Chapter 17 I Still Don't Quite Understand

Zuo Yan thought again and looked at Vidocq. "However... there's still something I don't quite understand."

"You feel there are still doubts about the motive, right?" Vidocq responded.

"Yeah." Zuo Yan nodded. "According to you, John is a well-known and promising young man, while Sam is just a spoiled rich kid... In this situation, Herbert Sr. would very likely leave the inheritance to John anyway. Stepping back... even if Herbert Sr. didn't want to treat his two sons differently, the inheritance should be split equally between the two brothers; there's no way Sam would get the lion's share." He paused. "Stepping back even further... John, who has already established himself in the business world, can live very well even if he doesn't inherit a single penny; on the other hand, Sam, who spends his days indulging in pleasure and knows nothing but spending money... once he loses his family's financial support, I'm afraid he won't be able to survive."

"From this perspective, what reason does John have to risk forging a will? Is it because he hates his brother so much... that he must make him penniless?" At this point, Zuo Yan frowned and pondered for two seconds. "But... if that's really the case, then why did he offer to give Sam 100,000 pounds?"

"Think about your 'first step back' again, and then tell me where the crux of the problem lies," Vidocq didn't answer Zuo Yan's question, but gave half a hint and half a request.

"Oh?" Zuo Yan heard this and immediately obediently rethought the matter, then murmured, "Are you saying... the situation of 'splitting the inheritance equally' is unacceptable to John?"

"It is," Vidocq said.

"Why?" Zuo Yan questioned.

"Because he's short of money," Vidocq gave a very simple, unexpected, but very reasonable answer.

"John is short of money instead?" Zuo Yan was indeed surprised by this answer.

"Heh..." Vidocq smiled. "Which of the following types of people do you think is more likely to incur huge debts? The first type—ambitious young entrepreneurs who see themselves as elites and run big businesses; the second type—rich young masters who attend all kinds of social gatherings every day, eat, drink, play, sleep with models, and never consider the so-called 'future'."

Although the two types of people described in this sentence are completely opposite, one is a "money-making person" and the other is a "money-spending person," the interesting thing is that the former is often the one who is truly driven to desperation by debt.

"Hey, hey..." Zuo Yan also heard that Vidocq's understanding of this case had far exceeded the level of the average bystander, so he asked, "You know way too much, don't you? This isn't something you can grasp just by reading the news in the newspaper, is it?"

"Half a month after John inherited the entire Herbert family fortune..." Vidocq said as he thought, "I saw a report on 'Herbert Group financing' on the TV news. This report... was what really made me interested in the previous inheritance lawsuit; that afternoon, I went online (yes, Vidocq can use the computer to go online; of course, he won't let anyone else discover this except for Zuo Yan) to check some information about that financing. That information wasn't confidential; it was easy to find on some business-related websites... Although this financing looks like just a regular merger between a family business and his own company by an entrepreneur who inherited the family business, if you bother to look at the accounts of his own company and many trends in the previous year, you'll find many interesting things."

"So..." Zuo Yan naturally guessed John's motive when he heard this. "The person who couldn't accept 'equal division of the inheritance' was actually John... The losses in his business were so great that even 'half of the Herbert family's assets' couldn't fill them. Only by inheriting all the property could he solve his crisis."

"No, no, no..." Vidocq said in a rather relaxed tone. "The Herbert family's financial resources are abundant; 'half of the property' should be enough to solve John's problems; but the problem is... the half that John can inherit must be real estate and shares related to the enterprise; while the half that Sam gets is the real 'money' that can be spent at will."

"Not to mention their father, even outsiders know that this is how it should be allocated, because Sam has no ability to manage and operate the Herbert Company."

"However, if things develop according to this situation, John would have to 'cash out' some things after inheriting his share of the property in order to solve his predicament, which would look very ugly... it would simply be announcing his failure to the world in a high-profile manner."

"John is obviously a person who is unwilling to admit his failure in front of others. If he were willing, he wouldn't have to engage in any inheritance conspiracy; while his father was still alive, he could have directly asked his father for it... As long as Herbert Sr. nodded, John's predicament could definitely be solved."

"So, he meticulously designed such a good show of a 'fake will'..." Zuo Yan continued Vidocq's words, "and deliberately left loopholes when forging the will, step by step leading his brother into the trap; finally, using the public's stereotypes of him and his brother, he made everything seem natural and logical."

"We must admit that as a criminal... John is quite clever," Vidocq continued. "If he wanted to, it wouldn't be difficult to forge a fake will that benefited himself without any loopholes; even if his brother sued him in court because of this, he might not lose." As he spoke, he stroked the fur on his head with his small paws. "But John didn't do that; he chose a more complicated method... Only in this way can he brand Sam as a 'liar and rogue' to eliminate future troubles."

"As for his subsequent behavior of taking out the 100,000 pounds, it is indeed, as Sam said, using money that originally belonged to the other party to give alms to the other party... For John, who has already obtained all the inheritance, that 100,000 pounds is naturally insignificant, but his behavior of 'thinking of brotherly affection, knowing that his brother forged the will but still giving him money' is undoubtedly an excellent public relations exercise for himself."

"Hmm... the motive and the case make sense." Zuo Yan said thoughtfully, "But don't you think there's a loophole in your reasoning?"

"Tell me, I'm listening." Vidocq knew very well what Zuo Yan was going to say, but he didn't point it out; instead, he wanted to wait for Zuo Yan to bring it up himself.

"Herbert Sr. died of illness," Zuo Yan said. "John can forge a will and set up a trap, but he can't possibly..."

At this point, Zuo Yan seemed to have thought of something; his expression suddenly changed, and his words stopped abruptly.

"Can't possibly what?" Vidocq laughed. "Can't make Herbert Sr.'s death come sooner?"

"Are there still some things you haven't told me?" Zuo Yan squinted his eyes and looked down at Vidocq.

"I said that Sam only stays at home for one or two months a year, but I didn't say that John only stays for that many days..." Vidocq said, "Although John's business is mainly in the UK, he himself lives on this island for most of the year... This hasn't changed even now; this can be considered one of the benefits of the information age, people can handle most things in front of the computer, and even handwritten signatures can be transmitted through digital technology."

Hearing these words, Zuo Yan also understood the nature of this case, and then he murmured, "If you're in the same mansion as the deceased for a long time... chronic poisoning is more convenient and also more difficult to trace."

"The specific method may not be chronic poisoning, it may be some other method..." Vidocq said, "Herbert Sr. died at home, not in the hospital. Therefore, the person who declared his death was also Herbert family's family doctor; as far as I know... this doctor is about the same age as Herbert Sr. Perhaps John's method deceived the old man, or perhaps he was bribed... In short, no one questioned the conclusion of 'dying of illness' at the time."

"A few years later, that doctor himself has also passed away, and Herbert Sr.'s body has long been 'buried at sea' by John."

"They both died without any evidence to prove anything..." Zuo Yan murmured.

"Hmph..." Vidocq snorted coldly. "People like John won't leave obvious handles." He turned over on the bed again. "I have a friend who can be said to be 'the world's most outstanding armchair detective'. Over the years, he has recognized a large number of criminals like John who are still at large just through newspapers and news."

"Uh... is your 'friend'... also a cat?" Zuo Yan asked.

"Of course it's a cat; what did you think?" Vidocq replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Nothing... you continue." The corners of Zuo Yan's mouth twitched a few times, and he didn't say anything else; after all, he wasn't Jue Ge, and his desire to complain wasn't that strong.

"After understanding all this, we can almost start talking about the main topic..." Vidocq continued. "Previously, the person we met in front of the elevator door, namely Sam Herbert, who has disappeared for many years... According to my observations in those few seconds, he is very likely to have been involved in some kind of illegal event."