"Isn't there even a single clue?" Sandra asked, unwilling to give up.
Upon hearing Sandra's question, Scott hesitated slightly before replying, "The situation with the passengers is difficult to investigate. There are too many of them, and their backgrounds are diverse, making it hard to track their movements. It's too difficult to investigate them. For now, I've temporarily abandoned the investigation and shifted my focus to the crew of the Notting."
Sandra nodded and said, "Your investigation is on the right track. It's possible that other forces have planted people among these crew members."
Scott shook his head and said, "I didn't think so. I've investigated, and for this voyage, the Notting has hired all the old crew members from before, without any temporary replacements, so that possibility is very small."
I just think that after you took the action, you took everything you could from the room. Later, we and the Japanese also conducted a very thorough search of the room, but we still found nothing. This proves that the blueprints and film are definitely not in Naoto Yanagawa's room now.
Therefore, I believe that someone must have entered the room and taken the blueprints and film before you took action. We need to find this person, but the crew members we investigated all said they hadn't seen anyone enter Yanagawa's room.
Sandra asked, "Have all the crew members been questioned?"
"The investigation is still ongoing. We have only questioned a portion of the crew. The Nottingham has a total of 65 people, from the captain to the crew, most of whom are French, with some Asian employees from Singapore and Hong Kong. Since we took over the Nottingham, apart from some local crew members who have their own accommodations, the others have been staying in several hotels near the pier. We have focused on questioning them over the past two days."
Scott paused for a moment, then continued, "Actually, I did manage to find out a clue."
"What clue?" Sandra asked quickly.
“During our inquiries, we discovered that passengers on the Nottingham cruise ship frequently complained of lost belongings,” Scott said.
"Property stolen? You mean by ordinary thieves? Was this an isolated incident?" Sandra asked, puzzled.
She clearly disagreed with this. From the beginning, she assumed that the loss of the blueprints was most likely due to the intervention of some force, because ordinary thieves would only steal cash and valuables, not items like blueprints and film. Moreover, how would an ordinary thief find blueprints and film?
But Scott clearly had a different opinion. He said, "Perhaps it was a coincidence. I inquired carefully, and these thefts had one thing in common: all the passengers who were robbed were first-class passengers."
“That’s not surprising. First-class passengers are well-off and are the perfect targets for thieves!” Sandra tried to refute Scott’s assessment from another perspective.
"However, the timing of their thefts is quite interesting. They usually occur just before the Nottingham arrives at a port, and the passengers only discover their belongings are missing just before disembarking. However, due to time constraints, they have no choice but to disembark. As a result, there are no plaintiffs in the theft cases, making it impossible to investigate them, and they all end up being left unresolved."
Sandra thought for a moment and immediately made a judgment: "This was done by someone inside the Notting. This person deliberately chose this time and this passenger, and the arrangement was very clever, making it impossible to investigate further."
Scott said, "Yes, the French captain was actually aware of this as well. He told me that he had noticed the situation a long time ago, but after observing it in secret for a long time, he still couldn't find the person. Moreover, it concerned the reputation of the French shipping company, so he didn't investigate further."
Sandra nodded slowly. This was a clue worth paying attention to, especially since everything was currently clueless. Having a direction for the investigation was naturally a good thing.
Scott continued, "Of course, we can't say for sure that it was an inside job, since there are many things that are hard to explain. But we can't rule out the possibility of a coincidence. There are still some local crew members we haven't finished investigating. I'll continue to investigate and see if we can find anything."
“Okay, let’s do as you say, investigate and find the culprit. Maybe he really did take the blueprints!” Sandra immediately agreed.
Sandra and Scott are both shrewd and capable individuals, and their investigation has indeed been effective, at least bringing them closer to the real target.
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