Sherlock Holmes.

Chapter 48 Adventure History (26)
"I said it yesterday, and I'll say it again today, it wasn't him who did it."

"Are you sure? Then let's go to him quickly and tell him that the matter has come to light."

"He knew it a long time ago. I talked to him after I figured it out completely, but he didn't want to tell the truth, so I had to tell him directly. After listening, he agreed and added a few points that I didn't quite understand. If He knows the news this morning, and he must be able to speak."

"My God! Tell me the answer to the riddle!"

"I will, and I'll tell you all the steps I've taken in this case. I'll start at the beginning. First, I don't think it's easy to say, and you probably don't want to hear it: that's your niece Mary. Closely connected with Sir George Penwell, who have now escaped."

"My Mary? It's impossible!"

"Unfortunately, it is not only possible, but a fact. It is likely that neither you nor your son knew what was going on with this man when you received him in your home. He is one of the most dangerous men in England--a A down-and-out gambler, a murderous rascal, a heartless thing. Your niece doesn't understand him either, and when he flatters her, as he has done to a hundred other women, Mary Delighted, thinking I had really won his heart. The villain knows how to use her sweet words, and has trysts with her almost every night."

"I don't believe it!" The banker's face became very pale.

"Well, then I will tell you now what happened at your house the night before. Your niece, thinking you had indeed gone to her bedroom, slipped down quietly to speak to her lover at the window which looked out on the stable lane. Since Standing for a long time, his footprints were deep in the snow. She mentioned the crown to him, which aroused his lust for riches. He forced her to obey his will. I do not deny her love You, there are often women who love their lovers more than their relatives. Your niece is such a woman. Before they finished talking about the specific plan, you happened to come downstairs, so she hurriedly closed the window and said The maid was having a tryst with the prosthetic lover, but that was the truth.

"After your son talked to you, he went to bed, but he couldn't fall asleep because he owed money to the club. In the middle of the night, he heard slight footsteps passing by the door, so he got up to check. The result was surprising. I found out that it was my cousin who quietly walked along the aisle, and finally entered your living room. The child was shocked, and hurriedly put on his clothes and stood in the dark to observe. At this moment, he saw your niece coming out of the room, Still holding the treasure in his hand. He could see it clearly by the hall light, so he was shocked. He ran and hid behind the curtain at your door, from where he could see whatever was going on in the hall. I saw She went downstairs, opened the window secretly, and passed the crown through the window to a person in the dark. Then she closed the window again, passed by the curtain where he was hiding, and hurried back to her room.

"He didn't take any action when she was there, because he couldn't bear to expose his beloved woman and made her feel ashamed. After she returned to the house, he realized that this matter will bring you great trouble, so the most important He just wanted to chase the crown back quickly. He ran downstairs, wrapped in clothes and barefoot, pushed open the window and jumped onto the snow outside, and chased along the trail. Under the moonlight, he saw a black shadow, and carefully identified it. It was Sir George Penwell. He was running away in a hurry, but was caught by Arthur at last. There they fought, and each grabbed the end of the crown. Your son was hit by Sir George in the scuffle. He was punched and his eye was injured. Only then did he realize that something had been snapped off suddenly. He looked down and saw that the crown had been snatched from his hand. So he ran back immediately, and came to your room after closing the window .When he was looking at the twisted crown and trying to straighten it with force, you appeared."

"Is that so?" asked the banker excitedly.

"He thought you would be grateful to him, but you cursed him, which made him very angry. He didn't tell the truth, because he didn't want to betray someone he thought he should be merciful. Besides, he thought it should be done a little gentlemanly, so he concealed it for her. the truth."

"That's why she screamed and passed out when she saw the crown," said Mr. Holder. "Oh, God, I was so stupid. He asked to go out for five minutes. It turned out to be to retrieve those lost Luyu, I wronged him, how foolish!"

"When I came to your house," said Holmes, "I surveyed the surroundings at once, hoping to find some favorable evidence left in the snow, which had not fallen since the night before, and which had happened to be protected by heavy frost. The path frequented by the traders was so badly trodden that no footprints could be discerned, but a little farther away from the kitchen I found the footprints of a lady standing there talking to a man, one of them The footprints were round, proving that the man had a wooden prosthetic leg. I'm sure someone alerted them at the time, because from the shape of the footprints in the snow, the lady ran home in a hurry The door. The man with the wooden legs seemed to have stood there a little longer before going away. At the time I thought it might be the maid and her lover. You have said something about them before, and it turned out to be true. I was in After a good walk in the garden, I found nothing but the confused footprints of the policemen, but when I came to the path leading to the stables, I found a long and disorderly track of footprints in the snow.

"Two of the footprints were in boots, and the exciting thing is that the other two were left by a barefoot man. From what you have said, I immediately judged that they should be left by your son. The first man I walked back and forth twice, the last one walked very fast, and some barefoot footprints were still on the boot prints, obviously chasing someone. Following the footprints, I came to the window of the hall, and found that the boots were walking The snow was trampled away while waiting there. Then on to the other side, about 100+ yards down the trail, I found where the boot man had turned around and trampled the snow all over the place .If I am not mistaken, there seems to be a serious struggle there. Finally, I saw some blood on the ground, which confirmed my guess. The man in the boots escaped along the path, because there was also some blood. , which indicated that he was injured. On the other side of the road, the sidewalk had been swept and the trail was interrupted.

"You remember, when I first entered the house, I used a magnifying glass to examine the window sills and window frames in the hall, and found that someone had entered and exited there, because a wet foot stepped in and left a mark on it, and I could still see it. Outline. Grasping these details, I actually had a preliminary view of what happened here at that time. That is, someone was waiting outside the window, and a person brought the crown there. When your son finds out, go after that person and Got into a fight with him, and the two of them grabbed the crown and scrambled so hard that it damaged the thing. He got the crown back, but his opponent got a small part too. That's all I knew at the time, and the next The question was to determine who that man was, and who handed him the crown?
"I remember the old adage: Take out the absolutely impossible, and what remains must be true, if not impossible. First, you cannot take the crown out yourself, and what remains is your niece And the maids. But if the maids did it, your son certainly doesn't have to suffer for them, then the only thing left is his beloved cousin, and that's why he will do it for her Concealment. That explains it. Besides, it's not a good secret, so he has to do it. You said you saw her standing by the window, and she passed out when she saw the crown. Contact These, therefore, I presume, should be her.

"Who is her accomplice? Who is more important to her than your favor and favor? Obviously, only a lover. You don't like society, and you don't have many friends, but George Pavel is One of them. You said he had a bad reputation among women, so I preliminarily concluded that he was the man with the boots, and he also held the lost emerald. Although Arthur had found him, he Not afraid, because he knew that if Arthur uttered a word, his family would be endangered.

"Okay, I believe you should be able to guess what I will do in the second step by now. I dressed up as a homeless man and came to George's residence. I chatted up his personal servant and learned that his master cut his head the night before. I bought for six shillings a pair of old shoes that his master had thrown away, and took them to your garden again, and found them to be as big as footprints."

"I saw a ragged bum on the path outside my window last night," said Mr. Holder.

"That's right. I think I've found the person I want to investigate, so I went home and changed my clothes. After thinking about it, I think I can only continue to play a subtle role, so that it is possible to avoid prosecution and protect the family scandal ...and I know that that cunning bastard will definitely not admit anything easily now, because he knows that we are passive in this matter. Sure enough, when I went to him, he denied it even when I pointed out every detail of his crime At the same time, he also took down a protective stick from the wall and threatened me. I did not show weakness, and immediately aimed a pistol at his head before he raised the stick. Only then did he regain some sense. I said I could spend Money to buy back the emeralds—a thousand pounds a piece. He regretted it very much, saying he had sold the emeralds for six hundred pounds. I promised not to expose him, provided he gave me the address of the collector. In the end, I found the man, and after some haggling, I redeemed the emeralds for a thousand pounds each. Then I went to your son and told him that the matter was settled. That's it, after all this hard work One day, I didn't go to bed until about two o'clock."

"My God, you averted a scandal that would have disgraced England this day!" said the banker, rising. "I don't know how to thank you. But you will see, I I will never disappoint your kindness. I have never heard of you. Now I must go to my son and hope he will forgive me. As for poor Mary, I am very sorry. You don't know where she is. ?”

"I feel safe to say that she was where George Painville was. I also feel sure that whatever crimes she has committed will soon be severely punished." Secrets of the Darkroom
Sherlock Holmes threw aside the Daily Telegraph ad and said: "A man who loves art for art's sake always finds the greatest pleasure in the most prosaic and ordinary images. I am very pleased, Watson." I am glad to see that you have grasped this principle from your notes for our case. I also venture to affirm that you have added a good deal of embellishment at times. Your emphasis is not on those things which I have chiefly The sensational and famous cases I participated in, but those plots may be very common and trivial details. In fact, it is these cases that have room for comprehensive abilities such as judgment, reasoning and logical thinking. Therefore, I include them in my special research within the range."

"But," I said with a smile, "my record is always considered sensational, but it is true, and I didn't try to do it."

"Perhaps you are indeed at fault," he said, picking up a red-hot slag with the pokers to light his pipe.He often used this cherrywood pipe instead of that earthen one when he was arguing rather than thinking. "Maybe your fault is that you always record every detail so vividly, but you don't focus on the causal connection and rigorous reasoning of things-in fact, this is the most noteworthy part of things .”

"I think my record of you is quite objective," I said casually.I acted displeased because more than once I saw in my friend's eccentric character an unkind, self-talking side.

"I'm not being selfish or arrogant when I say that," he said, not taking my conversations to heart, as usual. "The reason I wish you to do my detective work is that it is not mine--it is something outside of me. Crimes are common, but correct logical reasoning is rare. So you It is the logical processes that should be carefully documented, not the crimes. Otherwise you reduce a lesson worth a detailed lecture to a series of stories."

It was a cold morning in early spring. After breakfast, we sat face to face by the fire in the old house on Baker Street. A thick deep yellow fog filled the rows of dun houses outside the window, so that even the opposite windows became dark. something dark and indistinct.We had to light the gas lamps, and the light shone on the white tablecloth, as well as on the gleaming china and metal, and the table was not cleared.Holmes had been flipping through a bunch of newspaper advertisement columns, but for some reason he stopped suddenly, and, as if with some emotion, he severely criticized the shortcomings of my writing.

Afterwards, he took a short breath, looked at the fire while smoking a long pipe, and said, "At the same time, you don't have to worry too much about being accused of alarmist writing, because many of these cases that you are interested in are not legal crimes." Behavior. For example, the little thing that I did my best to help the King of Bohemia, the strange experience of Miss Mary Sutherland, the inexplicable privacy of the man with the crooked lip, and the experience of the noble bachelor... These They are not within the scope of legal adjustments, and although you have tried your best to avoid exaggeration, I still think your description is too cumbersome."

I said: "The result may be like this, but I use the method of novels, and novels need to be interesting."

"Well, my friend, it's absolutely impossible for the public to tell from a man's teeth that he's an editor or from a man's left thumb that he's a typographer, and they never pay attention to anything. It's analysis and reasoning and the little differences between them. But I don't blame you for being so tedious, because the days of big crimes are long past. A person, at least a criminal, isn't what he used to be. The spirit of adventure and innovation. My own industry seems to be degenerating into an agency, just doing small things like finding lost pencils, or giving ideas to young girls who live on campus. I think, anyway, my career has fallen beyond recovery. This note I received this morning is a sign of the bottom of my career, just look at it!" He crumpled up the letter and threw it to me. .

The letter, posted the night before from Montag Place, read:

Dear Mr. Holmes:
I am anxious to consult with you whether I should accept an offer to be governess.If it is convenient, I hope to visit tomorrow at 10:30.

you are sincere
Violet Hunter
"Do you know this young lady?"

"do not know."

"It's 10:30 now."

"Yes, I think she must have been ringing the bell."

"Maybe this matter will be more interesting than you imagined. Remember the sapphire case? The initial research was just a whim, but it later developed into a special investigation. Maybe this matter is the same."

"Well, I hope, our questions will be answered immediately, and if the guess is correct, the person concerned will come in immediately."

Before finishing speaking, a young lady came in. She was dressed plainly, neatly, vigorously and intelligently, with some freckles on her face that looked like birds' eggs, she looked very assertive.

"Sorry to bother you," she said when my friend stood up to greet her, "I have encountered a strange thing, but I have no parents or other relatives and friends to consult, so I came to ask you for advice."

"Ms. Hunter, please take a seat. I think I will be happy to serve you."

It could be seen that Holmes was very satisfied with the speech and behavior of the client. After he looked at her carefully, he fell silent and listened carefully to her account.

She said: "I was a governess for five years at the home of Colonel Spence Munno. But I lost my job two months ago, because the Colonel was ordered to work in Helifex, Nova Scotia, and he Took the kids too. I advertised in the newspapers for jobs and tried a few job ads, all of which failed. Finally, I ran out of savings and had reached the point where I didn't know what to do.

"There's a governess agency in the West End called Westaway, which is pretty well known in London. I go there every week to find out if there's a job for me. Westaway is the founder's name, but the manager is There was a young lady named Staub. She was sitting in her small office, while the job-seekers were waiting in the reception room in front, and then they were ushered in one by one, and they were assigned suitable jobs according to the registration book.

"When I went last week, I found that besides Miss Stauber, there was another very stout man. He had a thick double chin, wore a pair of glasses, sat next to her with a big smile, and looked at her carefully. Every lady. When I went in, he jerked violently in his chair, then immediately turned to Miss Stauber and said, 'That's it, don't look any further, it's great! It's great!' He quite Enthusiastic, with crossed hands, an affectionate and friendly look, which makes people feel very relaxed.

"He asked me: 'Miss, are you looking for a job?'

"'Yes, sir.'

"'As a governess?'

"'Yes, sir.'

"'How much salary do you ask for?'

"'I was four pounds a month with Colonel Spence Mennon.'

(End of this chapter)