inquired, since Victor accompanied him that day, belonging to the visitors. The hospital wouldn't control how visitors dressed.
Victor shook his head and said, "Visiting hours end at eight-thirty. Before that, all visitors leave. I got to stay longer because I know someone. There shouldn't be other visitors in the hospital."
"Also, even amidst some chaos, if I truly saw someone dressed in black, I'd have some memory of it. I wouldn't completely forget, but I really didn't see such a person."
"So, the deceased isn't someone from the hospital?" Tim was puzzled, "Could the murderer have killed elsewhere and stuffed the body into the hospital amidst chaos? How could that be accomplished?"
"Moreover," Ethan raised another point, "The corpse has swollen so much, the clothes shouldn't fit so snugly, possibly even bursting. But these clothes seem to have some spare room. Surely they didn't happen to buy everything in large sizes?"
They hurriedly looked at the photos and found Ethan was right. Although the photos were quite blurry, there was clearly no damage to the clothes, and the corners appeared to be slightly floating upwards. This means the clothes hadn't been stretched to their limits.
This is truly bizarre. Tim felt his scalp tingling. A sudden image flashed in his mind—a black layer not as clothing, but as something wrapped around the corpse's body, attached to the skin as it drifted with the water.