After lunch, we returned to the house in Richmond, hoping to find some clues as to why Mr. Walker was murdered. As we entered, we noticed a man inside.
“Who are you?” asked Mr. Wood.
“My name is Timothy Parker", he replied. “The man you found was my best friend, James Walker.” “Strange,” said Mr. Wood. “Do you know what he was doing before his death?”
“He might have been looking for something. He is very forgetful,” replied Mr. Parker.
“Has he been acting differently over the past… let's say month?” asked Mr. Wood.
“Yes, he seemed nervous. James said that he was working on some sort of project. He showed me a USB-stick and said that he would hide it behind one of his model planes, but the USB is not there anymore. I think this may be why he was killed.”
“Looks like the murderer stole the USB-stick. Maybe it contained secret information,” suggested Mr. Wood.
“Can I go now? I have some urgent work to do,” asked Mr. Parker.
“Yes, you can go now. Oh! Could you please tell us where you were between 11 and 12pm?”, asked Mr. Wood.
“I was on a very important business trip, and I only came back this morning,” replied Mr. Parker.
“Ok, thank you. You can go now,” I said.
As soon as Mr. Parker left, we got a call from Mrs. Doctor. She had finished the post mortem. The suspect had been stabbed with a breadknife, covered in breadcrumbs. The stabbing took place at exactly 12pm, so at midnight.
We didn’t find any more information that day. The next day Mr. Wood and I searched for more clues in Mr. Walker’s documents.
“Looks like he’s been working on a new project with some sort of time-machine,” I said.
“Everybody knows that something like that doesn’t exist,” said Mr. Wood.
“Yes, but what if he invented one?”
“Nonsense!” said Mr. Wood.
“Well, he must have travelled back in time,” I said. ”Here’s a photo from 1002! Cameras didn’t exist back then!”
At that moment, I noticed a door about my size which was concealed in the wall panelling. “What’s behind this door here?" I asked. I opened it.
“Oi! Get back here!” Mr. Wood shouted when a man about 1,40 m tall came running out of a little cabin behind the door. We sprinted after the man and managed to catch him. His name was John Andrew. He told us he had been hiding in the little cabin in Mr. Walker’s wall with his wife, Carolina Smith.
We took Mr. Andrew to our office and asked our colleagues to return to the house to find Mrs. Smith.
“You, Mr. Andrew, were in Mr. Walkers flat,” said Mr. Wood, walking around the table where Mr. Andrew was seated.
“I was in his flat because I wanted to check if someone had stolen the time machine,” replied Mr. Andrew.
“And? Had anyone?" asked Mr. Wood.
“No,” said Mr. Andrew. We found it very suspicious that Mr. Andrew knew about the time machine, as Mr. Walker’s best friend Mr. Parker had told us it was a secret. That made him a key suspect.
“Mr. Danz, could you please show this nice man where he will be sleeping tonight?" asked Mr. Wood.