[Sherlock Holmes] The Legend of the Nightingale

(Nightingale's Diary)

In the morning I suddenly felt something was wrong.Holmes lived a relatively regular life when he had no cases. He often had already finished his breakfast while I was washing up, so I was not worried that he would simply not see his guests.But I overlooked another thing.

At breakfast, I sat next to Mrs. Hudson, looking across at Watson, who was neatly tidied up, dressed in a neat shirt, and well-mannered at the table, and next to him was a pair of pajamas and a black suit jacket. Sherlock Holmes with his hair disheveled like a waif.It never seemed to me that there was anything wrong with it. It took me the whole breakfast to realize that Holmes didn't care about appearance at home, and that his pale, cocaine-heavy look was a perfect match for the perfection I had made up earlier. The image is almost a devastating blow.Thinking of this, I feel like I'm choking on the bread that goes with my mouth.

"Holmes, Miss Doran will be here in a moment."

"Oh." Holmes stirred the coffee like an artist mixing colours.No matter what the appearance is, the elegance in the bones has never changed.Watson glanced at me and shook his head slightly, meaning to give up.

Not only did Holmes decide to meet a lady in this manner, but he also allowed guests to inquire about his work with unprecedented generosity.After Mrs. Hudson finished packing the dishes, Holmes went back to his room and spread out his chemical instruments all over the room, saying that Miss Dolan could visit them if she wanted to.Watson seemed touchingly normal at the moment.He sat in the living room organizing his notes.

Doorbell rang.I went and opened the door.Henrietta Dolan was standing at the door, still holding a present in his hand.I led her in and introduced her to Watson in the drawing room.

"Where's your teacher?" Hatty looked at me with bright green eyes. "Is he home?"

"Yes." I kind of wanted to tell a lie. "Experiments in his room. Would you like to see?"

Watson is right that the detective and his outlandish technology have an enduring appeal to young women.Hatty took no notice of my unnaturalness, and dragged me into Holmes' room.

The room was like a wizard's alchemy room.Holmes, with a pale, thin face and heavy dark circles under his eyes, was sitting behind glass containers and tubes of various shapes, and was holding a test tube up to his eyes for careful observation.

"Holmes, this is Miss Henrietta Doran," I said aloud.

"Welcome, Miss Doran, please take a seat," said Holmes in a tone of endorsement, with a standard Cockney accent that sounded like a spell.He didn't look up.

"Thank you, no need." Hatty's smile froze a bit.It must be that Holmes's gloomy demeanor contrasted too much with the unrestrained image in her mind, and she was frightened. "What kind of experiment is this?"

"The different reactions between hemoglobin and the three toxins." Holmes picked up the dropper, sucked a little from the medicine bottle, and prepared to add it to the test tube.

"What's the use of this?"

Holmes paused for a moment before raising his eyes to look at Hatty and me. There was a hint of coldness in his lazy eyes.

"That is to say, if one day you are killed by one of these three poisons, I can know which one it is by testing your blood-of course, who knows if it will still be 'blood' at that time, Because sometimes it’s quick.”

Having said this, Holmes bowed his head again.Hattie looked at me in horror, and I smiled dryly.

"Which means—I'll explain to you later—hey, the eyedropper is on the wrong side."

Holmes remained silent, and straightened the dropper again.

"What difference does it make?" Hatty asked again.

"If you tilt it sideways, you'll hit the tube wall, and putting the burette back in will contaminate the reagents."

"If there is nothing else, let's go to the living room."

"..."

I knew it would be this result.No matter what he thought, Holmes had always left a gentlemanly impression on ladies, and this was the first time he had successfully ruined his image in a lady's mind.Watson was still busy with his own business in the drawing room, and Hattie and I sat beside him.

"Doctor Watson." She spoke first.

"Huh?" Watson hurriedly put the cap on his pen and closed his notebook, ready for a serious long talk.

"Are you also involved in solving the case?"

"Yes. To be precise, it is to record the process of solving the case."

Hatty smiled. "You're too modest. I wonder if there's any good case to tell?"

"Of course. I don't know if you have read the 'Study in Scarlet'?"

"Not yet. I didn't care much about that before."

"That's okay, I can tell you about it now..."

Watson happily started to talk about the "Study in Scarlet" that I had heard no less than a thousand times. The two clean and beautiful people chatted with great interest, and both were a little childish.As soon as I heard the opening lines of "Revenge" and "Miss Rachel" in German I knew fluently, I escaped from the living room and hid in Holmes' alchemy room.He didn't even look up from the glass.

"Clean this test tube for me." The slender fingers pinched the test tube and shook it up.I walked over and took it.When I went outside to pick up water, I passed by the full-length mirror at the door and took a look at myself.The shoulder-length hair was tied casually with a headband, the bangs were messy, and the dark green dress belonged to my mother.Even Mrs. Hudson said I should dress brighter, but I can never remember those things.I thought of Hatty Dolan in the drawing room, juicy and fragrant like plump fruit.This is the first time I feel this difference.Compared with such women, there are also men like Watson.

Looking at the test tube in my hand, I thought, I really belong to the alchemy room.

Holmes was right in saying that a woman cannot help but worry about such trifles.But why not worry?Why did he himself make a mess at home, but clean it up so carefully before going out?Thinking of this, I actually wanted to laugh a little, but I didn't laugh.

What am I doing.

"Nightingale, test tube."

I just came back to my senses, and when I looked back, I found Holmes' hand sticking out from behind the pile of glass and had been hanging in the air for an unknown amount of time.

"Sorry, I lost my mind."

"I know you're distracted. You stared at the mirror for a full minute, thinking about your dressing style and other appearance issues."

I sighed, honestly went outside to clean the test tube, and then came back and put it in Holmes's still-hanging hand, not wanting to ask him why he knew what I was thinking.

"Lost?" said Holmes suddenly, which startled me.He was still concentrating on adding reagents to the test tube I gave him just now, usually at this time he would not be single-minded.

"A little bit." I sat down next to him, curled up on the chair with my knees in my arms, and stared at the things in the test tube.

"So I didn't want to teach girls. See the foam?"

"Can't see it. Get closer."

Holmes moved the test tube a little nearer.

"No matter how invisible you are, you can't get any closer, or you will be in danger of being disfigured."

"What the hell am I doing?" I whispered. "I'm a girl. A student of literature. Even if you were initially interested in the so-called talents I might have, I haven't been of any help in solving the case for a year, and I haven't made any progress."

"When did I say you weren't making any progress?" Holmes said as if he was absent-mindedly turning the test tube 360 ​​degrees slowly.

"I feel that way."

"Your feelings prove nothing."

I think Holmes took a little too long with that test tube.As if finally unable to think about two things at the same time, he gently put the test tube back on the shelf.

"Why did you bring up the subject so suddenly? I don't think anything happened. Are you still worrying about that incident in Brook Street?"

I don't say anything.

"Troublesome girl." Holmes showed a bit of a piquant smile, "I will decide your level in this course. I don't think it's a wrong decision to keep you."

"I'll just make a fool of you." I didn't want to see his expression while speaking.

"As long as you don't be so sentimental like a woman in the future, you won't be ugly. Sorry, you are a woman."

If it weren't for the bad feeling in my heart, I think I would definitely beat him.

"You're not like them."

"You mean Hattie?"

"you can say it this way."

"Probably so," I looked up at him, "but I don't know what will happen to me if I go on like this. Maybe I can't learn, and I can't be a normal person."

"She belongs to the powder cake and the vanity mirror, and you," Holmes pointed his finger at the writing desk full of experimental supplies, "belongs here. So I ask you not to worry about it again."

I was silent for a while.

"Huh? Why is this chair here?"

Holmes laughed. "You yourself have been sitting here for so long before you realize that this chair is here?"

"No," I said in embarrassment, "Aren't you doing the experiment alone? We all entertain guests in the living room. Why did you put a chair here? It can't be..."

"But I put it here every time I do an experiment." Instead, Holmes looked at me with a look of incomprehension, which meant that he didn't understand why I didn't understand.

"Seems to be."

"Your powers of observation," said Holmes flatly, his gray eyes calm as water. "It's not so bad. Don't you come to see it every time you do an experiment?"

I slapped myself hard on the forehead.

"Damn it, I didn't even notice myself. I thought you were so engrossed that you never realized I was there."

Holmes made no answer, but took the test tube from the rack, added some powder, and gave it a vigorous shake.Large sheets of bubbles rose from the bottom of the test tube, tumbling like boiling.I watched quietly.

"I also thought you never realized I was there when you watched it," he said.

"Maybe it's because it's so beautiful. I used to think that if someone proposed to me, giving me a beautiful experiment would be more effective than sending me a bouquet of roses." A literary evaluation method that is not to be seen.

"The problem is that it's hard to imagine anyone proposing marriage to a man who says that," said Holmes, and he handed me the test tube, which I held up to my eyes. "I'm used to doing experiments alone, but if someone is watching—"

I feel my pulse from the fingers pinching the test tube.

"—I'll feel like I'm playing the violin."

"It's like solving a case." I flicked the test tube again.The already weakened bubbles surged again on a small scale.

"Yes, it's the same as solving a case."

The author has something to say: the German word for "revenge" is also the first few letters of "Rachel".This is the content of the study of blood characters.I can't help but write a rivalry scene, and I can't help but make up a piece of gossip for Watson... The next case is coming again~~