"The Widow" Bertha

Because Dr. Lang's laboratory is on vacation in the afternoon, it is very easy to climb over the wall from the backyard.

Thomas Thames took the lead in entering the door to check the situation, and after confirming that it was correct, he opened the window and let in Jack "Impossible" and Sherlock Holmes.

"How is the situation?" Holmes asked Thomas as soon as he landed.

"Don't worry, no one is there."

Thomas nodded: "I didn't expect Dr. Lang's laboratory to be so big."

It is indeed very big. The laboratory is rebuilt from an old factory building. It is only one floor, which divides the office area and the laboratory into two general areas. It is spacious and can even be used for horse racing.If Sherlock Holmes had such a comfortable laboratory, he would not have been scolded by the apartment manager for doing experiments in the living room of the apartment.

In response, Holmes said, "We can split up."

Jack: "Then what are we looking for here?"

Holmes thought for a while and made a judgment: "The main purpose of searching the office area is to find research logs or ledgers. If there are any materials that you think are valuable, you can directly bring them to Thames for judgment."

Jack: "What should I do if I find it?"

Thomas couldn't laugh or cry—how long have you known Holmes!Just look up to him.Obviously Thomas Thames is the one who knows each other with "Can't Catch".

Brat!

He slapped Jack lightly on the back of the head: "You find it first."

Jack covered his head and screamed strangely: "If you dare to hit me, I will tell Mrs. Thames!"

The two men, one big and one small, started joking around like this. Holmes raised his eyebrows and didn't bother him. He waited until the play was over before continuing: "I'll be in charge of the laboratory."

"Okay." Thomas had no objection to this, and he didn't understand medicine.

The three split up and Sherlock Holmes turned and went straight to the laboratory.

The huge laboratory can accommodate about seven to ten people at the same time, plus a sufficiently bright office area... Holmes quickly estimated that on weekdays, including Dr. Lang En, the laboratory should have a fixed number of about 15 people.

Due to the vacation, all the equipment in the laboratory was put away, and the whole room was clean.Holmes first fumbled around, confirmed the purpose of each area, and then began to check carefully for the second time.

It's just that he didn't find any special doubts about the raw materials and experimental content.

The finished drug has already been obtained, and the relevant formula has been analyzed. The current contents of the laboratory do not impress Holmes. He puts back the raw materials one by one while wearing gloves, and then tilts his head slightly.

There is a draft.

The laboratory did open the windows so that they could get out as they came in in an emergency, but... a draft?

Sherlock Holmes was suddenly interested.

He turned his head sideways in the direction of the wind, took a step, and walked towards the east wall.The young man stretched out his hand to touch it around, knocked on the wall, and indeed heard the echo caused by the hollow.

Holmes frowned quickly.

Finding the switch for the secret room was not difficult, it was just an old painting hanging next to the wall.The imagination of the middle class when making secret doors is so poor that it is almost pitiful. With such an idea, Sherlock Holmes can even roughly delineate which craftsman in London came from it.

He supported the picture frame and moved it a little, and then heard a crisp "click".

The sound of gears turning faintly came from behind the wall, and then the thin wall opened in response.

What came to the face was a bloody smell mixed with a stench.

With the ventilation in the room before and the large amount of chemical materials in the laboratory, this smell was completely covered up.When the door was opened so abruptly, Holmes felt his breath stagnate, and the pungent smell almost choked his lungs.

Fortunately, he reacted very quickly, and immediately pulled out the handkerchief, covering his mouth and nose.Sherlock Holmes raised his head, and what he saw was a hellish scene——

Even the great detective, who is considered exhaustive in the future, immediately froze in place when he came across such a scene.

But before he could make the next move, Jack's excited footsteps came from behind him.

"gentlemen!"

Jack's shout brought Holmes back to his senses. He immediately raised his hand and pressed the picture frame, and the door of the secret room was closed.

"Sir, sir, Thomas finds—voo, voo, what does that smell like?"

Holmes turned around expressionlessly, collected all his thoughts, and looked at Jack, who had an exaggerated expression and retched constantly: "It's just chemicals. What do you think Thames found?"

"Ledger!"

Jack pinched his nose and replied, "He told me to tell you to go and have a look, let's go, it stinks!"

Holmes nodded: "Let's go."

The detective didn't reveal any signs of seeing anything unusual. He took long legs and followed Jack to the office area of ​​Dr. Langen's laboratory. Thomas, who was wearing a beige coat, stood at the desk and shook the ledger in his hand: "Look what we found."

After speaking, he threw the ledger to Holmes: "The latest page."

Holmes raised his eyebrows, turned back and forward, and then fixed his eyes on the most critical information.

Thomas: "How?"

Sherlock Holmes looked at the ledger and raised the corners of his mouth: "Interesting."

"In addition to the cabinet ministers, Dr. Long also received an anonymous remittance from Liverpool," Thomas said, "I saw that he received the same amount of money every month, and it is obvious that it is not only the research that supports him. Sir James Ward alone."

"This is a new lead."

"My credit," Thomas said triumphantly, "what about you?"

Holmes lowered his head imperceptibly.

He turned his gaze to the boy next to him: "We stayed longer than planned, Jack, can you go out and let the wind go? If any suspicious person approaches the laboratory, alert us immediately."

Jack's eyes lit up when he heard the words: "Of course!"

He followed the two adults out for an "adventure", but he hadn't accomplished anything yet. Jack was in a hurry, and Holmes directly assigned him a task.This made Jack suddenly refreshed. He patted his chest and said, "I'm good at this. Keep looking, I'm outside!"

After finishing speaking, the dexterous boy jumped out of the window like a slippery mouse.

When Jack left, Thomas turned his head, seemingly indifferent, and said, "Tell me, what did you find, and you have to avoid Jack?"

Holmes: "Come with me."

"how?"

"There's a secret room in the lab."

While the two were talking, they turned back to the laboratory. Holmes walked to the hollow wall again. His hand touched the picture frame and reminded: "The scene inside may cause discomfort."

Thomas:?

He sneered, and was just about to say that he had never seen anything, but who was Sherlock Holmes scaring by saying that?However, before the words were spoken, the detective opened the secret door again.

The same stench came over his face, Thomas frowned, and then—

Thomas Thames boasted that he grew up in the Whitechapel District. He was a thief, joined a gang, and wandered on the edge of the law. It can be said that he has an amazing experience.

But he still hadn't seen the scene before him.

Countless black cages were placed in the dark secret room, and there were lifeless livestock and animals lying in the cages. All of them were dripping with blood and mutilated with blood, so Holmes didn't immediately recognize what kind of creatures were in the cages.

But soon Thomas Thames realized that it was not because the light was too dark, nor because the animals were too seriously injured, but because these animals in captivity did not appear in any known biological records at all. .

He saw an artiodactyl with the head of a deer, but with the stripes of a tiger, and a lizard-like tail extending from behind.

He also saw the dying rabbit lying in the cage, but it grew seven or eight legs. After hearing the movement, it opened its eyes in shock, revealing the unique horizontal stripe pupils of goats.

He even saw a lingering chimpanzee, with human-like hands and feet, but deformed due to imbalanced proportions. The heavy body crushed the spine, presenting a semicircle, resembling a human and a beast, almost ferocious.

At that moment, Thomas, who is a Catholic, only felt a chill from the bottom of his heart to the top of his head.

The hell that Virgil once took Dante to visit, I am afraid it is nothing more than this.Suddenly, Thomas seemed to hear the wailing of these animals. The presence of Sherlock Holmes seemed to disappear beside him. The dim scene around him began to collapse and distort, and they all squeezed towards him. The tremendous pressure made it almost difficult for him to breathe——

"The Thames? The Thames!"

Until Sherlock Holmes beside him took Thomas' shoulders.

He suddenly came back to his senses and realized that he was still dripping with cold sweat.

Holmes frowned: "Are you afraid of blood?"

Thomas: "What, no... I'm just not comfortable with it."

Of course, such words could not perfuse Holmes. He looked at Thomas for a moment, but in the end he didn't say much.

"Have you written down the contents of the account book?" He asked.

"Yes... yes, I wrote it down," Thomas wiped his forehead and found that his face was covered with sweat, "Damn it."

"Go and confirm again."

Holmes sensed Thomas' abnormality, and calmly gave him a chance to leave: "I'll see you outside the laboratory later."

"how about you?"

"There are patterns painted on the walls of this dark room."

When Thomas heard this, he subconsciously wanted to turn around again, but Holmes quickly pulled the mechanism off, and the door of the darkroom closed in response.The scene that just caused Thomas Thames to lose his composure on the spot disappeared instantly, and the laboratory became an ordinary chemical laboratory again.

"you--"

Holmes took out the diary and pencil from his pocket with no expression on his face, as if he was about to draw the ornamentation: "Do you have any questions?"

Thomas: "..."

Unexpectedly, this person usually speaks sarcasticly, but in fact he is quite caring.Thomas knew that Holmes was chasing people away on the surface, but in fact, he realized that he had lost his composure and gave him a step down.

No wonder Mrs Thames was so kind to him.A sense of gratitude welled up in Thomas' heart: "Thank you."

Holmes let out an inexplicable "hmm".

After Thomas left, he opened the secret door for the third time.

***

A few hours later, 23 South Bank Street.

Two big boys and one young boy came back from Dr. Lang's laboratory. Thomas told Bertha about the abnormality of the ledger and the existence of the secret room in detail.

Bertha held the pattern of the dark room drawn by Holmes in her hand, and looked upside down for a long time, but couldn't understand what was drawn on it.

Say it is a pattern, but it looks like words; say it is words, Bertha has a lot of experience as a reporter, but she has never seen such words.

"What do you think it is?" Bertha looked at Holmes.

"Like totems, or ancient writings that have disappeared," Holmes said. "I heard from the gypsies that you understand Jamaican aboriginal language and Chinese. Can the lines on it be related to it?"

"No," Bertha shook her head. "Even if there was, it should have been earlier. It's like hieroglyphs. All civilizations are almost eliminated now. You said it was written on the wall of the darkroom?"

"Yes."

Hieroglyphs written in darkrooms where animal experiments are carried out may sound a little too outlandish.

But totems or ancient characters...

Bertha pondered for a moment: "Whether it's the ledger or the things in the dark room, you didn't fumble around and bring them back, did you?"

The two young people shook their heads.

That's good. It sounds like the place in the dark room is a cult sacrifice site. Although Bertha doesn't believe in ghosts and gods, it's better to keep her hands down. If there are any strange chemicals, it will be enough to cause trouble.

"Mr. Holmes."

Bertha came to a conclusion: "I will trouble you to conduct a secret investigation on the lines on it, will it be troublesome?"

Holmes: "Of course not."

Bertha nodded, and then looked at the pale Thomas: "Don't move, wait for my news."

Interestingly, Dr. Long has a remittance from Liverpool on his ledger.

It just so happened that Colonel Dent, a member of the Truth Society, returned from Liverpool yesterday—is there such a coincidence in this world?Perhaps there was, but Bertha would never rule out the possibility of a connection.

Seeing that Thomas was not in good shape, she left the two young men to rest in the house.

While everyone was resting, Bertha found Jack, who was the most energetic, and asked him to send a telegram to Mycroft.

[Dent may have known.

Ms. M] - she gave the information succinctly.

Not long after, Mycroft sent back a telegram: [Thank you.Come back for dinner? ]

Bertha: "..."

What kind of communication between couples living at home is this? Bertha couldn't help laughing, thought for a while, and then sent another telegram: [No, go see Mrs. Fisher. ]

She had discussed with Miss Jane Eyre early on that Mrs. Fisher would bring her with her when she held another salon-this matter became an important arrangement after receiving a donation of [-] pounds from Mrs. Ward.

Back on South Bank Street today, Bertha was waiting for Jane, planning to go to the salon together in the evening.

So after declining Mycroft, Bertha thought that the communication was over, but she didn't expect Bertha to receive a new reply before she left.

[Await your return. ]He said.

Staring at the short words, Bertha raised a corner of her mouth.

The author has something to say: If the content of this chapter is viewed according to the running group:

KP Jiang Hua: Ask PC Holmes to do a reconnaissance.

Holmes: [Scout] 95/100 critical failure

Holmes:? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

KP Jiang Hua: So apart from the experimental animals in front of you, you didn't notice any abnormalities.

KP Jiang Hua: Ask PC Thomas to do a reconnaissance.

Thomas: [Scout] check 65/60 success

Holmes:? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Thomas: Hey, after all, you can't blame the society for being black.

KP Jiang Hua: Then please ask PC Thomas for an inspiration.

Thomas: ...

Thomas: [Inspiration] check 85/70 success

Thomas: ...

KP Jiang Hua: You were shocked by the scene in front of you, and felt a burst of horror. Please PC Thomas to pass a will check. If you succeed, your San value will be reduced by 1, and if you fail, your San value will be reduced by 1D6.

Thomas: ……………

Holmes has no expression on his face: After all, society cannot be blamed for being dark.

This story tells us that if the inspiration is too high and you click on the investigation, don’t just investigate the scene, you will lose san when you walk [x]