[Comprehensive Classics] Detective Moriarty

"We can't give you that much money."

The bald man roughly flipped through the papers in his hand a few times, then threw them on the table casually.

"Only two shillings for you."

"What?" The woman across the table was very dissatisfied with the result, her green eyes seemed to be on fire, "Last time you said you would give an extra ninepence this time, Mr. Paul."

"You also said, it was last time." Paul naturally ignored her anger, pointing to a line of words on the paper, "Also, this part needs to be changed, you said, the woman you wrote is already 25 years old, But she's not married yet, how is that possible?"

"She didn't find anyone suitable for her, and getting married is just an option. I mentioned this before—"

"Oh, then you can ask other newspapers." Paul waved his hand, not wanting to hear her explanation, "You know, we give the most money here, Shirley."

Ciri, who was interrupted by him, paused, gritted his teeth, and nodded.

"--make a deal."

After leaving the newspaper office, the fair-haired woman put the two silver coins she had just acquired into her pocket, and walked forward quickly under the afternoon sun.

Her face is not very good, probably frustrated with her own submission to the publisher for money.

Thinking back, in her childhood, she never worried about money.Her mother died of illness early, and her father was a self-made maritime merchant who never withheld a dime from her.

What she wants, she can get it with just a word, a movement, or even a look.At that time, she only needed to study and study at home. Where did she have so many troubles such as "what to eat tomorrow"?

But her happy life was broken when she was 16 years old. Her father died at sea. In this era, women have no inheritance rights. Her property was snatched away by vicious dogs from her distant relatives in Derbyshire. kicked her out of the house.

Shirley changed from a rich man to a poor man in an instant.

She knew that judging from her current situation, it was unrealistic to fight for her father's property through the law, after all, the law was always on the side of men.

Then, she will improve her social status.

It is difficult to cross class, except to get married and earn money.With money, you don't have to care about all kinds of gossip at all, you can do whatever you want.

This is the best era. The Industrial Revolution has brought about the rise of the country, the prosperity of the city, and a new wave of ideas.It may be that everyone feels the value of knowledge, and books are especially expensive.

So Ciri chose her childhood hobby, writing, and planned to use it to start the first step.

He earned less than a penny from the initial rejections and had to sell what jewelry he had left to survive.Until she learned to cater to the audience, she was able to write the most popular paragraphs nowadays, in exchange for a few silver coins.

With the most basic living expenses that can be provided for her, she is no longer satisfied with this kind of fast food literature, but wants to create the stories she really wants to write.

This is the worst era again. Few people are willing to look at the growth history of women. They think that as a qualified lady, connotation is not the most important thing. The most important thing is to marry a rich bachelor and spend everything. Just to set off her man's goodness.

She knows she needs to bend over too, and she writes about anything as long as it makes money.She also knew that one day she would completely independently write the story she wanted to write, become famous in one fell swoop, return to the upper class, and then use her interpersonal relationship to get back her property with interest.

Thinking of this, she speeded up again.

She was running late, and in addition to writing, she had to find another job—writing scripts for the theater and doing odd jobs part-time.

"Good afternoon, Ciri."

The conductor boy with a goatee waved at her while fiddling with a small water bottle, bringing her thoughts back to reality, "You're almost late, hurry up, Elsa is losing her temper inside!"

"I'll go right away." The girl lifted her skirt and ran in.

This is where Healy works - the Savoy Opera House.To be honest, in this day and age, a girl working in an opera house will always make people imagine. Actresses at this time are generally courtesans who are mixed in the upper circles.

She didn't care, she was already alone now, and all the distant relatives she hated were in Derbyshire, so she couldn't talk about her.

"Ciri, why are you here now? God, I can't take it anymore!" The blond, blue-eyed actress in the center of the stage kicked up her pink satin high heels, holding a long thin skirt in her hand. The gauze, and stuffed it directly to Shirley, "You still have to do this, that little girl is clumsy, and she made mistakes countless times-I'm really pissed off, does she still want to do it here?!"

"I'm the screenwriter, Elsa." Ciri hugged the ball of fabric, pointing helplessly at the little girl who was scolded by Elsa and said, "She is the one who plays the goddess of spring."

"No one cares who the supporting role is, right? And I think you are much more proficient in hanging wire than her." Elsa didn't look at her, and said arrogantly: "You just need to set off my beauty, remember, Tonight's performance is very important, many aristocrats and celebrities will come - do well, dear Ciri, you look good, maybe you will be spotted by someone, like me - oh of course, better than me Lesser."

Sirin pursed her lips, expressing silence at her fluttering attitude.

"Okay, don't worry about it, hurry up!" Her pale face was blushed with anger, and her small Victorian waist, which was tightened by a corset, trembled slightly due to her eager breathing, "Again In this way, I will also ask the boss to fire you."

Ciri was noncommittal, rolled her eyes inwardly, and ran to the backstage helplessly to change her clothes.

No one likes to be instructed in this way, but Elsa, as the head of the theater and the colonel's lover, can attract many high-class guests, and the boss can let her do whatever she wants if he wants to make money from her.

In order to live, she now has to learn to bow her head.

The repertoire "The Birth of Venus" to be performed tonight is a famous masterpiece of Savo Theatre. The most eye-catching thing is that Venus was born from a huge shell. Confused and ignorant.

At this time, the "Goddess of Spring" played by Ciri will fly out on a steel wire, slowly wrap Venus' almost naked carcass with light gauze, and then fly to the other side of the stage to exit. .

There is no acting requirement, but Elsa just watched her move very neatly when she was hanging the wire to clean the top of the stage.

Well, even though I said that, she couldn't bear to spend the whole afternoon hanging on the wire with the delicate and troubled Elsa.When she felt that her waist was about to lose consciousness, she finally ended the final rehearsal.

At this time, Elsa also waited for her lover, boldly ran to his arms and sat down, said something coquettishly, and commanded the little girl who originally played the goddess of spring to take her drinking cup out of the cup. The lounge brought it over, making the colonel laugh heartily.

Ciri's eyes were originally attracted by their wanton laughter, but they fell on another person.

He was sitting not far from them, his jet-black hair was combed meticulously, but it did not cover the little immaturity on his pretty face, he was looking down at his watch, his eyes drooping, revealing a melancholy look temperament.

If Ciri remembers correctly, he is only 21 years old this year.

This person will remind her of her childhood.

Before her family fell apart, she lived as a neighbor for a time with a young man named James Moriarty.

At that time, she was relying on herself to be two years older than him, even if her father emphasized countless times, "Look at the children in other people's families who can solve equations at such a young age, and then look at you and draw on them with paper" , she didn't take it seriously, went to their house to report every day, forced Moriarty to play house, and then proudly went home and told her father, "I can not only paint on paper, but also in Moriah. scribble and paint on the face."

Well, the ending was naturally that she was dragged by his father to apologize to little Moriarty.

What a joke of fate, time has passed, and now her family is in decline, working as a odd job in a theater, and the price of her articles is constantly being suppressed.

As for Moriarty, everyone has heard of his great name. A while ago, he published a paper on binomial theory, which swept the entire European continent, and some universities offered him an olive branch. At a young age, You can get a math teaching job, which only the math prodigy could do.

Perhaps this feeling was too low, she stared straight at him without recovering, but Moriarty's eyes had already left the dial and shifted to her face.

This was the first time they saw each other in many years.

The embarrassment went straight to Tianling Gai, specifically referring to Shirley.

She quickly looked away. To be honest, she didn't want her former neighbors to see her now.

She turned around and walked quickly, wanting to go backstage immediately and wait for the play to start, but she stopped abruptly when she walked halfway—the tulle was taut, and someone grabbed the other end, obviously not to let it go. she goes.

"Hello, sir." She sighed in her heart, turned around, raised her smiling face, "What's the matter?"

"What a coincidence, Miss Bird, I didn't expect to see you here." His voice couldn't tell what tone it was.

"Oh, it's been a long time." Shirley blinked her eyes, she remembered that they both called each other by their Christian names, but that's fine, she didn't want to appear that they were very familiar, "Are you here?" Watching a play?"

Moriarty raised his eyebrows, obviously not wanting to answer her nonsense.

"Well, everyone in England knows that you have a bright future recently. Congratulations, Mr. Moriarty." She also realized that her words were a little silly, so she immediately adjusted her state and began to compliment.

He curled his lips slightly, and Shirley still remembered that he was expressing the meaning of "well", "that's it", maybe he was a little dismissive.

She thought again, which shows that she was diligent to a certain extent when she went to his house.

"What about you, are you an actor now?"

It has to be said that he did not expect to meet such an old friend when he was waiting for someone.

As for where the "good neighbor" who has been doing for several years has gone, it is based on the boring opera house environment that most arouses his interest.

He only remembered that the owner of these emerald green eyes had proudly told him that her family was never short of money, and that she could buy any house she wanted, and that she could just live here and change places whenever she wanted!

But now, there is a trace of fatigue in these eyes, but they still retain the air of the past, extremely agile.

Then, he casually looked at her pea green costume, focusing on the hand she wanted to pull back the gauze.

Her hands had several healed scars from lacerations, and it was obvious that they were no longer the slender fingers of a rich lady.

She is definitely not experiencing life now.

"I'm a screenwriter, a cameo," she explained.

He groaned and nodded.

He heard something that was about to be concealed.

"Let's talk about the past when you have time. The people over there called me. I'm going backstage. The performance is about to begin." Ciri really didn't want to talk too much to him, so she quickly found an excuse and slipped away.

After doing a simple makeup in the background, a huge curtain opened in front of the stage.

The Birth of Venus begins.

The Savo Theater has been in the limelight recently, and Fuhuadao is the best one at the moment. With a group of performances, it immediately attracted the audience.

As the performance came to a climax, in the eyes of everyone expecting, a huge clam slowly rose along with the artificial pool representing the Aegean Sea. In pearly soft cushions.

According to the script, Elsa should stand up at this point.

Ciri looked anxiously at the auditorium, they didn't notice anything wrong, they were still looking forward to the birth of the Goddess of Beauty, staring at the shells intently.

She turned her eyes back to the clam. Elsa hasn't stood up yet. If she doesn't stand up again, there will be an accident—could it be that she fell asleep? !

She herself clearly said that tonight is very important, but she is so slack? !

Ciri, who was standing high in the sky, felt furious, and wanted to float down first, so as to wake her up by taking the opportunity.

She was hanging on a steel wire, holding a white tulle in both hands, and floated lightly to the center of the stage, thinking of waking her up when she——

Ciri swayed above her, her long brown curly hair all loosened down, swaying slightly following her movements just now, what was supposed to be done was only half done, but it added a bit of weirdness to the picture.

The audience in the seats held their breath and looked forward to it even more. What a bizarre plot this is!

But only Xili knew that at this time, the face of "Venus" in the clam was pale and bloodless, and his arms were powerlessly resting on his abdomen.

Elsa is dead.