The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes

Chapter 66 Memoirs (7) ([-])
"Of course you'll be surprised, Dr. Watson," said he. "Well, the thing is, when I was talking to that fellow in London, he laughed when I said I wasn't going to Mawson's. Inadvertently, I found that he had a crooked gold tooth in place of the second tooth from the upper left row. You know, I saw gold teeth on both occasions, plus the two had the same voice and body shape, except those who could The difference is only slightly altered by a razor or a wig. So I'm pretty sure the brothers are actually the same person. Of course it's not unusual for two brothers to look alike, but they would never have the same shape in the same place Gold tooth. He sent me out respectfully. Walking down the street, I was really helpless. Back at the hotel, pouring cold water on it, I tried to calm my head so that I could think about it seriously. Why did he send me Appointed to Birmingham? Why did he arrive before me? And why did he write to himself? All in all, these questions made me so sad that I couldn't figure it out. Then it occurred to me that Sherlock Holmes It may be easy to solve these puzzling problems. So I took the night train back to the city to call on Mr. Holmes early this morning, and ask you to come back to Birmingham with me."

After the stockbroker's secretary finished his strange story, everyone fell silent.Sherlock Holmes glanced at me, and leaned back on the cushion with the satisfied and critical expression of a connoisseur.

"Interesting, isn't it? Watson," said he. "There are many things about the matter which interest me. I think you will agree that we should pay a visit to Mr. Arthur Pinner at the temporary offices of the Mid-France Hardware Co., Ltd." .It must have been quite an interesting experience for us."

"But in what name should we visit him?" I asked.

"Ah, that's very simple," said Hall Pycroft happily. "I'll just say you're my friends and want a job, and I'll take you to the general manager in such a natural name, won't you?" will be better?"

"Certainly, that is the best," said Holmes. "I am anxious to see this gentleman for a while, and see if I can see through that little trick. What have you, my friend, to make them think of you as a man?" Is your work so important? Maybe..." At this point, he bit his nails, looked out the window thoughtfully, and didn't say a word until we reached New Avenue.

At seven o'clock this evening, the three of us arrived at the temporary office of the company in Copolesen Street.

"It is of no use for us to come early," said our client. "It is evident that he is only here to see me, and the room is empty except at the time he has appointed."

"That is thought-provoking," said Holmes.

"Ah, listen! He's walking ahead of us," said the secretary, pointing to a small, dark-skinned, neatly dressed man.

We saw the man hurrying across the street.He crossed the busy street, bought an evening newspaper from the newsboy, took it in his hand, and walked to the office.

"He's come into the office of that company!" cried Hall Pycroft. "Come with me, and I'll be as natural as I can."

Climbing after him five flights of stairs, we came to a door that was ajar, our client knocked softly, and a voice from inside beckoned us in.We entered an unfurnished room, just as Hall Pycroft described it.The man we had met in the street was sitting at the only table with the evening paper open in front of him.When he looked up and saw us, I thought his face had a look of grief, not so much grief as extreme terror.There was cold sweat on his forehead, his face was as pale as a dead fish, and his eyes were staring at his secretary, as if they had never met.It can be seen from the surprised expression of the secretary that this is by no means the usual expression of his employer.

"You look bad, Mr. Pinner," Hall said.

Trying to regain his composure, Pinner licked his dry lips and said, "Yes, I'm not feeling well. Who are these gentlemen you brought?"

"This is Mr. Harris of Bermondsey, and the other is Mr. Price of this town." Our client responded accordingly, "They are my friends and have a lot of experience, but they have recently lost their jobs. Hope you can give them a place in the company."

"Ah, we need people!" Mr. Pinner forced a smile, and said, "I will definitely try my best to arrange for you. Mr. Harris, what is your specialty?"

"I am an accountant," said Holmes.

"Ah, well, that's what we need. And Mr. Price?"

"I'm a secretary," I said.

"I hope the company can hire you. Once the company has made a decision, I will inform you immediately. Now please leave, for God's sake, I need to be quiet for a while!"

He screamed the last few words, as if he could no longer control his emotions.Holmes and I exchanged glances, and Hall Pycroft stepped forward.

"Mr. Pinner, you forgot, I am here to listen to your instructions according to your orders." He said.

"Yes, Mr. Pycroft, yes." The other party said calmly, "You wait here for a while, and your friend will also wait for a while. If you are not in a hurry, I will deal with your matters in three minutes. ’” He stood up, gave us a ceremonial nod, and walked through another door in the house, closing it behind him.

"What now?" whispered Holmes. "Has he escaped?"

"Impossible," answered Pycroft.

"Why is it impossible?"

"That door leads to the suite."

"Is there no exit?"

"No."

"Is there furniture in the suite?"

"It was empty yesterday."

"Then what on earth is he trying to do? It's a strange thing. Is this man named Pinner frightened? What can make him tremble with fright?"

"He must have suspected we were detectives," I reminded.

"It must be so," cried Pycroft.

Holmes shook his head and said, "He is not frightened by us. He was already pale when we entered this room. The only possibility is..." Before Holmes finished speaking, there was a loud noise from the other side of the apartment. The sound of knocking on the door.

"Why is he knocking on the door himself?" cried the secretary.

The flapping sounded again, and it got louder and louder.We all wondered, staring at the closed door.Glancing at Holmes, I saw that he had a serious and tense expression, and was bending over with great excitement.Then, suddenly, there was a low guttural grunt, and a thumping on wood.Holmes rushed forward and pushed hard at the door.But the door was locked from the inside.We hit the door with all our might.One hinge of the door snapped, and then another.With a bang, the door was knocked down.We stepped on the door and rushed into the suite, but the people inside disappeared without a trace.

We were all stunned for a moment, but soon we discovered that there was another small door by the corner of the room through which we had entered.Holmes rushed to open the door, and saw a coat and a vest thrown on the floor. The general manager of the Central France Hardware Co., Ltd. hanged himself on a hook behind the door by the braces of his trousers.His knees were bent, his head was at a terrible angle to his body, and the thump of his heels on the door was the sound that interrupted our conversation.I immediately held him up by the waist, while Holmes and Pycroft unfastened the elastic suspenders from their hooks.The suspenders had already cut into his blue skin.We carried him to the outhouse.He was lying there, his face pale, his purple lips trembling slightly, his breathing was weak, it was horrible, and the appearance he had 5 minutes ago was completely gone.

"Can he be saved, Watson?" asked Holmes.

I leaned over to examine him.His pulse was weak and intermittent, but the breathing intervals became longer and longer, his eyelids trembled slightly, and the white eyeballs were exposed under the eyelids.

"Thanks to the timely rescue," I said, "otherwise he would really die. Please open the window and pass me the cold water bottle." I unbuttoned his collar, poured some cold water on his face, and gave him Artificial respiration until he let out a long breath.

I walked away from him and said, "It's only a matter of time."

Holmes stood by the table with his head bowed and his hands in his trouser pockets.

"I think we should call the police now," he said. "When the police come, we'll turn the case over to them."

"Damn it, I still don't understand," cried Pycroft, scratching his head, "what did they bring me here for, but..."

"Hmph! All that is clear!" said Holmes impatiently. "For this last surprise."

"So, have you figured it all out?"

"I think the matter is most obvious, Watson, what do you think of it?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I must admit I'm still clueless about this."

"Ah, if you think about these things carefully first, you can come to a conclusion."

"What conclusion have you drawn?"

"There are two key points in the whole case. First, he asked Pycroft to write a ridiculous statement about taking up a job in this company. You still don't understand the problem in it?"

"I'm afraid I still don't understand."

"Then why did they ask him to write this statement? It's unreasonable. Usually, they just agree to verbal agreement. Why break the convention this time? My young friend, don't you see that they are very eager to make a statement?" See your handwriting, but there is no other way?"

"Why do they want my handwriting?"

"Yes, why? Finding the answer to this question would be a big breakthrough for our case. Why? There is only one plausible explanation, that is, someone wants to imitate your handwriting, so they have to pay for your handwriting As a sample. If we look at the second point first, we find that these two points can actually explain each other. The second point is that Pinner told you not to resign, and you must make the manager of the big company think that Monday morning will A Mr. Hall Pycroft, whom he has never met, came to work."

"My God!" cried our client, "what a fool I am!"

"Now, let's see why he got your handwriting. Suppose someone goes to work under your name, but the handwriting is not the same as the application you submitted. Obviously, this will give you away. But if the scoundrel If he will imitate your handwriting within a few days, then he will be sure, because no one in this company has seen you."

"None of them has seen me," sighed Hall Pycroft.

"Yes. Of course, trying to keep you from changing your mind and keeping you from contacting any insiders is the most important point in this matter, because once someone tells you that the imposter is already working at Mawson Firm, They'll fall short. So they advance you a good salary, send you to the Midlands, and give you so much work that you won't have time to go back to London, lest you expose them."

"But why does this person pretend to be his brother?"

"Ah, this is also very obvious. Obviously there are only two of them. One person has already used your name to enter Mason's firm, and the other is going to play your employer, and they don't want a third party to participate in the conspiracy, so he Just pretend to be two brothers, so that even if you find them similar in appearance, you will think of them as brothers. If you didn't stumble upon his gold teeth, you would never suspect him."

Hall Pycroft shook his fists. "My God! What was that false Hall Pycroft doing in Mawson's while I was being duped? What shall we do, Mr. Holmes?" .Please tell me what to do?"

"We must send a telegram to Mawson's."

"They close at twelve every Saturday."

"It doesn't matter. A janitor or a guard will always be..."

"By the way, I remember hearing some townspeople say that they kept a lot of valuable securities, and that they had a standing guard."

"Great, let's send him a telegram to see if everything is ok and if there's a secretary working there who's using your name. But what I don't understand is why one of the guys just saw us committed suicide?"

"Newspaper!" came a hoarse voice behind us.The man sat up, stroking the thick red strangle marks around his throat, his eyes began to shine, but his face was still as pale as a dead man.

"Newspapers! Yes!" cried Holmes, suddenly excited. "What an idiot I am! I was so preoccupied with our visit that I failed to think of the papers. The secret is in them." He spread the papers on the table. "Look at this, Watson. It's a London paper, an early edition of the Evening Standard. Here's what we're looking for, read the headline: 'London Mawson— Robbery and homicide at Williams firm, attempted robbery brought to justice'. Please read aloud to us, Watson."

The place the report took in the papers, showing that it was an important case in the city of London, is as follows:

This afternoon, a murderous robbery occurred in London, one person was killed and the criminal has been arrested.Not long ago, the well-known Mawson & Williams securities firm had a huge amount of securities in excess of one million pounds.The manager, aware of the weight of the responsibility, has equipped the building with some of the latest in safes, and has an armed guard guarding the building day and night.Last week, the firm had recruited a clerk, Hall Pycroft, who turned out to be the alias of Beddington, the notorious counterfeiter and robber.The prisoner and his brother had just completed five years of hard labor and were released.It has not yet been ascertained how he got hired by this company under a pseudonym, used his position to obtain impressions of various keys, and learned in detail about the setting of the safe and the safe.

According to the practice of Mosen Commercial Bank, the staff of the commercial bank will have a weekend holiday from noon on Saturday.At twenty one in the afternoon, Inspector Tucson of Scotland Yard was astonished to see a man coming out with a felt handbag.This man aroused his suspicion, he followed the criminal, and with the assistance of Police Pollock, Tucson finally captured the stubborn criminal.It was found on the spot that the criminal had just committed a particularly serious robbery.In the criminal's handbag, the police found not only American railway bonds worth nearly [-] pounds, but also huge stocks of mining and other companies.While inspecting the firm building, the police found the body of a guard crooked and stuffed into a large wardrobe.It is estimated that the body would not have been found until Monday morning had it not been for the decisive action of Officer Tucson.The dead guard's skull was smashed from behind with pokers.Obviously, Beddington pretended to forget something, entered the building, killed the guards, quickly ransacked all the contents of the safe, and fled with the stolen goods.He often cooperates with his younger brother in committing crimes. After investigation by the police this time, his younger brother does not seem to be involved but his whereabouts are unknown. The police will conduct further investigations into the case.

"Well, we can save the police a lot of trouble in this regard." Holmes said with a glance at the emaciated man huddled by the window. "Human nature is really complicated, Watson, you see, even So do villains and murderers: my brother kills himself as soon as he hears that his brother is going to lose his head. But we must act. The doctor and I will keep watch, Mr. Pycroft, and get the police if you please."

The three-masted sailing ship Gloria Scott
One winter evening, I sat face to face with my friend Sherlock Holmes on both sides of the fireplace. Holmes said: "Watson, I think it is necessary for you to read some of my papers here. These papers and 'Glory' The strange case of the Ascot's bark. Sheriff old Trevor was frightened to death reading these documents."

Holmes took out a small round paper tube of dull color from a drawer, untied the string, and handed me a piece of stone-blue paper, on which was scrawled:

The supply of game for London is going steadily up [it ran]. Headkeeper Hudson, We believe, has been now told to receive all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen-pheasant's life.
(Translation: London game supply is steadily rising. We believe Chief Custodian Hudson has now been ordered to take all orders for flypaper and save the lives of your hens.)
After reading this inexplicable note, I looked up and saw Holmes observing my expression with a smile.

"Are you a little confused?" he asked.

"I don't see how a text like this can scare people to death. It's just kind of weird in my opinion."

"Yes. However, after reading this short message, the strong old man fell to the ground as if he had been shot."

"You have aroused my curiosity," I said, "but why did you say just now that it is necessary for me to study this case?"

"Because this is the first case I have handled."

I have been trying to ask my companion what made him decide to pursue detective work, but he has never been interested in talking.At this time, he bent over the armchair, lit his pipe and smoked for a while, repeatedly flipping through the documents spread on his knees.

(End of this chapter)