Mary's Nineteenth Century

telepathy?

Mary is sure not to communicate this advanced skill with anyone.

The lack of a rare skill does not prevent her from still wanting to take the risk of trying the witch doctor's so-called psychic dreaming.

"Mr. Holmes, you must have a sense of balance."

It is rare for Mary to become an earnest persuader, "Don't overestimate our ability, it is unrealistic to sense each other's thought activities through a door; don't underestimate our ability, I will not be stupid when dealing with Guru's so-called spellcasting." Stupidly eat what he gives."

Mycroft raised his eyebrows slightly, "Are you sure? What if you are asked to take dream medicine?"

Mary smiled, "Do you want me to perform an impromptu magic trick with hidden medicine in your sleeve for you?"

Just a little bit, Mycroft was about to nod.

Fortunately, his powerful reason rebuked his subconscious behavior.What kind of magic is watching, do you still want to appreciate how Mr. Minton fooled him face to face?

Mycroft resumed his usual calm tone, "I'm not interested in magic. Mr. Minton, you'd better do things in a proper manner as you said, otherwise please don't blame me for not being able to rescue you outside the door in time."

"How can I blame you, Mr. Holmes?"

Mary said with certainty that it was her own choice, and even if something happened, it would be no different from anyone else.

After the conversation, the two of them finally failed to hunt even half an animal, and today's fresh meat supplement was hopeless.

Return to the witch doctor's courtyard, continue to wander around on the surface, and walk all the places that can be walked while the sky is bright.

Even if the attendant is indifferent to answering, he can still dig out some situations by insinuating.

The attendant is named Felic, and he has been working here for fourteen months.

Before him, the witch doctor Guru also hired other attendants.It is said that because the attendants were getting old and no longer fit to live in the forest, they were sent home.

Today, Filige needs to deal with various chores and take care of medicinal plants, including watering, cold protection, and insect protection every day. The specific steps are taught by the witch doctor.

During the fourteen months that Filig worked, he saw Guru treat eight patients.All are wealthy people, but patients must obey the Guru's rules.

The specific treatment process is not known, the patient generally can only bring a coachman and a servant, and then live in the Black Forest for a while.

Relatively speaking, Guru has never been out of the forest for consultation, and he does not know how he communicates with patients outside.

Lead by drug dealer Bell.

Although Feilige lives here, he doesn't know more about things.

For example, there is no understanding of the medicinal value of the herbs that are grown every day, or even their names.Another example is that he regularly went outside the forest to buy daily necessities, and he didn't know if Guru had seen other people during the time he was away.

However, Felic still revealed a piece of news inadvertently.

Now the medicine garden he manages is much smaller than before, and some herbs are no longer planted.

"Such as golden phoenix. This kind of flower was planted in the medicine garden before, but it is no longer planted now."

Mycroft bought a box of dried flower bookmarks from Filig for ten pounds.

There are no entertainment items in the Black Forest. In his spare time, Filig would make flowers into bookmarks to pass the time, and he could also sell them in the town to earn extra money.

At present, the bookmarks purchased by Mycroft are the inventory that Filig has not sold.

"These dried flowers were collected by Felig in the medicine field when he first came to work fourteen months ago. It can be seen that none of them are local flowers in the Black Forest. Although Felig can't name the species of flowers, he is not stupid. , knowing they'd fetch a good price."

The small towns around the Black Forest were not satisfied with Filig’s asking price. The shops in the small town thought that the asking price for the special dried flower bookmarks was too high to sell at all. The consumers of such bookmarks were scholars with spare money in big cities.

Today, Mycroft bought all of them, and it can be identified that most of the dried flower raw materials are flowers from Australia and America. "These flowers are not all varieties that can be used as medicine, and there are also ornamental plants, but all of them are not planted now."

why?

The witch doctor Guru stayed in the Black Forest for ten years, why didn't he grow those plants?

A temporal coincidence point can currently be identified.

More than a year ago, the witch doctor Guru got a new attendant, Filig.It was also at that time that he started working with the drug dealer Bell and changed the way he practiced medicine.

In the past, the Guru was a mysterious witch doctor specializing in mental illness in the mouth of the townspeople, but the one I met today has yet to be evaluated.

At least make sure that this witch doctor doesn't understand spiritism, otherwise it wouldn't be possible to say that Mrs. Roman is really dead.

"The skeleton corpse in the cave, entangled with golden phoenix flowers and withered vines, probably died one to two years ago."

Mary picked up the Goldilocks bookmark, "We suspected that the bone was Moody, a plant merchant, and you said that Moody disappeared after selling his assets in 13 years. Let's talk again

What Moody and Bell have in common, they both know the "Red Shoes" nursery rhyme. "

The clues are scattered like a mess of wool. Several people seem to be related, but it is hard to say that there is any deeper intersection.

The next moment, when the timeline was integrated, a terrible guess suddenly emerged.

Mary: "Switch."

Mycroft: "Turning the sun for the sun."

The two of them guessed a possibility in unison, whether the witch doctor Guru in the past had been killed, and the one alive now is an imposter murderer.

"Mr. Minton, have you heard the rumors of Epping Forest in London? The highwayman Dick Turpin hid in it in the early 18th century, and specialized in intercepting travelers."

Mycroft mentioned the famous horror forest in Britain not because it is haunted, but because it is a place where corpses are dumped and criminals hide.

Mary understood immediately, "It is also a forest, and the Black Forest is also inaccessible, and it can also be a hiding place for dangerous elements."

What does a real Witch Doctor Guru look like?

Coincidentally, I haven't met anyone who met him ten years ago.

Combining the current clues to reorganize the timeline, we can boldly assume a possibility.

Moody, a plant merchant who studied medicine, sold his company and became a witch doctor Guru ten years ago for some reason.

The witch doctor Guru is good at psychotherapy, but he doesn't want patients to mention everything related to him because he doesn't want to reveal his identity.

Moody has rich experience in purchasing overseas plants, and it is not surprising that he can grow overseas unique flowers in the Black Forest.

A peaceful life passed for a long time, until an accident occurred more than a year ago.Someone murdered Moody and took Guru the Witch Doctor instead.

Moody took the buttercup seeds with him when he fled, and he eventually fell into a pile of bones in the cave, using buttercups as a metaphor for being ungrateful and betrayed.

In the metaphor of ingratitude, Moody is gracious to the perpetrator.

The perpetrator may have fled to the forest to avoid disaster, and Moody took him in, but he was killed after getting along for a while.

It is difficult for the outside world to know what happened in the depths of the Black Forest, as long as the former attendants are replaced.Those old attendants were not necessarily fired and persuaded to return home when they were old, but were killed to silence them.

After all, for the past nine years, those old attendants have been living in the forest with little contact with the outside world, and there should not be many family ties.Whether they live or die, I am afraid

Few people in the world will care.

Later, the fake witch doctor hires the less alert Felig.

Because of his substandard medical skills, he can only cooperate with the drug dealer Bell to make money.

In the house, Mary and Mycroft gathered together at a table and silently wrote out these conjectures.The more you write, the more smoothly you write. If Tao Dai Li Zong had a fake witch doctor, those contradictions would be explained.

There is one more person in this timeline.

Ben Baden, who disappeared a year ago after listening to the fairy tale of the red shoes.

"Ben Barden, 37, eight years old, engaged in overseas trade after graduation."

Mary recalled those tiny clues, "Baden didn't continue his original job on the grounds that he didn't want to work anymore. His gambling skills were not good, and he lost a lot of money in the Leisure Palace. Under such circumstances, there is no rush to make money again. , but thought about going on a trip.”

What is the truth?

At Ben Baden's age and he is also engaged in the maritime trade business, will he have an intersection with the plant trader Moody?

At least there was a slight connection, and both of them paid attention to the content related to "Red Shoes".

The red shoes also appeared at the death scene of the drug dealer Bell. What does it mean?

In addition, the croupier Singh stole the antique pocket watch. Was it given to the witch doctor as medical expenses?If so, did the witch doctor value the value of the antique variable cash, or does it have a special meaning in itself?

"Nursery rhymes with antique watches and red dancing shoes."

Mary tried to find the connection between the two, "Mr. Holmes, you have been entrusted to retrieve the family pocket watch of the Marquis T. Do you have a deeper understanding of this watch?"

"Unfortunately, no."

There was only one mention in the information Mycroft received, "It was an antique handed down from the time of Queen Elizabeth in the 16th century. I didn't mention much other than that. However, I remember a secret related to the Marquis T. The Marquess of T almost died in a Pacific sea storm 13 years ago when he was on holiday at sea, and he has hardly left the UK since then."

13 years ago, a familiar figure.It was the time when Moody, a plant businessman, sold his assets and disappeared from the world.

And he was a man who had gone to sea.Moody, Marquis T, and Ben Baden have all gone to sea.

"There's definitely a deeper connection between these people."

Mary didn't believe there were so many coincidences, "Perhaps, the key to unlocking the answer is hidden in nursery rhymes."

"Elizabeth's red shoes, I can't stop.

jump, jump, yes

Corondo's whisper.

Everywhere was red, red that turned to ashes.

At the end of red, break that shackle, and you will have a brand new world. 』

The two looked at this nursery rhyme, and it seemed easy to understand at first glance.

That is to say, the dance can't be stopped, it's full of blood, and if you break this spell, you can get a new life.

"There are two names in the whole story. Elizabeth and Corondo, the former is a common name, and the latter is a fictional character."

Mycroft pointed out, "Collendo, from Beowulf, a long English narrative poem around the eighth century AD. Do you understand, Mr. Minton?"

Mary shook her head. She was not a fan of pure literature, and she didn't dabble much in pre-Renaissance narrative poetry.

"All I know is that Beowulf is a heroic poem about how the main character, Beowulf, fights monsters. Grendel is one of the main monsters."

Mycroft was no literary lover either.Otherwise, I would not have read Shakespeare with Mr. Minton, but did a study on mathematical probability using Shakespeare's anthology.

"I also skipped the specific plot of the epic poem, but I am sure that Columbus has nothing to do with dancing, it only kills and eats people cruelly."

Since Columbus is not a monster related to dancing, why is it written in the nursery rhyme of the red shoes?

There are many legends about monsters in Europe, why did you choose this one?The possibility of blind selection is too low, because Corondo is not a well-known character, it is better to write "Satan" that children know.

There is still a missing link to solve the puzzle, which requires confronting the suspected fake witch doctor.

In the so-called process of summoning Mrs. Roman's undead, he tried to find out the flaws of the current witch doctor.

Mary is ready, not forgetting to kill drug dealer Bell's poisonous spider.Once there is a problem with the psychic dreaming the day after tomorrow, the witch doctor will be knocked out directly.

The excuse is ready-made, because she is in the state of meeting the undead, so she can't control her fist, and mistakenly regards the witch doctor as an evil spirit.

**

With such a plan, the so-called treatment day came in the blink of an eye.

Sure enough, Mycroft was not allowed into the consulting room together.I could only watch Mr. Minton and the suspicious witch doctor enter the room one after the other, and then his sight was blocked by a thick wooden door.

This will find that the sound insulation measures in the consulting room are good.There was a door, and the normal voices in the room could not be heard clearly.

At this point, the only thing to do is wait patiently.

Mycroft looked at the closed door expressionlessly, and refrained from pacing back and forth in the aisle, but stood silently as if he didn't care much.

He moved his fingers, and suddenly felt that it was not unreasonable for Sherlock to smoke sometimes, or it could help relieve his emotions.

Now, nervous or worried?

No, no.

Mycroft could still comfort himself, at least he wouldn't be lying on the door to eavesdrop now.This is still a gentleman, isn't it?