Sherlock Holmes.

Chapter 95 The Return (6)
"In his consciousness, if he creates the false impression that he was killed by the son of an old lover, he can disappear from now on and achieve the purpose of revenge. This insidious plot is so vicious, he really The will was just a bait for McFarlane to meet in secret without telling his parents, and to hide the cane, the bloodstains in the bedroom, the animal carcasses and buttons in the lumberyard—all of which Everything is amazing. A few hours ago, the net was still strong, but he did not have the talent of an artist. Trying to tighten the neck of this unfortunate young man, it didn't work, and he ruined everything in the end. Come on, Lethred, I have a question for him."

The villain was sitting in his living room with two cops standing beside him.

"It was just a joke, a prank, nothing else." He kept going on and on. "I swear, sir, I hid myself just to see what my disappearance would do. I'm sure you wouldn't Think I'm going to hurt McFarlane!"

"That's up to the jury," Lethred said. "Either way, you'll be charged with conspiracy, if not with attempted murder."

"You will see your creditor freeze Mr. Cornelius' deposit," said Holmes.

Oldeker turned pale with fright, and turned to stare fiercely at my friend.

"I want to thank you!" said he, "and some day I will repay your kindness to me."

Holmes smiled slightly.

"I don't think you'll have time for anything else in the next few years," he said. "By the way, what else have you thrown into the lumber pile besides trousers? Dead dogs? Rabbits? Or something else? Don't you want to say? Hey! You're welcome! It doesn't matter, two rabbits are enough to explain the blood and ashes. Watson, if you want to write an account, you might as well say rabbits "The Secret of the Dancing Man"
Holmes sat there silently for some hours.With his slender body bent, he looked down at the chemical test tube in front of him.A particularly foul-smelling compound was boiling in the test tube.He hung his head on his breast, and looked to me like a lanky strange bird, with dark gray plumage and a black crest.

He suddenly asked me: "Watson, you gave up your original plan to invest in South Africa, is that right?"

I was shocked.Although I have long been familiar with any of his supernatural powers, I still can't explain what he suddenly revealed to me.

"And how do you know?" I asked him.He turned around from the round stool, the test tube was in his hand at that time.In his deep-set eyes, there was a slight look of wanting to smile.

"Now you admit you were surprised, Watson?" said he.

"I was surprised."

"I think you should write this sentence down and sign it."

"why?"

"The reason is another five minutes and you think it's too easy."

"I definitely won't say it."

"You must understand, my dear Watson," he said, as he put the tube back on the shelf, and began to address me in a pedagogical tone, "that any inference made is such that each inference has the same effect on the preceding one. Decisiveness, while being very simple and clear in itself, is actually very easy, as long as you remove the reasoning part in the middle, and just present the arguments and conclusions to those audiences, you can get amazing and even exaggerated effects. Therefore, I just look at It's really easy to deduce that you don't want to invest in gold mining in South Africa with the tiger's mouth in your left hand."

"I don't see any connection at all."

"Apparently not, but I can tell you right away that they are actually closely related. The missing links in this simple chain are: [-]. When you came back from the club last night, I saw you on your left hand. There is white powder on it; two, you only put white powder on the tiger's mouth when you are playing billiards, the purpose is to stabilize the cue; three, you will not play billiards unless Thurston is around; four, four Weeks ago, you told me that Thurston had a privilege to buy some South African property, expiring in a month, and that he would share the profits with you; Never asked for the key; six, therefore, you don't want to put your money in South Africa."

"It's so easy!" I exclaimed.

"That's right!" he said with a little displeasure, "everything becomes easy once I explain it to you. There is a question I don't quite understand. How can you explain it, my friend. ’ He handed me a note and resumed his analysis.

Some incomprehensible symbols were drawn on the note, which was very weird.

"Well, Holmes, is this a child's drawing?"

"That's your own idea."

"They can't be something else?"

"Mr. Hilton Cupid, who lives at Racecourse Estate in Norfolk, is very anxious to ascertain the matter. The morning post brought this up today. He intends to come by the second train himself. The doorbell rang. I am sure the man is coming, Watson."

At this moment there was a dull sound of footsteps on the stairs, and in came a tall, well-built man, clean-shaven, bright-eyed, and rosy-cheeked, suggesting that he must have lived far from Baker Street.He brings us rich, fresh, cool air.He shook hands with us, and when he was about to sit down, he was attracted by the piece of paper with strange symbols drawn on it, which I just looked at carefully and put on the table.

"Mr. Holmes, what do you think of it?" Time to prepare."

"It is indeed difficult to ascertain," said Holmes. "At first glance it looks as though some children are joking, and have scribbled on paper some strange dancing figures. But why do you attach any importance to it?"

"I'm sure not, Mr. Holmes. My wife attaches great importance to it, and the picture terrifies her. She won't say anything, but I can see something in her frightened eyes, but I I don’t fully understand this matter, so I want to ask you for advice.”

Holmes picked up the note, and holding it in the sunlight, he saw that it might be a little page torn out of a note-pad, on which some dancing figures had been drawn in pencil.

Holmes looked at them carefully for a while, then carefully folded them up and put them in his wallet.

"This is probably the most interesting and least simple case," said he. "You have given some details in your letter, Mr. Hilton Cupid, but I want you to repeat them to my friend Watson. .”

"I'm not a very good storyteller," said the guest, his hands were thick and strong, and he clenched them tightly and let them go from time to time. "If anything is unclear, feel free to ask. I want to start with my marriage last year, but I have to state that although I'm not a rich man, our family has lived there for 500 years. No one in the Fork County is more prestigious than my family.

"I went to London last year, mainly to attend the sixtieth anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne, because our parish priest Parker is in Russell Square, so I stayed in his apartment. At the same time, there was a young and beautiful Miss America. There, her name was Elsie Patrick. We became friends before long. Within a month, I fell in love with her. We married secretly and returned to Norfolk as husband and wife K. You may wonder how a distinguished family can marry such an unknown wife? Mr. Holmes, if you have seen her and known her, you will understand me.

"At that time she said yes to me very readily, she was very frank and straightforward. She did give me the opportunity to change my original intention, and I firmly believe that I will not be wrong. She once said to me: 'In my life, there have been I've been with a lot of nasty people, I don't want to talk about them anymore, the only thing I want now is to forget about them. If you will marry me, Hilton, you will marry a very good woman. You must grant my request, And allow me to keep my past as a secret. If you feel harsh, then you have time to repent and let me still live alone.' She told me this the day before the wedding. I told her Promise to always keep my word.

"We have lived happily ever after for a year. Just a month ago, at the end of June, I had an ominous premonition for the first time in my life. On that day, my wife received a letter from the United States. The letter came because it had a US postage stamp on it. After reading the letter, she paled and threw it into the fire in a hurry. Then she didn't mention it at all, and I couldn't ask it, I had to do it She kept her promise. Since then, she has been frightened and uneasy, as if she is waiting for something to happen. Unless she asks, I will never ask. Please believe me, she is absolutely honest Whatever faults a man of duty may have had in his past life was never caused by her, Mr. Holmes. I am only a common country gentleman in Norfolk, but no one in England has a family more prestigious than mine, and she She should have known this, and she should have known even more before she married me, and I am absolutely sure she did not want to tarnish our family's name at all.

"Now let me tell you what is suspicious about this matter. About a week ago, last Tuesday, I found a lot of ridiculous drawings of dancing figures on a windowsill. It was drawn with chalk, and it was not the same as the one on the paper. Same. I thought it was drawn by the little stable boy, but he assured me it wasn't him at all. Anyway, the little people were painted on in the night, and I brushed them off and told my wife about them. To my amazement, she took it very seriously and begged me to let her see it if it came out again. A week later, nothing happened until yesterday morning when I found this in the garden A note, and I showed it to her, but she fainted, and after that she seemed to be in a dream, with a trance, and her eyes were full of fear. At that time, Mr. Holmes, I wrote a letter. letter, and sent it to you with the note. I must not give it to the police, because they will laugh at me. I think you will tell me what to do. I am not very rich, but I love my Wife, I would rather lose my fortune and protect her."

He is a handsome man who grew up in England, simple, decent and elegant, with a pair of sincere blue eyes and a delicate face.We see the depth of his affection for his wife.After Holmes had listened intently to his story, he sat for a long time in thought.

"Hasn't it occurred to you that the most direct way is for your wife to tell you about her, Mr. Cupid," he said at last.

Hilton Cupid just shook his head.

"A promise is a promise, Mr. Holmes. If she wants to say it, she will say it. If she doesn't want to, I will never force her. However, I can always think for myself. I think I can do it." arrive."

"I thought, I'd be happy to help you. First, would you like to tell me if any strangers have been here lately?"

"No."

"I guess your part of the country is so remote that any unfamiliar face will attract attention, won't it?"

"It should be like this in the neighborhood of my house. But it's not too far from my house. There are several places where livestock are fed, and people often move there."

"These elusive symbols are supposed to have meaning. If it's drawn randomly, we can never explain it. But, on the other hand, if it's systematic, I'm sure we'll figure it out .But if this is the only one, it's too short for me to start. The situation you have given is not very clear, and it is very difficult to investigate. I think you should go back to Norfolk first, and pay close attention to it. I copied the new dancing figures from the windows as they were. It's a pity that we don't have a single copy of the earlier dancing figures drawn in chalk on the windowsills. In the meantime, you'll have to inquire carefully if anything has been around recently. Stranger. Come back here as soon as you get new evidence, that's all I can do now, and if there is an emergency, I can go to your house at any time."

This interview left Holmes silent.For several days, I always saw him take out the note from his notebook and carefully observe and study the strange symbols on it, but he never mentioned it.Until about two weeks later, when I was going out one afternoon, he stopped me.

"What happened?"

"I just got a telegram from Hilton Cupid this morning. Do you remember those little dancing men? He's supposed to be in Liverpool Street at twenty one, and could be here any minute. From the telegram, I think he might have grasped New very important situation.

We didn't have to wait long at all before the man arrived in a carriage.An anxious and frustrated expression, with dull eyes and wrinkled forehead.

"It makes me very sad, Mr. Holmes," he said, and sank down into his chair as if he had lost all his strength. "You're aware of people around you, but you don't know who's torturing you, and that's annoying enough. Add to that the fact that you're seeing your beloved wife being tormented by it bit by bit, That must not be something ordinary people can bear, she really lost a lot of weight."

"She never said anything?"

"No, Mr. Holmes. She didn't say it, but she wanted to do it several times, but she didn't know how to do it. I wanted to help her, and maybe I didn't do it tactfully, but it frightened her and made her dare not say it." Let’s bring it up again. She was talking to me about my family history, about our family’s name and reputation, and I thought she was going to get to the point, but somehow, the topic went off again.”

"So have you discovered anything new?"

"A lot! Mr. Holmes. I have now brought you some new pictures. What is more, I have seen the man."

"What? The one who drew the symbols?"

"Yes, I saw him when he was drawing. Let me tell you in order. After I came to you last time, the first thing I saw on the second morning after I came home was a line The new dancing figure, drawn with chalk on the door of the tool room. This room is next to the lawn, just facing the front window. I drew a copy of it, and here it is." He opened the paper and put on the table.That graph looks like this:

"Excellent!" said Holmes. "Excellent! Please continue."

"After I drew it, I erased those figures, but two days later in the morning, another set of symbols appeared. I drew the same here."

"How quickly our data are accumulating!" said Holmes.

"Three days later, I saw another note with another line of little people scribbled on it, exactly the same as the last time. Since then, I have been sitting in my study, holding a revolver, preparing to stay awake and wait The man appeared. I kept looking at the lawn and garden, and at about two o'clock in the morning, I heard footsteps. It was my wife. She begged me to go and rest. I told her very clearly that I must watch See who that person is and why they are teasing us. She told me to ignore it, thinking it was a meaningless prank.

"She said: 'If you're really mad, Hilton, let's go on a trip and get out of it.'

"I was surprised and said: 'What? Let that bastard drive us out of here?'

"She went on to say: 'Go to sleep, honey, and we can discuss it tomorrow during the day, please?'

"While she was talking to me, under the fluorescent light, her face became pale and she held my arm tightly. I saw a dark figure moving in the shadow of the tool room opposite.

"I sneaked around the corner, came to the door of the tool room and squatted down. When I was about to rush out with a gun, my wife hugged me hard and wouldn't let me move. I tried hard to shake her off, but she struggled. He hugged me desperately, and finally I got rid of her. When I ran over there, nothing disappeared. But he drew a row of little people on the door, in the same order as the previous two times. I Draw them on that piece of paper. I've looked all over the yard and there's no sign of the guy. It's just that he didn't go away at all, because when I checked again in the morning, I found nothing but the original In addition to some villains, there are more."

"Do you have the new one?"

"Yes, but it's very short. I also drew it, and it's this one."

He took out another note.

"Please tell me," said Holmes, whose excitement was evident in his eyes, "is this a continuation of the previous line, or a new one?"

"It's painted on another door panel."

"Excellent! This point is very useful for our further research. I think we have hope now, Mr. Hilton Cupid, please finish this interesting story."

"There is nothing more to say, Mr. Holmes, and I was really angry with her at the time. For she held me back when I might have caught the villain who teased us, because she said she was afraid I might Danger. A thought flashed through my mind. Maybe she was related to that person, maybe she was afraid of that person's misfortune. I thought she must understand the meaning of those symbols. But Mr. Holmes, her tone and eyes made me There's no doubt about it, I'm sure she has my safety in mind. That's all I know, and I really need your help right now. I would have asked five or six farm lads to beat him hard Let's see if he dares to come again in the future!"

"This man is very cunning, and I am afraid this simple method will fail him," said Holmes. "How long will you be staying in London?"

"I have to go back today. I'm worried about her being home alone all night. She's nervous and I think she needs me very much right now."

"Perhaps you are right to go back. If you will stay here, I may come back with you in a few days. Give me these notes first, and I will call on you in a short time and help you." Solve this problem."

(End of this chapter)