Hello again! I am returning with an update on the Bingley case. First, an update: the nature of the case has been altered from disappearance to death, as just this morning the identified body of Richard Bingley washed ashore in the New York harbor. Yet while the police are looking to close the case as a suicide in my mind the investigation is ever more dire.
I have returned from meeting Jane Bingley in New York University; I found her a charming young woman, fabulously intelligent and very committed to her work. She was still stunned about her father’s apparent suicide, and I caught her at a particularly pressing time because she was contacted by the police about her father’s body. She was especially surprised that her father’s final act in the will was to provide her with unlimited access to his finances for the foundation, since – as she attested – he was tyrannical in the uses of his finances in any respect. He had no particular concern for the cause, she thought, beyond the ability of the foundation to give him good press and receive a break in taxes, so her efforts to expand the operation were usually thwarted. It got to such a point that all of his money to the foundation he put into his own special account that only he and his son Rupert could access so that even while his daughter ran it he could control the funding near completely. By her account it was not his particular inclination to feel guilt, which is strange considering his death.
Simply to check, I asked her for her time and location at the time of her father’s demise. She told me that she was at a newly opened restaurant called Rosemary’s with a college friend called Daniel who asked her out on a date. After following up later today the manager of the restaurant confirmed she was there with a man for the whole night. She willingly gave me a copy of the testament to analyze.
I will do what I can to see if there were any alterations or forgeries. If everything checks out alright I will have to come up with some new lead to follow.
Sherlock Holmes
I can’t help but think it’s weird you keep running into these murders…
My good Wysp, why should it be weird at all that I find myself running into these murders as a detective? It is like to say that it is weird that a painter keeps running into unpainted walls and a violinist keeps running into sheet music!
Do you not understand that I am providing my services to solve fascinating, vicious crimes committed by dark minds? What luck that I have such benefaction that would allow me to do this!
How we be certain who this ‘Daniel’ really is, you should check up on him afterwards just to make sure.
Relating to your last post, who were the other witnesses to the will, as you haven’t said yet? Or has Rupert not sent you the details?
It is a good point; Jane gave me Daniel’s cellphone number, and I proceeded to call him. He explained that his name is Daniel Portman he has verified is a student in global health as well; he grew up in St. Louis and has been dating Jane for roughly a month. He seems to find little consequence in or around the death of Richard Bingley.
There is one detail I found interesting; a couple days prior to the night with the incident on the bridge Daniel said that he met Rupert for the first time in a brief encounter. Rupert said despite his long strained relationship with his sister he wanted to make things right for the two of them, and part of this was making sure she was dating a ‘good man’. After a few moments of chat Rupert indicated that he favored Daniel, though he had to leave. In passing Rupert recommended the restaurant Rosemary’s to Dnaiel for a date with Jane on its opening night – the night of the incident at the bridge. A strange coincidence, perhaps?
“The odds are enormous against its being coincidence. No figures could express them. No, my dear Watson, the two events are connected – MUST be connected. It is for us to find the connection” – Sherlock Holmes
(Okay, maybe I had to Google that quote)
Forgive my incapacity to be ironic. But how does it all relate? That is the question.