Mary's Nineteenth Century

It's just a matter of skiing.

"Ski race, of course I can."

On the surface, Mycroft agreed easily, and seemed not to be under too much pressure to win the skiing.

"Then it's up to you to choose the time and venue. Anyway, you can find suitable ski resorts all year round."

Mary didn't question it, and she also gave a very gentle smile, as if expressing her great kindness-whoever chooses the venue will be more familiar with the local terrain, which can be regarded as putting water on the opponent.

But Mycroft secretly complained, people have self-knowledge, in fact, he understands his own situation very well.

Although I can ski, it is probably a little far from winning.My talent in sports competition is mediocre, not to mention acquired, and I never wanted to make up for my shortcomings through hard work.

When was the last time you skied?

It's not far away, I wandered around casually with my father and younger brother on Christmas last year.

The old house of Sherlock Holmes is in Yorkshire, and there is a wild mountain suitable for skiing every winter nearby, which has become a gathering place for surrounding ski lovers.

Undoubtedly, for skiing, Sherlock is the most active member of the entire Holmes family, but his father's age does not allow him to run as fast as he did when he was young.

As for Mycroft himself?

He has always been easy-going (lazy), and he only needs to participate in family activities, and the degree of participation does not need to be studied.

If he had known today, he would have done his best to become the king of the snow a few years ago.

Now apply for an assignment to go back to Yorkshire to live for a month or two, and I don’t know if it’s still too late to go to the snow mountain to practice every day?

Never lose, as the consequences could be dire.

Assuming that one day his way of proposing makes Mary quite interested and agrees to get married, but has not won the ski race by then, can the two of them wear men's clothing and go to church to get married?

That was not asking a priest to preside over the wedding, but deliberately provoking the authority of the church. There is no doubt that the priests of the church would be hunted down with torches.

"what happened?"

Mary looked at Mycroft. The man's expression was extremely calm, but he just stared at the frame of the carriage without saying a word, and somehow made up something strange in his brain.

After the werewolf speculation, Mary admits that Mycroft's imagination sometimes reaches heights beyond her reach. "Is there anything you want to add? Just say, you know, I'm a good talker."

"It's strange."

Mycroft answered quickly and silently.

If Mary was talkative, at this moment he would not be thinking about whether to ask (kidnapping) a reasonable priest to promise to officiate a wedding of what appears to be a gay couple.

"It's nothing, I'm just thinking about the work arrangement for next year."

In just a few seconds, Mycroft arranged the walking plan, found a short-term assignment in Yorkshire, and then went to the most familiar snow mountain to practice skiing.

He said calmly, "Although I just came back from the United States, according to His Excellency Matthew, I may have to leave London for a while. The thought of saying goodbye to you in the next few days makes me feel very sad."

"Are you an obedient subordinate?"

Mary was sure that Mycroft was going to be lazy; he could think of a thousand and one legitimate excuses for refusing Matthew's assignment.Because he had successfully played Mrs. Roman, there was a certain agreement between him and Matthew, such as not going out involuntarily.

There was a connection to ski racing, a guess immediately popped up.

Although I didn't ask the specific location of Holmes' old house, I also know that there are several good ski slopes in Yorkshire.Presumably, my dear Mycroft plans to go to the most familiar ski field and quietly engage in assault practice.

Mary didn't expose it, and showed some reluctance cooperatively. "You're going on a business trip again, it's really hard work."

Mycroft was sure Mary was pretending to be confused.Traveling is not hard, but becoming a ski master is hard.His lips moved slightly, and the proposal that the two of them should go together was finally silent.

He didn't want to separate again after meeting, and it was a good opportunity to abduct Mary home to meet her parents.But he knew that the cunning Mr. Minton might deliberately create small obstacles for his ski assault practice.

let it go.

Mycroft convinced himself so, and he had to tell his parents something first.

For example, he planned to kidnap, no, he invited a priest to witness the marriage of two newlyweds dressed in men's clothes with emotion and reason.I don't know if I can get the approval of my parents, but I will stick to this bottom line thinking anyway.

**

The next day, Whitehall, as usual, was overwhelmed with government affairs.

"What? You said you'd like to travel?"

Matthew didn't expect that one day Mycroft would take the initiative to ask for a business trip, so he subconsciously glanced at the window.

Today, the sun still rises in the east.

The reflection of the glass window shows that my hair volume is still sufficient, and I am not troubled by the hair loss of my peers.

Everything is obviously normal, why is Mycroft not lazy all of a sudden?

"Mike, you chose to follow up a mission in Yorkshire, is there something wrong at home?"

Matthew immediately thought of Holmes' old house in Yorkshire, "Yes, you haven't been able to reunite with your family for a few days these years, and you missed Christmas this year to deal with the American issue."

Mycroft watched Matthew make up his mind automatically, and in a sense he didn't think wrong.

In the future, dear Mary will also be a member of the Holmes family. This time, returning to Yorkshire is to deal with the small test brought by Mary, which is equivalent to solving family affairs.

Silence is sometimes regarded as acquiescence.

Matthew readily agreed to the assignment application, and he also encouraged Mycroft's behavior.

"Mike, you should walk around more, instead of staying in the office all the time to process documents. I don't need to say more about the principle that those who can do more work. I'm glad that you finally understand my good intentions all the time."

No, I don't want to understand.

Mycroft kept a polite smile, he still wanted to be lazy in his bones.

It's just that I didn't expect that one day something would go deep into the bone marrow without knowing it-the love for a person is to overcome his nature and habits.

"Thank you for approving my application."

Mycroft didn't want to say much, and the sooner he arrived in Yorkshire, the earlier he would practice skiing, but he still had to have some courtesy and etiquette. "Is there anything else I can do for you on my trip to Yorkshire?"

According to the general procedure, if one person asks politely, the other person will politely say nothing.

However, Matthew is not an ordinary person.

"Actually, I just wanted to sigh, Mike, you came at the right time. If you don't come today, I will go find you."

With that said, Matthew took out a personal document from the suitcase.

"I have an old friend, my senior to be precise. Before he died, he wanted to find a reliable private investigator to investigate an old case. The old case happened to be in Yorkshire. You can take a look. If Sherlock is free recently , might as well ask him to go, or do you have a better candidate?"

Whether you are free or not depends on the old case first.

Mycroft knew his brother too well, and Sherlock was not willing to investigate everything.

Open the file bag.

Inside were yellowed and faded maps, hand-painted drawings, and a notebook.

That was an old thing that happened 40 years ago.

In 1833, sensational rumors of snow monsters came out of Mount Saint-Laurent.

The snow monster, with a heavy body, came quietly to the door of its prey.

Spy on the situation of the prey's home through the crack of the door, and swallow the target alive when the prey is alone.

No more, no less, if you eat seven people a year, you will stop.

Later, the locals were afraid to go up the mountain in winter, and most of the victims were unknowing outsiders.

For seven consecutive years, the snow monsters have come out to eat people every year, and they have eaten seven or fourty-nine people.There have also been exorcist teams who tried to capture the snow monster, but they all ended in failure.

Unexpectedly, in the winter of 1840, the snow monster suddenly disappeared, but left a sentence "I will come back".

Seeing this, Mycroft had a lot of doubts in his mind.

Not to mention anything else, just one point, how did the snow monster spread rumors to humans?Do two species actually communicate with each other?

Keep looking down.

Strange legends have attracted outsiders.

Matthew's senior, Joe Ackerman, who became an adventurer after graduating from university and specialized in looking for strange creatures, went to the Saint Laurent Valley where the snow monster is legendary.

In the notes, Ackerman wrote clearly that when he was young, he believed in the existence of monsters.Go to the Saint Laurent Valley and expect to find species that are different from humans.

To his regret, after investigation, he confirmed that the rumor of the so-called snow monster was a misrepresentation of a serial murder case.Instead of man-eating monsters, there are corpses hiding in snowmen.

For seven consecutive years, that is, from 1833 to 1839, seven snowmen were found each year in the Saint Laurent Valley, which contained human remains.

The snowmen used to hide the corpses were placed at the entrances and exits of several villages by the murderers.It is easy to recognize, it is a big ring fatter than ordinary snowmen.

Each year seven snowmen are buried with different body parts, a head, two arms, a torso, two legs, and a pile of internal organs.

It can be determined that the remains of different parts come from different dead people, which means that at least 49 people died.

In the 34s when the incident occurred, the Saint Laurent Valley area was relatively closed.Because the murderous maniac left no clues, the locals were more willing to believe that it was the yeti monster.

The phrase "I'll be back" was discovered on Christmas morning in 1840.

At the entrance of a village, someone built a huge snowman.On the snowman's forehead, that sentence was written in blood-red liquid.

The villagers in the Saint Laurent Valley have all heard the rumors of the yeti. When they saw this bloody yeti, they naturally connected it with the 49 snowmen in the past.

When the snowman was shoveled, instead of finding human corpses in the snowdrifts in the past, he saw a small black dot.

— a dung beetle carcass.

Dung beetles are scarabs.

What does it mean to hide a bug's corpse in a snowman?

At that time, Joe Ackerman also thought about whether it was related to ancient Egypt, but due to the fact that there were too few clues at the time, no more discoveries were made.

The Yeti Killer has been completely silent since 1840, but I don't know when the "I'll be back" line was.

Anyway, more than 30 years have passed, and the same case has never occurred in the Saint Laurent Valley, and the legend of the snow monster has gradually been forgotten by people.

Ackerman turns 63 this year.Because he participated in polar expeditions in his early years, he got sick all over, and it was time to see God.

Looking back on the regrets of this life, the first item on the bucket list is to hope that someone can solve the "Yeti Hiding Corpse Case". He wants to find a reliable investigator and promise him a lot of money to take over the matter.

"Ackerman is willing to pay [-] pounds to investigate this matter. And he knows that time is running out, and it is very likely that he will not be able to wait for the final result, so he entrusts me to find a person with reliable character."

Matthew understands Ackerman very well. His old friend is not short of money, but he has no children.Most of the inheritance is donated, and the rest is to find out the secrets that have not been clarified in the past. "Mike, you also read the information, do you have any suggestions?"

If the scarab in the Yeti didn't turn up, it wouldn't hurt to leave the case to Sherlock.

At the moment, Mycroft must hand over the case to Mary, because it may have something to do with what she has been pursuing.

"At the moment, I'm not sure if Sherlock is free to take up the case."

Mycroft suggested without a trace of personal affection, "Mr. Matthew, I am sure that Mr. Minton has time recently, how about asking him to come?"

Matthew thought about it. Mr. Minton's social survey report on the East End of London was finished, so he shouldn't be busy now.In fact, there is no difference, this one is also a very reliable investigator.

"Okay, you can talk to Minton. Perhaps, you can also go to Yorkshire with Minton to meet the client. In recent years, Ackerman has been living in a villa near the Saint-Laurent Valley for the elderly. Blame him for thinking about the past of the snow monster."

Ackerman actually settled in the Saint Laurent Valley?

This made Mycroft speculate that Ackerman restarted the investigation of the snowman's hidden corpse just because of his last wish before he died?

Or, there are some reasons not to tell Matthew.For example, "I will come back", after 33 years, has this sentence come true?

**

Pickering, Yorkshire.

March 1, early morning.

I do not know when there was a snowman in front of the church.It is very fat, but it doesn't have the slightest naive look, because two big holes have been dug out of its face, which looks very much like the eye sockets that have had their eyeballs removed.

A bright red oozes from the edge of the empty eye socket.