Here is the translation, with all {}-enclosed content absolutely preserved and unaltered:

It was beyond Fiona Bennett’s current abilities to fabricate a suitable identity and story, and extract the desired information from a bar waiter. Of course, before coming, she had thought about how she should act. In her imagination, taking out two hundred yuan as a tip for the waiter should... be enough, right? It seemed that’s how it worked in some movies and novels—money paves the way, and it’s not illegal, so who would refuse?

It sounded great in theory, but when she walked up to the bar, clumsily opened her bag, and took out two hundred yuan to hold in her hand, she just couldn’t manage to hand the money over to the bartender staring at her with the same casual flair as in those movies. It was just too awkward. All her words got stuck in her throat.

“What would you like?” The bartender waited a while, then took the initiative to ask her.

“Ah... I’ll have a...” Fiona Bennett didn’t really drink, but since she was at a bar, she should probably order something, right?

“Long Island Iced Tea?” suggested a middle-aged man nearby, watching the scene.

“Oh, oh, sure.” Fiona Bennett replied a bit awkwardly. In fact, she hadn’t really caught what it was, only barely heard the last two words. If she didn’t have to drink alcohol, that would be best.

Fiona Bennett handed over the money, and the bartender took one of the bills, then gave her fifty-five yuan in change. She stuffed the pile of money back into her wallet, nervously stood at the bar, body stiff, not knowing what to do next. She needed to strike up a conversation with the bartender, but what should she say? Meanwhile, the man beside her seemed eager to chat, so she tried her best not to look at him.

What do you think a bar is, anyway? Fiona Bennett scolded herself in her mind. Isn’t this the most normal thing in the world?

This isn’t a church!

The drink arrived. Fiona Bennett took a sip; it tasted a bit different from the iced tea she’d imagined.

“First time here?” The man raised his glass in greeting and asked.

“How did you know?”

“Because it’s the first time I’ve seen you.” The man smiled.

“Do you come here often?” Fiona Bennett’s heart skipped—maybe she could follow up and ask if he was there that night.

“Not really, just once or twice a week. Just kidding. Actually, I could tell you don’t come to bars often.”

“That obvious?” Fiona Bennett felt a bit embarrassed.

“It’s pretty obvious, just from the fact that you didn’t know Long Island Iced Tea is alcoholic. That’s a classic pick-up drink.”

Fiona Bennett was momentarily stunned.

“You’d better pace yourself with that.”

Fiona Bennett understood what he meant and thanked him.

The man shook his head, thinking the woman in front of him was just like a little white rabbit.

“Are you here to drink away your sorrows, just happened to see a bar and came in? Doesn’t seem like it.”

“I... I wanted to ask about something.” Fiona Bennett gritted her teeth, took out a photo of Gabriel Adams from her bag, and handed it to the man.

“Have you seen this person in the photo? He should have been here on the night of October 31st.”

When the man heard the date October 31st, he looked at Fiona Bennett in surprise.

“I wasn’t here that night.” He nodded toward the bartender. “He was, though.” He passed the photo to the bartender.

The bartender looked at the photo, then at the middle-aged man, then at Fiona Bennett.

“I was working that night, so I did see him. This guy, he’s dead, right?”

Fiona Bennett was startled, then realized: “Oh, the police have been here, right? I’m his sister, family. I just want to know more about what happened.”

“But shouldn’t you be asking the police about this?”

“The case isn’t solved, and there’s no news at all. Besides, I just feel like he wasn’t the type to come to a place like this to pick up women.”

At these words, both the man and the bartender’s expressions turned a bit odd.

“Ah, I didn’t mean it like that.” Fiona Bennett realized she’d misspoken and hurried to explain.

The middle-aged man gave a wry smile and said to the bartender, “You saw it, so just tell her.”

To the bartenders working that night, Gabriel Adams was also a new face, so he left an impression because he spent most of the evening chatting with the bartender at the bar. The conversation wasn’t anything special, just random small talk. The only common thread, as summarized by the police during questioning, was that he chatted with each bartender about work—like how long they’d been working at the bar.

Gabriel Adams entered the bar after ten, and around eleven, he left for a bit, then quickly came back. Before leaving, he’d only talked to the bartender; after returning, he struck up a conversation with another customer at the bar.

“What did that person look like?” Fiona Bennett asked anxiously. “Long hair? Very tall, over 1.7 meters?”

The bartender shrugged. “More or less.”

“What did they talk about?”

“Didn’t catch it, they chatted for about twenty minutes, then left together.”

That must be her, it had to be her, that “Daisy Hamilton.” But... wait!

“You mean, they were talking?”

“Yeah.”

“You heard her speak? That woman?”

“Didn’t catch it.” The bartender smiled, a very mysterious smile.

Fiona Bennett didn’t have time to ponder the bartender’s smile and pressed on: “I mean, she could talk?”

The bartender stared at Fiona Bennett. “What else?”

So this “Daisy Hamilton” wasn’t mute. Could it be that her voice was very distinctive, so she pretended to be mute at the real estate agency? This person was really cautious. Fiona Bennett thought, full of suspicion.

“A woman? That night?” the middle-aged man asked from the side.

The bartender smiled again, that same smile.

“Got it,” he said.

“What are you two hinting at?” Fiona Bennett asked.

“Because in this bar, female customers are rare,” the man said.

Fiona Bennett was taken aback. How could there not be many women in a bar? But she instinctively glanced around and realized that in the dimly lit booths, all the pairs sitting together were men. And the distance and posture between them didn’t look like ordinary male friends.

She suddenly understood—this was a gay bar? But what did it mean for a woman to show up in a gay bar?

“I still don’t quite get it. Why don’t you just tell me directly?”

Sometimes, a lack of communication skills can catch people off guard, especially with women like Fiona Bennett.

“Usually only men come here, except for people like you. Also, sometimes people who come here are dressed a bit unusually.”

“You mean cross-dressers?”

“Hey, miss, you’re pretty direct, but you’d better not say that in front of them.”

“So the person talking to my brother that night was a man?” Fiona Bennett stared at the bartender.

“Who knows? I never touched him.” The bartender said this, but his expression conveyed a clear message.

Fiona Bennett felt she’d made a big discovery. That must be it. Why was “she” so tall, why did “she” pretend to be mute at the agency—now it all made sense, because “she” was a “he”!

But Gabriel Adams, such an experienced former detective, would he really not have realized after talking for twenty minutes that the person in front of him was a man? Impossible! Yes, it wasn’t about being attracted to beauty—he must have discovered something, recognized something! But what was it?

“Was that person a regular here?”

“No, but he came several days in a row, about a week or so, then I never saw him again.”

Today’s findings at The Blue Lounge exceeded Fiona Bennett’s expectations. Since things were going so smoothly, she asked one more question about William Williams, to see if the bartender recognized the name.

The bartender shook his head and said he didn’t know who William Williams was, and that he’d only been working there for less than a year. The staff here didn’t tend to stay long.

“What about your boss?”

“He’s right over there.”

Fiona Bennett turned her head and saw the middle-aged man smiling at her.

“So, you were here back in 1997, right?”

“Back then my uncle was the boss, and Blue was still a bar with girls. He handed it over to me three years ago.” The boss smiled, seeing the disappointment on Fiona Bennett’s face, and then added slowly, “In 1997 I was a bartender. I remember William Williams, the one who broke his leg later.”

But after so many years, the boss couldn’t recall many details about working with William Williams. His impression was that this college student, working part-time, was very diligent and had a good personality—easy to get along with. This matched what Fiona Bennett had heard about William Williams’s character. The boss only heard about the incident indirectly, because after it happened, William Williams never came back to The Blue Lounge.

So, was the meeting place in the last letter being The Blue Lounge really just a coincidence? Did William Williams truly have nothing to do with Susan Wright’s death? In any case, the already slim suspicion around William Williams was further reduced. Besides, Fiona Bennett’s main goal now was to solve the mystery of Gabriel Adams’s death.

Fiona Bennett left The Blue Lounge just as it was starting to get lively. The boss tried to get her phone number, but didn’t succeed. At this point, Fiona Bennett had already visited both locations related to Gabriel Adams’s death and had indeed gathered some clues, but she still had no idea how to proceed. Maybe when Frank Bishop wasn’t so tired, she could talk to him and see if he had any ideas.