Sherlock Holmes Complete Works 2

Chapter 8 Memoirs 8
We climbed five floors and came to a room with the door ajar.Our client knocked lightly on the door, was called in by a voice from within, and we followed.As Hall Pycroft has said, the room was empty and unfurnished, and the man we had just seen in the street sat at the one table with There was the evening paper he had just bought.When I saw his raised face, I was struck by the look of grief on his face.There were bean-sized beads of sweat on his forehead, his cheeks were as dead white as the belly of a fish, and his eyes were staring at his clerk with wide eyes, as if he had met a stranger.

Hall said, "Mr. Pinner, what's wrong with you?"

Pinner replied, "I'm really not feeling well today. What are these two gentlemen doing?" He licked his dry lips and tried to stay calm as he said this.

"These two experienced gentlemen are my friends," said our client, "Mr. Harris from Bermondsey, and Mr. Price from this town. They come to Here's hoping to get a job with your company, because they're both out of work."

Mr. Pinner smiled very reluctantly, and said loudly: "I will definitely do my best for you. There are many positions in our company that are suitable for you. So, Mr. Harris, what are your specialties?"

"I am well versed in accounting," said Holmes.

"Then you are just what I need, and what are you good at, Mr. Price?"

I said, "I've been a clerk for a long time."

"Well, we'll let you know as soon as we've made a decision. But right now, I desperately need quiet, so please get out, all of you."

As if unable to control his emotions, this Mr. Pinner spoke his last words very loudly, and Holmes and I looked at each other.At this moment Hall Pycroft stepped forward, and said: "But Mr. Pinner, you sent me here, don't you forget?"

Pinner immediately recovered his calm tone and said, "Of course I haven't forgotten. If you and your friends are not inconvenient, please wait for me for 3 minutes?" He stood up politely while talking. , walked into another door in the house, and closed the door casually.

"Has he escaped? Is there anything we can do now?" said Holmes in a low voice.

"That's unlikely."

"why?"

"I know that door leads to the suite."

"Is there no other exit in that suite?"

"No."

"Is there any furniture in there?"

"Yesterday, it was still empty."

"Has that Pinner gone mad with fright? What is it that frightens him? What is he doing?"

I reminded: "He must suspect that we are detectives."

"That's right," said Pycroft loudly.

Holmes shook his head, and said: "Actually, you must have noticed that his face was quite pale before we came in, which means that we did not frighten him into such a state, unless..." Suddenly, there was a smile on the other side of the apartment door. A loud knock on the door interrupted him.

The clerk shouted, "Why is he knocking on the door himself?"

We all stared expectantly at the door that was getting louder and louder.Suddenly there was a low guttural grunt and a thud-thumping sound.Holmes rushed forward frantically, and flung at the door.But the door was bolted from the inside, and together we pushed the door down and rushed into the apartment without seeing a single one of us.

There is a small door very close to the place we saw in the corner of the house.Pushing open the door, I immediately found the coat and vest on the ground, and the person who claimed to be the general manager of the Central France Hardware Co., Ltd. hung himself on a hook behind the door with his own trouser strap around his neck.His knees were bent, while his head and body were bent at a wide angle.The thump of his heels against the wooden door was the kind that interrupted our conversation.I threw my arms around his waist, and lifted him up, while Holmes and Pycroft at once unfastened the suspenders from his neck, and carried him into the outer room.His face was gray, and he lay there, his purple lips trembling with slight panting.And all of this happened in less than 5 minutes.

Holmes asked me: "Watson, can you bring him back to life?"

I checked the man and found that although his pulse was weak and intermittent, his eyelids trembled slightly, revealing the white eyeballs, and his breathing became longer and longer.

I quickly said: "Okay, he is no longer in danger. Please open the window, he needs some air." I poured some cold water on his face, untied his collar, and gave him several artificial respirations .Until he naturally let out a long breath, I said, "He's completely fine now."

Holmes stood by the table with his hands in his trouser pockets and his head bowed."It is more appropriate to refer the case to the police," he said.

Scratching his head, Pycroft yelled, "They lured me here on purpose? But... hell, I'm really confused."

"It seems quite clear to me," said Holmes impatiently, "that he did it for this last act."

"So, have you figured out anything else by now?"

"I don't think the matter is difficult to understand, what do you think, Watson?"

I shrugged and said, "I still don't get it."

"If we think about these things carefully beforehand, we can come to conclusions relatively quickly."

"What the hell do you know?"

"Actually, there are two central links. The first is that ridiculous company service statement written by Pycroft. Do you understand now?"

"No, I'm afraid not yet."

"If you think about it, this written statement is not appropriate to infer from common sense. Because this kind of arrangement is usually only made orally, and the reason why they broke the convention and used words this time is because they really want to get your handwriting."

"But what use is my handwriting to them?"

"Answering that question would take us a big step forward in the case, and the only reasonable explanation for it is that someone is paying a lot of money to get your handwriting in order to imitate it. When you see By the second major link, you'll know what they're up to. Remember when Pinner wouldn't let you resign? The reason he did it was because he wanted the manager of that business to decide that Monday morning Hall Pycroft, whom he has never seen before, is going to work."

Our client exclaimed annoyedly: "I am really short-sighted!"

"Now let's answer your question: You can think about it, if a person goes to work instead of you, his handwriting is different from yours, and it is very likely that he will be recognized as a fake by others. Therefore, they must Find a way to get your handwriting and imitate it. That way, they won't reveal it."

"No one there really saw me," said Hall Pycroft despondently.

"And the important thing about whether this matter is successful is to prevent you from having any contact with any insiders, so that you don't know that someone has replaced you to work in that company. So they can only send you to another area, using A good salary and many jobs to keep you, so that the conspiracy will not be exposed by others."

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

"There are obviously only two people in this group, and one of them has already gone to Mawson Company instead of you, and because he doesn't want a third person to know about this conspiracy, the other has to pretend to be two brothers. He actually concealed it very well , if you hadn't stumbled upon the secret of that false tooth, you would never have suspected it. As you said, at first, you just thought that the two brothers looked very much alike."

Hall Pycroft kept shaking his fists in the air, and cried, "Well, what's that fake Hall Pycroft doing in Mawson's while I'm here? Tell me, please!" What should be done, Mr Holmes?"

"We must now send a telegram to Mawson Trading Company."

"But they always close at twelve o'clock on Saturdays."

"If our telegram goes to the guard or the janitor..."

"Oh, when I was in town I remember hearing people say they had a standing guard for the protection of their valuable securities."

"That's just what I like, send them a quick telegram and see what's going on over there. Ask if there's a clerk with your name on the office there, but I can't understand why the crook sees me Are you going to hang yourself?"

Suddenly, there was a hoarse sound behind us, and the original liar sat up again.His eyes were apparently back together by this time, and he was running his hands over his throat.

He called hoarsely: "Newspaper."

Holmes suddenly exclaimed excitedly: "I am a stupid pig, I have thought about it, but I have not thought of the newspaper at all! The secret of his wanting to hang himself must be in this newspaper. Let us see, this is the early edition of "London." The Evening Standard, headlined in large print 'Robbery in town. Murder at Mawson and Williams, Watson, convict arrested in grand planned robbery.' That's why he hanged himself, Watson. Read it out loud."

This report occupies the front page of the newspaper, which shows its significance. I read:

"A very vicious and vicious robbery occurred in London this afternoon. As a result, one person died, and the murderer has also been brought to justice. A few days ago, in order to protect the huge amount of securities of millions of pounds deposited in the securities firm, Mo Sen and Williams Securities has intentionally hired a guard and has purchased some state-of-the-art safes, which are guarded day and night by an armed guard. Last week the firm hired a new recruit named Hall Pycroft. An employee, but the employee was the notorious counterfeiter and robber Bennington, who, along with his brother, had just been released after serving five years in prison. No one knows how Beddington impersonated And how he was hired by the company, while in the company, he learned about the setting of the safe with the help of the model of the key.

"According to the past practice of Mawson's, the staff have a holiday at noon on Saturday. At [-]:[-] in the afternoon, a Scotland Yard policeman named Tucson saw a staff coming out with a felt handbag. Suspicious, he followed him for a while, and with the help of police officer Pollock, the stubbornly resisting criminals were captured. Amtrak bonds worth nearly [-] pounds were searched from the handbag, and mining and other kinds of bonds were also found. When the police went back to search the house, they found the unfortunate guard's body bent and stuffed into the safe, his skull crushed from behind with pokers. It was speculated that Beddington must have been Pretending to have forgotten something, he turned back to the building, killed the guard and quickly ransacked all the valuable securities in the safe, and was caught when he tried to escape with the stolen goods. In addition, the thief used to commit crimes with his younger brother , but in the current investigation, there is no reliable evidence in this regard, and the police are doing their best to investigate."

Glancing at the curled up dying man, Holmes said, "Man himself is a strange mixture. Even murderers and thieves have the feeling that a younger brother commits suicide when he hears that his elder brother is going to die. But you and I Stay and watch him, and as for Mr Pycroft, please give the police a call."

(End of this chapter)