"The Widow" Bertha

"What's the question? Naturally, it's your connection to that 'light', Pastor White."

As these words fell to the ground, the hotel room fell into a brief silence.

Pastor White sat on the bed and quietly looked at Bertha who was dressed in black. Knowing that this question could not be solved, the pastor sighed tiredly.

Bertha raised her eyebrows, then took out her handkerchief and handed it over: "Wipe off your sweat."

This made Pastor White blush: his clothes were already soaked with sweat, and the smell must be bad, which is too rude.

"Thank you."

Pastor White took Bertha's veil in embarrassment, and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Then he raised his head: "Madam, I don't understand what your question refers to...Madam?"

"Huh? I'm listening."

That's what I said, but Bertha turned around and took out a magazine from behind her. She flipped through the magazine casually without looking up: "Of course you understand what I'm asking, Martha Garrison's grave was buried What were you talking about that night after most of the planing?"

"I said that I sent Dr. Lear away, opened the curtains before going to bed, and saw a light."

"uh-huh."

"Are you asking me what happened that night, ma'am? But I..."

Pastor White showed a bit of difficulty: "What I said is all the truth. When I came back to my senses, the person was already standing in front of the cemetery with an iron pick."

Bertha tilted her head impassively.

She didn't reply, but continued to flip through the magazine in her hand. For a while, the only sound in the room was the rustling of pages.

"Ah, I found it!"

In the end, Bertha broke the weird atmosphere, her brisk tone seemed to win some game.Bertha's fingers rested on one of the pages of the magazine, and then she showed the page to Pastor White: "Does it look familiar?"

Pastor White glanced at the page, his pupils constricted.

All his next words were blocked.

Only then did Bertha look directly at Pastor White who was frozen in place, with an almost smug expression: "You know me? That's great, I can catch a live one."

The magazine she took out was "Medical and Scientific Research" provided by Mrs. Bartz, and the page shown to Pastor White clearly printed the totem symbol of the Truth Society with double meanings.

"So that's what I was asking about." Pastor White came back to his senses and smiled wryly. "Before answering your question, can I ask a question first?"

"Please."

"How did you know I had anything to do with it, ma'am?"

"I do not know."

Bertha laughed viciously: "I lied to you."

Pastor White: "..."

Yes, there is no evidence that Reverend White is a member of the Truth Society, nor is there any indication that he is connected to Jack the Ripper.But he is a student of biology, and he claims to have seen a "light".

And the symbol of the Truth Society is both a creature and a light, isn't it a coincidence?

There was one piece missing from the puzzle, and Reverend White happened to be in the middle of the two lines - seeing "the light" near the tombstones of Jack the Ripper victims, and what he looked like after seeing "the light" It happened to be exactly the same as Thomas's distraught posture at the time.

Bertha naturally wanted to hold on to him firmly.

To be reasonable, she is the leader of a gang, and she is still the kind who bluffs and deceives under the guise of feudal superstition. She never needs evidence to do things. Bertha is best at using words to fish for law enforcement.

It was just a trick to cheat him, but I didn't expect that there would be a windfall.

"So you're investigating this matter, ma'am," Pastor White said helplessly after knowing that he had been fooled, "How much do you know about this symbol?"

"The other way around, the cliché will be avoided, pastor." Bertha was not fooled at all, "tell me how much you know."

"This is the totem of an indigenous tribe in South America. The totem worshiped by the locals is not a real animal, but a creature that only appeared in rumors. It exists in the form of light," the priest replied fluently, "This symbol is translated means, 'a touch of color from among the stars'."

"A touch of color?"

"Yes, the local tribes believe that this color from the stars is alive, it is a guide, but wherever this light shines, all living things will enter its body, become a higher existence, and eventually follow it to leave the earth , to the stars."

"..."

So here comes the question, since this "creature" exists in the form of light, where does the light come from in the body?

This kind of rumor sounds very in line with the painting style of the legends and stories of the indigenous tribes, but it has nothing to do with the biology on the earth, even the biology of the 21st century.

But anyway, Bertha finally knew what their totem symbols meant after so long in the Search for the Truth Society.

It's kind of romantic, isn't it?She curled her lips: "It looks like I have to thank the murderer for sending a clue that he hasn't gone crazy."

The pastor laughed out loud, "How can you be sure that I'm not crazy, ma'am?"

Bertha was taken aback.

"I did forget a lot of things, not just that night. This is not just to put you off, Mrs. Thames," the young man in front of me explained, "In fact, Doctor Lear came to visit me that day, and it wasn't just to reminisce about the old days. He was Came to see me. Dr. Lear had no idea I was going to be like this."

"What does it look like?"

The pastor said nothing.

He just looked at Bertha with those clear eyes.

To be honest, Reverend White is a good fit for the priesthood, if you put aside the messy case mystery.Perhaps it was the reason for these eyes, when he looked at Bertha quietly, she only saw a bit of divinity beyond life and death.

Before that, Bertha had only seen such clean eyes on the face of little Alex, but little Alex was only three years old.

"I discovered this symbol, ma'am," Pastor White finally said. "At that time, I had just graduated from university and followed my mentor to South America for field research. I and other expedition members discovered this symbol in a ruin."

"I don't think anything good happened next."

"Yes, only I survived. I was sick in bed for three months. All the doctors said I would not live long."

Recounting the past disasters, Pastor White’s expression was indifferent. He even twitched the corners of his mouth slightly, as if he was just chatting with a friend: “My mentor has already started to make funeral arrangements for me, but after the pastor read the Bible for me, ", I got better miraculously."

"It sounds like a corny missionary story, but it is," said the pastor. "I went back to London and decided to become a priest. Since Christ saved me, I should save others instead of him. One The pastor in the Whitechapel district passed away a few years ago, and everyone was unwilling to take over this mess. At that time, I thought, maybe this is the will of the gods, and he hoped that I could do something."

"Who is your mentor?"

"I do not remember."

"..."

Seeing Bertha's speechless expression, Pastor White couldn't help laughing: "So I said, how can you be sure that I'm not crazy, ma'am?"

Bertha was suddenly a little upset.

There are good clues in front of him, but he can't remember? !This feeling is like an agent who got a hard drive with secrets at a critical moment to save the world, but when he connected it to the computer, the hard drive was broken and not much content could be read.

But it doesn't matter, the other person is still alive, and clues can always be found.

"Do you often have such fragmented thinking?" Bertha could only ask.

"It's been a long time since I became a priest," replied Reverend White. "The last time it happened...was the first night of the Ripper crime."

Bertha's eyes widened slightly: "You—"

"Yes, I suspect I did it after I lost my mind."

The priest sitting on the bed spoke almost sadly.

There was a bit of sincerity in his clear, childlike eyes: "Madam, since you doubt me, is there any follow-up action against me?"

Bertha took a deep breath.

"Yes," she responded calmly, "I originally planned to use your poor health as an excuse to let my people monitor you."

"Then it's better to send a few more," Pastor White said earnestly, "I'm afraid I will hurt you my friend."

What else could Bertha say?

According to Pastor White's dictation, it seems that after seeing the symbols of the Truth Society, he experienced a cognitive error in his brain.The most typical symptom is what he always said "I don't remember" - I can't remember what I did in a short time in the past, and I can't tell what happened in the past, and I even forgot the name of my mentor.

In addition, he just started to have a fever after the last thought fragment, and Bertha suspected that Pastor White's mistake in understanding was caused by inflammation, and it was probably encephalitis.

But she was not a doctor, and there was no reasonable Victorian medical treatment for encephalitis, and Bertha could only watch him smile and find that there was very little she could do.

It was a terrible feeling of helplessness.

Even in the nineteenth century, this was the first time Bertha had experienced the limitations of her abilities.

She breathed a sigh of relief: "... I see, I have one last question, Pastor."

"Please, ma'am."

"Does Dr. Lear know the general situation? Since he is your college classmate."

"He knows part of it," Pastor White finally gave the answer this time, and the young man even joked, "At least he should know which university I graduated from, and the name of my advisor."

Bertha could not laugh.

She just watched Pastor White, who was sitting on the bed, laugh out loud, and then the young man frowned suddenly, shaking like a headache, and then fell to the ground.

—Damn it.

In order to prevent the pastor from falling headfirst to the ground, Bertha had to stand up and help him, and then the young man crashed directly into her arms.

Bertha: "..."

After the fever subsided, Reverend White's body temperature was very low, perhaps due to sweating.Bertha's palm fell on the young man's shoulder, separated by a thin layer of shirt fabric, she only felt that her hand was almost scalding against the cold temperature.

and--

If it were any other lady, she might be stunned on the spot, but Bertha was not an aboriginal in the [-]th century. When she touched Pastor White's skin, she felt that something was wrong. She simply reached out and touched the young man's back. Passing through a rough ravine.

Even three-year-olds know that human backs are supposed to be smooth.

Is it a scar?

Just before Bertha hurriedly helped him back up, the door of the hotel bedroom opened suddenly.

"what."

A familiar male voice came from the door, and Bertha turned her head just in time to meet the gaze of Mycroft Holmes.

For a moment, the atmosphere in the room was almost stiff. When the man in suits and leather shoes touched Bertha and the pastor who were almost embracing each other, he raised his eyebrows in an imperceptible arc.

"Excuse me," he said in an unshakeable and polite tone, "do you need me to call a doctor?"

Bertha: "..."

Human life is at stake, so don't be so weird at this time, okay!