Chapter 2417 Fox and She-Wolf (Part 2)

   In English, supernatural (surpernature) and non-nature (non-nature) are not only two words, but also express two meanings.

   People of Padma’s age may not know that there was a famous theft in the 1970s. There are not many works by Johannes Vermeer in existence. After all, he was not famous when he died, and not many people asked him to buy paintings, and he himself had very high requirements for the paints of the paintings, such as "Girl with a Pearl Earring" , The girl's headband is made of lapis lazuli, an expensive pigment that a poor painter cannot afford.

  This resulted in not many of his works, and fortunately so, when "Girl Playing Guitar" was retrieved, it suffered no damage other than a little damp.

The painting was originally placed in a museum in London, but it was stolen and the police couldn't find it, but the police warned all the art dealers in London to call the police immediately if anyone came to sell the painting, it seems that they planned to use this method to stop the thieves market.

  The buyers of world-famous paintings are not limited to the city or the country. It is also possible that the pair of "Girl Playing Guitar" has been hung on the wall of a certain castle when the police warned the London art dealer. Two days have passed, and the police have not received any reports. At the same time, the news has leaked, and the theft of famous paintings has caused the public to condemn the management negligence of the museum that collects paintings.

At this time, the police received a call from a woman who said that she watched the news, not to complain, but to provide clues, as long as the police walked along the back door of the stolen museum, along a small pond to the end, Should be able to find what they want.

   The first reaction of the police when they received the call was that this is a lunatic, or a prankster. However, shortly after the police hung up the phone, they received a threatening letter saying that they were the ones who stole the paintings and asked the police to comply with their demands, otherwise the famous paintings would be destroyed.

  The police remembered the phone call at this time, so they sent people to search along the way she said, and they found the famous painting. It was in the church cemetery near the pond and was tied to a tombstone.

  The caller was Nella Jones, a psychic who not only helped the police recover the stolen oil painting, but also helped investigate a serial murder case and found the "Jack the Ripper" in Yorkshire.

Nella did not witness the murder, but saw the location of the crime and the physical features of the victim. She has black hair. During that time, the police stepped up patrols in that area, and they really caught a suspicious person. After he arrived at the police station, he confessed to his crime. Since then, Nella has become an important "informant". The police often use Nella's "supernatural power" to solve the case, and it was not announced until Nella retired.

The other is witnessing or participating in the theft, but pretending to be a psychic, telling the location of the stolen goods, and the whole process inevitably ringing bells, making smoke, training birds to hold alphabet cards or tarot cards, these "non-natural" "means, which falls within the scope of the Witchcraft Act guilt, punishable by fines or imprisonment without hard labor, or both.

  Before the Witchcraft Act, "witches" were killed simply because they were witches, and the charges included some bizarre and improbable crimes, such as Gerlardy, who was accused of putting poisonous needles in milk bottles. Three years after the Salem witch incident, there was also a witch trial in Scotland. A little girl saw her maid stealing milk and reported the incident to her mother. Then the maid cursed her and hoped that the devil would take her away. The soul is pulled into hell.

Soon after, the little girl met a woman who was recognized as a witch. The next day, the little girl had fever, convulsions, and looked on the verge of death. Then the maid was regarded as an accomplice of the witch, 35 people were summoned, and 7 were sentenced to death. , one of them hanged in prison.

  The witches must be slaughtered, and none of them can be spared. However, there was no religious inquisition in Scotland at that time, and everything was tried by the Presbyterian Church. Before that, with the permission of the king, the church was no longer responsible for witchcraft trials.

In view of popular belief in magic, ignorance and superstition, the British Parliament passed the Witchcraft Act. Anyone who claimed to practice witchcraft or possess magical powers was considered guilty, but the maximum penalty of the provision was imprisonment without hard labor, not There will be burning, beheading, etc.

The    Act was counterproductive in its implementation, and instead of reducing the accusations of witchcraft, it increased. If there is no "wrongful soul" plot, William Kirk is an unfortunate man. His first wife died in childbirth, and his wife's sister has been in love for a long time, but he tried his best to resist this relationship, and even moved out of London.

   But this kind of emotion is "natural". He ended up with Fanny again. If it weren't for the severe infectious disease of smallpox, his wife would not have been killed.

   Now it's going in the direction of premeditated murder, although it's often the husband who kills the wife, but Georgiana has seen William Kirk, and he really doesn't look like a murderer.

  The murderer will not write on his forehead that he is a murderer, let alone a serial murder of his wife, although a serial killer must commit at least 3 murders.

  Why did he do that? Poor relatives thought he was plotting his wife's £150 property, and they left a will in each other's favor, and relatives could only get a small share.

  It is also possible that it is a divorce. In a divorce, Mr. Kirk wants to divide a part of the property to his wife, but they seem to be in such a good relationship, why should they divorce?

   These speculations are based on a chain of inferences, based on Mr. Cork's guilt. The inadmissibility of a piece of evidence means keeping it as far as possible out of the eyes of the fact-finder. For example, Nella's testimony, although she provided direction for the investigation, could not be included in the chain of evidence, which is inadmissible evidence based on psychic mediums. If the psychic's testimony is inadmissible, then the wife-killing charges against William Kirk cannot stand.

Once the evidence is admitted, the admissibility of the evidence does not need to be questioned. The admission of the evidence is judged in a "oneornothing" way, that is to say, either Cork is acquitted, he can counter the false accusation, or he It's a dead end, and it's a very dishonorable way to die.

   The Witchcraft Act is to accuse someone of being a wizard or a witch. Cork is not a wizard. It is suspected that a cleric named Thomas was involved in the case, and he is now missing. Moreover, it is not necessary to use witchcraft to suffer from smallpox, as long as you know the transmission route of smallpox, it may also cause infection.

This involves the "critical" procedural justice. Procedural justice is not only the fairness of the process of adjudication, but also the legitimacy of evidence collection. For example, torture and extorting confessions will inevitably interfere with justice. The basis for implementing procedural justice is investigation. Evidence collection, the process of investigation and collection of evidence must be legal, and illegal collection of evidence has established clear exclusion rules, even though that evidence is the key evidence.

   In order to become "iron proof", in addition to the legality of the collection channels, the strength of the evidence is also required. In the British legal system, judgments are made based on logic and empirical rules. Therefore, there are almost no formal rules for evidence evaluation in British and American evidence law.

The admission of evidence in civil law is regulated by rigid legal rules, but such rigid rules will bring many bad consequences to the probative power of evidence. The entry threshold of British evidence law is relatively low, because the factual evidence to be proved is scarce, as long as Any logically possible inference can be used as a test standard. There are no key witnesses or bodies in Fanny's case. How to collect evidence?

   There is another way. The body of his ex-wife Elizabeth is still there. If William Cork really poisoned his wife, he can open the coffin for an autopsy. This is not the 21st century, and DNA can be used to identify criminals.

  The murder scene also needs to be investigated, but some experienced killers will clean up fingerprints, body fluids, etc. Moreover, even if Elizabeth's death is found to be murder, it cannot be linked to Fanny's murder and that the murderer is William Coker, because it is also possible that Fanny's sister poisoned her sister because she wanted to be with her brother-in-law.

What surprised Pomona most was that this case was connected to the Louisiana takeover. William Corker saw Prime Minister Addington and Sir Baring have a secret conversation. If there was nothing shameful in it, it could be in public. Say, why go to Richmond Park, far from the city center and off the beaten track.

  William Kirk's witness to the whole thing cannot be leaked, otherwise some people can use the lawsuit against him to legally murder him.

   There are many ways to do this. The easiest way is to use the testimony of a psychic, but if this is the first time, anyone can call the police and direct them to the cemetery to find stolen goods. The police can't ignore this "clue", and it is even possible that the next time the place to hide the stolen goods is not the cemetery, but under the queen's bed.

   On the way to the square, Georgiana kept explaining the "Witchcraft Act" to Padma. She spoke in English the whole time, and the other girls didn't understand it. As for Padma...she seemed to understand.

   Originally, she wanted to assign homework and let Padma write a paper or something, but when she saw the scene outside the car window, she immediately gave up the idea.

   "Do you think we can get out of this place alive?" Padma said, looking at the crowd in the square, whether she was afraid or excited.

   "Check your wand," Georgiana replied sullenly.

   Not long after, the carriage stopped under the red carpet, and then a Brussels MP opened the door, and a roar like a wave of air surged in.

   "Ready?" asked Georgiana.

   "Okay," said Padma, touching the wand in his long glove.

   Then Georgiana got out of the carriage and stepped on the red carpet with the help of the congressman. The people around were even more excited to see her appear.

   Except for the lack of the spotlight, everything is similar to the star walking on the red carpet, but Georgiana's eyes are fixed on the relief of the Louis XIV Palace in the distance.

   The palace is flanked by guilds, the left is decorated with foxes, representing shrewd merchants, and the right is the she-wolf who raised the founder of Rome and was the residence of archers in his day.

   She hates being a "target".

At this time the Mayor of Brussels appeared, and he invited Georgina to the front according to the etiquette of ladies first, and the niece of the Bishop of Ghent walked behind them with the clothes for Julien, covered with a piece of golden silk, and followed them. Behind them, they walked towards the Julien Fountain together.

   (end of this chapter)